[The Copyright ix reserved.]

NOTES
ON

DOCTRINAL AND SPIRITUAL
SUBJECTS.
BY

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER, D.D
rirntST or tub

oratory

or st. miLir neri.

“ Defunctus adhuc loquitur."—ΗΛ. xi. 4.

VOL. I.

MYSTERIES AND FESTIVALS.

SIXTH EDITION.

LONDON: BURNS & OATES. Limited.
NEW YORK. CINCINNATI, CHICAGO

BENZ1GER BROTHERS

TO

ANNE, DUCHESS OF ARGYLL,
Gbeec Volumes
ARK RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
IN REMEMBRANCE OF HER FRIENDSHIP FOR

THE AUTHOR
AND WITH A GRATEFUL SENSE OF HER MANY KINDNESSES
TO THE

CONGREGATION OF THE ORATORY.

PREFACE.
During the two years which have elapsed since Father
Faber’s death, the question has been frequently asked,
whether any manuscripts had been left by him for
publication. Although no completed works were found
among his papers, it has been thought advisable that a
selection should be made from them, and published
in continuation of the works which have already
appeared. The extensive circulation to which his
writings have attained in England, and still more upon
the continent, seemed to warrant the hope that the
publication of such of his manuscripts as would admit
of it would be welcome to those who have found in
his former works a source of spiritual profit.
The contents of these volumes have consequently
been selected from a large mass of miscellaneous
papers. It is not, however, without some diffidence
that the results of the selection are now published, as
they consist entirely of notes, which in their present
form were not meant to be made public. They have

viii

PREFACE.

been left for the most part in the unfinished state in
which they were found : as it has been thought bettor
to let them appear incomplete than to give them
another form by alterations which might expose the
Author's meaning to misinterpretation. They will be
judged, not by themselves alone in their fragmentary
character, but in connection with the many complete
and finished volumes which were published in the
Author's lifetime.
The notes are of two kinds,—those which were
made by the Author in preparation for his sermons
or lectures, and those which contain materials for
works intended for publication. With regard to the
latter, it was his custom to cast in several forms, each
advancing a step nearer to completion, the works which
he proposed to publish, and to keep them by him,
sometimes for years, before he sent them to the press.
The notes of the treatises on the Holy Ghost and
Calvary, which are included in the present volume,
were prepared six years before his death, but, with the
exception of a few pages of Calvary (p. 223), no
further progress was made. If they do not present
the attractions of a finished work, they give at least
the outlines of it, and the form in which he meant to
treat it.
The arrangement of subjects which was adopted by
the author in his volume of Hymns has been followed
as nearly as was practicable. Of the seven Parts
which make up the whole Collection, three are pub­
lished in this volume : the first, treating of God, His

PREFACE.

Attributes, and the Three Persons of the Most Holy
Trinity ; the second, of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus,
including the Mysteries of the Passion ; and the third,
of our Blessed Lady and the Saints. The second
volume will contain the fourth and fifth parts, re­
lating to the Church, the Sacraments, Controversy,
and the Spiritual Life, together with the sixth, which
is of a miscellaneous character, concluding with the
seventh, which treats of the Four Last Things and
Purgatory.
A column has been added to the table of contents,
for the purpose of giving, when it could be ascertained,
the date of each sermon. With a few exceptions they
were all preached in the Church of the Oratory, at
King William Street, Strand, from 1849 to 1853,
and at Brompton after that date.
It only remains to say a few words concerning the
object of the present work. It is intended to serve as
a collection, wherein may be found considerations in a
short form upon the chief Mysteries of the Faith and
the Spiritual Life, and from which religious com­
munities and those engaged in missionary labour may
draw materials for meditation and instruction. To
many it will be interesting as an illustration of the
methods of thought and work which were habitual
with Father Faber : and it is believed that those who
heard his sermons with pleasure and profit, will be
glad to have some record of them, however imperfect;
while those whose privilege it was to live within the
circle of his love will rejoice that his words should not

x

PREFACE.

be lost, but should continue the work of increasing
upon earth the love and honour of Almighty God, our
Blessed Lady, and the Saints, which he strove so
successfully to promote.

John E. Bowden.
The Ora tort, London,
Feast of the Purification,

Eighteenth Anniversary of the English Oratory,
i860.

CONTENTS.
part S.
GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.
SECTION I.
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.

VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.

XII.

FAGS

3
5
7
8

10
12
14
18
ao
ai

aa

J'S

usn

XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XV11I.

VIAU

The Three Epochs of the Holy Trinity
............. 1858
The Spirit of Adoration. Trinity Sunday
... 1853
Devotion to the Omnipotence of God
.............. i860
The Delight of the Incomprehensibility of Ood ... i860
The Preparations of the Divine Works. Chrütmas
Eve
..................... 1854
The Mercy of God
.................................................
God Who is rich in Mercy. Featl of the Preciou»
Blood ..................... i860
The Mercies of God ....................
The Divine Forbearance
.....................
... 1856
God’s Patience with us
.................................. —■ ■
“Knowest thou not that the benignity of God
leadeth thee to penance?” Fourth Sunday of
Lent
..................... 1863
“ The bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking
flax He shall not quench ”......................... 1861
God our Father............................................................. ...........
The joy of being the property of God
............... 1856
God’s love of single souls
............................................
The strangeness of God’s love for us
........... .......
“Be not deceived : God is not mocked " ........... 1861
God so little loved
................................................. ...........

CONTENTS.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.

More for God. Low Sunday
Will you coine to God now? ...
A taste for God......................
Our home in God
..........

ΤΒΛΒ
... i86t
— -----... 1859
... i860

PAOR
37
39
41
43

SECTION IL
ΠΙΚ BOLT OHOST.

I. The Holt Ghost......................................
Chap. I. The Procession of the Holy Ghost
II. The Holy Ghost and creatures
III. The Holy Ghost and Jesus
IV. The Holy Ghost and the Soul ...
V. Devotion to the Holy Ghost ...
II. Pentecost
.................................................
HI. God a God of Fire......................................
IV. Docility to the Holy Ghost
...............

...............

................
................
................

>857

i860
1858
1857

47
55
70
78
87
toi

«03
»°5

part δΠ.
THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.
SECTION I.
ODB BLESSED LOUD.

I.
Π.
III.
IV.
V.
VI,
VII.
VIII.
IX.

X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.

Advent Meditatione ............................................... 1848
Christmas Day................................................................... 1855
Chrietmae Day. For the children......... i860
New Year’s Eve................................................................... 1849
The Epiphany. Arundel
........................................1861
The Epiphany the Feast of Converte
........... 1856
The Epiphany............................................................... 1849
Feast of the Name of Jesus............................................1855
Devotions for those who wish to lead an interior
life, in honour of the Eighteen Hidden Years
of Jesus
.................................................................... 1852
The Person of Jesus Christ. Spanish Place
... 1848
Our Lord’s choice of Poverty........................................ 1852
Poverty the choice of Jesue........................................ 1849
Our Lord’s Prayer
................................................... 1857

in
114
1x6
117
119
120
121
123

124
126
127
129
130

CONTENTS.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVI1L
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.
XXVIII.
XXIX.

XXX.
XXXI.
XXXII.
XXXIII.

The Mystery of Jesus being thought mad
The Weariness of Jesus at the well
..............
Easter Sunday
.................................................
The Victory of the Resurrection.........................
The Easter joy of Jesus .....................................
“ Die» quam fecit Dominut ”
..........................
The Resurrection a Mystery of calmness
Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi ...
The Lent Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
The Lent Quarant' Ore
............
The Sacred Heart .................................................
The Sacred Heart. London
Perpetual freshness of Jesus
..........................
The Life of Jesus a Life of love .........................
Our Lord's love of us
......................................
"Come unto Me all ye that are weary.” Ex­
potition
..................
The Tears of Jesus.................................................
Without Jesus iu the World. Ezpotition
* * There is now therefore no condemnation to
to them that are in Christ Jesus ”
The first sight of the Face of Jesus. Exposition

xiü
1850
—
1855
1849
i860
1861
»854
i860
1856
»855
185»
1848
»857
■
1861

131
•33
»34
«35
»37
»39
»43
■45
«47
«49
«5°
*
*5
«53
«55
*56

.856
»854
«856

*57
»59
160

i860
1856

16a
163

SECTION II.
THE PASSION.

L Oalvart
................................................................. »857
Chap. 1. The Passion ; its historical, doctrinal,
and mystical character
.
II. The Excess of the Passion
..........
HI. The Bodily Pains ....................................
IV. The Mental Sufferings
......................
V. The Shame..............................................
VI. Outward demeanour and inward Die­
positions .....................................
*89
VII. The Solitariness ..................................
VIH. The Circle of Evil...................................
IX. His Divinity in the Passion
..............
X. The Spectators of the Passion ...............
XI. The Shadows of Calvary........................ XII. The Abyss .............................................

«69

»75
»79
«®4

»93
»97

■«*

CONTENTS.
γλοκ

aa^
23a
241
245
246
248

250

254

256
260
262
264
266

ÎH

*n
TK
Π. Calvary, Chap. I. beginning of
........................... 1859
1Π. Meditatione on the Crucifix ......................................
IV. Our Lord's Innocence. Lent................................... 1861
V.
The Face of Jesus
.............................................. »859
VI. The Desertion of the Apostles. Paetion Sunday ... 1861
VIL Judas
..............................................................................
VIII.
“His Blood be upon us and upon our children.”
Lent ........................................................................... 1861
IX. “He saved others: Himself He cannot eave.''
Lent
......................................................................... 1861
X. Our Blessed Lord’s complaints in His Passion.
Lent
...............................................................................1861
XI. Our Blessed Lord bowing His Head upon the Cross.
Passion Sunday
........................................................1863
XII. The Passion our devotionthe whole year round ... 1854
XIII. The Legacies of Jesus. London
.......................... 1848
XTV. Setting up the Stations
............................................. 1854
XV. The Pain of Jesus from our little devotion to His
Passion. Lent
.................................................... 1861
XVI. The Seven Journeys ................................................... ............
XVH. The Five Trials of Jesus
....................................................

part IEÎ.
OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.
SECTION I.
OÜR BLESSED LADY.

i

mm3

Devotion to Mary the great gift of Jesus. May ... i86x
Mary the Mother of Sinners................................................
Mary the safety of souls. Islington
................ 1853
Dependence on Mary. Lent............................................ 1856
More love of Mary
................................................... i860
Mary magnifying God................................................... 1859
Mary the likeness of God
................................... 1859
The Delight of God in the Perfections of Mary.
Octave of the Immaculate Conception
............... 1859
IX. The Immaculate Conception. Triduo and Feast ... 1854
1. The Mother and the Son
...
...............
2. The Mother and her many Sons ...............
3. The Mother of the Immaculate Queen
4. The Immaculate Queen
...........................

I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.

CONTENTS.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.

Praying for Sinner·.May ..................................... i860
The Assumption
...
1851
The Assumption
.......................
1857
Rosary Sunday............................................................... 1851
‘‘The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life."
To the Enfante deMarie. Roehampton ............... 1851
XV.
Memorials of Mary and her sixty-three yean
... -XVI.
The Joys of our dear Lady ..........

xv

jot
304
305
307
308
309
31a

SECTION IL
THE SAINTS.

I. Meditations on the Holy Angele
..............
... ----II. Motives for a peculiar affection towards our own
dear Guardian Angel................................................ ...........
III. Devotional practices in honour of our Guardian
Angel
...................................................................................
IV. St. Joseph
............................................................ ...........
V. Meditations on St. Joseph :
I. His seven Dolour· ...
...
·*
...
a. Hi· seven Joy·................................... ..
3. Other considerations about him ..........
VI.
St. John the Baptist ................................................. 1849
VII. The Three Kings
................................................. i860
VIII. St. Thomas of Canterbury. Fulham
........... *848
IX. St. Charles. Bayswater
......................................tVbt
X. Novena of St. Philip,
x. Sketch of the Saint’s Life ......... ι859
a. The look of commonplaceness with such a
supernatural life .............................
3. His spirit of liberty.....................................
4. His reality
.................................................
5. His sphere
.................................................
XI. First Vespers of St Philip ......................................i860
XII. St. Philip’s Day............................................................. »86*
ΧΙΠ. St Francis Xavier. Church of the Immaculate Con­
ception, Farm Street
....
,857
XIV.
The Fear of the Saint·........................................................

3*5

3»5
S’?

33’
332
389
335
336
338
360
363
3<M
366
369
371
373
375
379
<80

IPart first.
GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

SECTION I.

THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES.

voi. J.

I.
THE THREE EPOCHS OF THE HOLY
TRINITY.

I know not whether deep awe or deep tenderness is
more excited in us, when we think of the overwhelm­
ing mystery of the Holy Trinity. If thought remains
thought, then deep awe ; but if thought quickly lights
up into prayer, then most exquisite tenderness, and a
certain trembling familiarity, which is the most piercing
joy in life.
We feel—
1. As children bom abroad, and told great things of
our home, and beginning to travel thither when
grown up.
2. As flying with an angel, yet feeling the farther off
from earth, the nearer home.
Let us see what we have to do with the Holy
Trinity : we feel as if we should lie on our faces, and
speak low, when we speak of this adorable, transcend­
ing Life of the Uncreated and the Eternal.
I. First Epoch.—The Eternity before Creation.
1. It is God’s immensity which makes Him so
intimate to our littleness.
2. The loneliness of God.
3. The Companionship of the Divine Persons.

PART I.
4. We lying clearly in the knowledge of God from
eternity.
5. We also, our own secret selves, quickening the
thrills of His love, before heaven and earth,
matter or spirit, light or angel, space or time
existed.
So it was our old home.
II. Second Epoch.—Our own lifetime.
1. Daily life of the Most Holy Trinity—Generation
and Procession.
2. No shadow of mutability has passed over the
Divine Majesty because of Creation.
3. Yet the Sacred Humanity of Jesus is in the
midst—Mary’s throne—Angels and souls.
4. Momentarily the Will of the Three Divine
Persons concerns itself for us.
5. Our place there is fixed—preparations made—
intense interest taken in it.
So it is our present home, from which we are absent
but for a while.
HI. Third Epoch.—Our immortality.
1. The life of the Most Holy Trinity still going on
in blissful changeless peace.
2. Yet we actually beholding it, and drinking our
own immortal life out of the vision.
3. Delight of being exclusively engrossed with
God : and God as it were exclusively with us.
4. Whether there be new creations or none, we
are still in glorious rest with Him.
So it is our future, our only, our unspeakably happy
home.
My brethren! all this is but a fragment of our
Catechism ; but if these things be so, oh happy pre-

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

5

destinated souls ; what have we to do with sin, with
self, with worldliness ?

II.
THE SPIRIT OF ADORATION.
Fear remains in saxulum saxuli, therefore in Heaven :
tremunt potestates: so on earth the substance of religion,
the successful avoiding of sin, perseverance and per­
fection, all consist in the genuine spirit of adoration.
I. The Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity: the
worship in heaven.
1. The angels, hiding their faces with their wings, &c.
2. Our Blessed Lady : her profound humiliation.
3. The Sacred Humanity of Jesus, filled with the
spirit of adoration.
4. No familiarity in heaven with the unveiled ever
new majesty of God.
5. There must be awe, as the mystery is not
comprehended, even by Mary.
6. No intrinsic impossibility of sinning—all depends
on the Vision, not on us.
7. Awfulness of the coruscations of the Eternal—
what words can tell ?
8. Height of celestial joy in this very awe: the
Vision will not harm us : it is our life.
II. The spirit of adoration—what must it be to us
unclean on earth ?
1. Examples of it.—(1) Old Testament. (2) Jesus.
(3) Mary. (4) Apostles. (5) Dying Saints.
2. Want of it the reason of so little perseverance
in the devout life.

PART I.

3. Faults against it.
(1) Criticism of God’s ways.
(2) Light speeches, such as we might make
about Saints.
(3) Even in prayer—1. want of preparation, 2.
posture, 3. petulance.
4. Ways of practising it.
(1) Respect for the Name of God; special com­
mandment about it.
(2) Fear of His judgments : humble views of—1.
Death, 2. Judgment, 3. Purgatory, 4. Sin,
5. Security of salvation.
(3) Doing things slowly.
5. Evils which the neglect of it brings, or rather
blessings which the practice brings.
(1) It leads to little talk, and so closes a huge
river of sins.
(2) To self-contempt, and so makes the prime
law of charity easy.
(3) It moderates and sobers joy which other­
wise would make us childish and giddy.
(4) The more we realise the dignity and im­
mensity of God, the more we desire Him.
(5) It gives us greater confidence in Him, as
reverence always does; we trust what we
revere.
The awfulness of making free with God : the Eternal
Father, the sacredness of His Majesty. His very good­
ness causes us to tremble ; the infinite blessing of His
not passing us over and ignoring us ! Sometimes in
the stillness of the night, in the hush of prayer, it
might so seem as if we might come to die and He
forget us. Oh the blessing of being encompassed, girded

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

7

up, wound round and pressed to Him with His ever­
lasting presence, universal knowledge, and illimitable
power ! 0 God, our God ! how admirable is thy Name !

III.

DEVOTION TO THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD.
I. Characteristics of the Attribute.
1. The result of all the rest of God’s Perfections,
2. And also the means by which they all work and
magnify themselves.
3. Its grandeur shown by its very limits—(1) It
cannot do wrong. (2) It cannot give way.
(3) It cannot require assistance.
4. Its peculiar connection with Mercy ; see xi. and
xii. chaps, of Wisdom. Its connection with
devotion to the Eternal Father, and to the
choir of Thrones.
5. Grandeur of its (1) silence, (2) facility, (3)
tranquillity, (4) unobtrusiveness, (5) forbearing
tenderness.
II. Spirit the devotion will breed.
1. Immense increase of faith.
2. Huge courage.
3. Indomitable cheerfulness.
4. Familiarities with God ; looking at Omnipotence
as our ally.
5. Rest of soul, through submission; Creation lean­
ing on Omnipotence, and Omnipotence embrac­
ing, fondling it as it leans.
III. Miscellaneous.
I. It is very necessary for the time in which we live.

8

PART I.

2. It makes our way of working more quiet, and
also more consistent, less vacillating.
3. It breeds in us a greater habitual idea of the
sovereignty of our most dear God.
4. It makes us more gentle with others, and more
humble in exercising influence.
5. It impregnates our soul with the savour of eternity.
IV. Attitudes of the Devotion.
1. Adoring the beauty of the Attribute.
2. Submitting to it as a master.
3. Co-operating with it as a fellow-worker.
4. Looking at it as a fast friend, who will always
be interfering for us, when needed.
5. Regarding it as lending its magnificent self to
us to use in our own way.
How it fills us with a glorious overwhelming faith
in the final victory of right.

IV.
THE DELIGHT OF THE INCOMPREHEN­
SIBILITY OF GOD.

1.

Delight of it to Himself.
1. Like the Generation of the Son, it is a kind of
jubilant consciousness of all His perfections.
2. It is the outspreading of His peace.
3. It is the vastness of His liberty, which is the
most mysterious of all things in God.
4. It gratifies His secrecy ; S. Austin calls Him
Ens secretissimum.
5. Sole prerogative—of being able to comprehend
Himself 1

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

9

6. Yet not a loneliness. The Three Persona com­
prehend the Divine Nature and Essence.
7. Joy in the Sacred Humanity as a visible proof
of the Divine Incomprehensibility : incom­
municable even to It. His omnipotence cannot
make Him comprehensible.
8. The secret regions of God probably most full of
jubilee to Himself, as incommunicable because
too high to communicate—yet this is, of course,
a human way of speaking.
9. Each attribute has eminences inconceivable;
besides that, there are unsuspected incommuni­
cable perfections.
10. The wonder of His simplicity amidst all thi^
intense jubilee to Him because of His unity.
11.
Delight to us.
1. To our love, that He will always be above our
comprehension, and all comprehension.
2. It ardently quickens our desires to know and
to explore Him.
3. It helps us to measure eternity—we can hardly
believe in the inexhaustible.
4. It helps us to realise the unsearchable riches
of His mercy, which His Incomprehensibility
confers upon Him.
5. It wins and weans us from all created beauty.
6. It gives us such intense intellectual peace:
silence of objections, freedom from temptations.
7. Joy of faith: the unknown things of God leave
something like faith in heaven even.
8. Room for vastness of worship and love : our best
idea of God is His Incomprehensibility.
9. Delight that we can wonderfully comprehend so

ΙΟ

PART I.

much—and desire to love more that we may
comprehend more. Delight of saints in hidden
ways of God and Incomprehensibility of judg­
ments. (S. Paul, Romans xi.) Our Lord also
"hid from wise and prudent”
io. But we can love Him as incomprehensible,
though not know His Incomprehensibility.
HI. What is Incomprehensibility ?
1. God is incomprehensible by the very force of
being God.
2. Lights of nature, grace, and glory.
3. The blessed see some things they cannot com­
prehend ; and some they do not see at all ; yet
God is seen totus sed non totaliter.
4. The least things in God are incomprehensible.
5. S. Teresa’s peculiar devotion to it.
*
IV. The shadow of His Incomprehensibility is our own
reward, “ eye has not seen, nor ear heard,” &c.

V.

THE PREPARATIONS OF THE DIVINE
WORKS.!

I.

lu reality, how fearful a thing it is to think that
to be Christians we must be like God ! He so
high, and we so low ! He with such perfections,
we with such miseries ! Let us see how God
works, e.ff., in the Birth of Christ. So unlike
what we should have expected is real majesty.

• Le cose difficili da intenderei mi cagionano divozione, e quanto più
eono incapibili, tanto maggior divozione provo verso di esse.—Scntenziario, p. $8, uni. 937.
+ Christinas Eve

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.
1. He waits with patience.
(1) The world was left in sin for four thousand
years.
(2) Yet how He must have yearned to redeem it :
how different our precipitate zeal.
(3) He will have Mary His creature to anticipate
the time : how much we have to do with
God’s works.
2. He works with modesty, and a sort of Divine
Bashfulness : and this for all He is God.
(1) He seeks silence and obscurity : e.g., the Im­
maculate Conception, and the Annunciation.
(2) Few words, and no praise : so all the cir­
cumstances of the Nativity.
(3) He puts things out and leaves men to thwart
them, as if He were regardless of success.
3. He works with a spirit of Divine Love.
(1) He ignores the world, and takes it neither
into His counsels nor His calculations.
(2) All for love; His own glory, the merits of
Jesus, the favours of Mary, all mean our
salvation.
(3) There is a sort of poetry about all the cir­
cumstances of His works, because of their
excessive sweetness and heavenly pathos:
not only to win our hearts, but because He
is God, as if He could not help being beau­
tiful and sweet and touching.
II. So we also should work.
1. In our daily duties and occupations.
2. In all the affairs of our spiritual life.
3. Yet instead, eagerness, self-trust, and human
respect are our three principles of human life ;

12

PART I.

its body is self-trust, its soul is human respect,
its spirit eagerness.
Look at Mary and Joseph all to-day.—i. Jour­
neying on. 2. Bethlehem. 3. The cave, how quiet,
modest, retiring, and uneager : yet the world had not
seen Jesus yet. It was without Him. Think of the
world without Jesus—in all its relations. But so it
is with Mary ; still by nature, she is more still by
grace ; still by grace, she is more still now that she
bears the Fountain of Grace and the Lord of Glory.
It is just like the Annunciation : the magnificence of
Mary is her tranquillity.

VI.

THE MERCY OF GOD.

The thought of God the sunshine of the world—
study of His character and attributes—His personality.
I. What mercy is, especially in God.
1. Mercy in a human sense involves our suffering
ourselves, or our liability to suffer, the same or
like or some sufferings.
2. Mystery of it in God, Who—(1) can suffer
nothing, (2) is infinitely just, (3) omnipotent,
and (4) omniscient.
3. Divine gifts to men—(1) from justice, (2) from
liberality, (3) from goodness.
4. Distinction between goodness and mercy in God.
II. Works and Manifestations of Divine Mercy.
I. Attributes of God, as seen by the blessed, or by
Saints in ecstasy, beautiful, satisfying the im­
mortal spirit.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

13

2. Out of mercy came the mysterious work of crea­
tion—creatures out of nothing, mercy separating
them from the mass of possible things.
3. Manner of creation—He made angels and men
in a supernatural state of grace.
4. Gift of immortality, hindering them from falling
back into the abyss of nothingness, which
theologians call a perpetual redemption.
5. Mercy to mankind, going beyond mercy to angels
—(1) Fall. (2) Incarnation. (3) Iteration of
Sacrament of Penance.
6. Mercy to sinners—
(1) Meekness—does not let His anger break
out, is not disgusted.
(2) Patience—waits for sinners, dissembles, tires
out our passions by longsuffering.
(3) Benignity—always ready to receive ; no
number of sins, or kind, repel Him, yet
think what sin is.
(4) Clemency—citra condignum in hell.
7. Mercy to the good, whom St. Paul calls vessels
of mercy.
(1) Anyhow greater than to sinners.
(2) Ways—I. Adoption. 2. Protection against
evil spirits. 3. Affability. 4. Punish­
ments in this life. 5. Magnificence of gifts,
consolations, and augmentations of grace.
(3) Unspeakableness of heaven and beatific
vision at last.
III.
Special adoration of God’s Mercy.
I. Picture of mercy—(1) In hell. (2) In heaven.
(3) The whole being of Purgatory. (4) Spread
like the waters of an ocean over earth. (5)

14

PART I.

Gloriousness of it in God Himself, in the depths
of the Unspeakable Godhead.
2. Mary a vessel gleaming full of mercy, without
judgment, that men might fall in love with its
beauty and adore it—in her it is apart, not as
in the Sacred Heart of Jesus ; her consequent
devotion to this attribute.
3. So take the hint from this, and daily get her to
worship the mercy of God and bless it for us.
Spirits gazing on the Divine attribute of mercy—
unreckoned centuries of eternity go by—still it seems
ever new, ever wonderful, ever fresh, as the dilated
spirit drinks in the view. Will the time ever come,
when we, imprisoned here amid the weariness of life,
the captives of our own offensive littleness, the victims
of pain, age, and want, shall be ourselves a beauty,
a bright spot, a notable magnificence, thus, in the full
blaze of the golden heavens, worshipping with the
strong thrills of an immortal ecstasy the mercy of the
Holy and Everlasting God, the Simple and Undivided
Trinity ?

VII.

GOD WHO IS RICH IN MERCY
*

We want many things of God : we shall never
cease to want many things of Him ; when we possess
Him in the incredible happiness of our grand eternity,
though we shall possess Him, we shall still want Him.
If He were to speak to me now, and I had to say
* Feaet of the Precious Blood, i860.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

j5

the one thing, only one, which I most wanted of
Him, could I hesitate in my answer for one moment?
Father I I want mercy. If I think of the past I want
mercy ; of the present, mercy ; of the future, mercy ;
of eternity, mercy. St. Paul, prisoner at Rome, writes
to the Ephesians, and calls God—God who is rick in
mercy : this name of God is exceedingly sweet ; it sings
in my ear like an angel’s song : beautiful things came
out of that marvellous mind of St. Paul’s : none ever
more beautiful than this—God who is rich in mercy.
I. What is it for God to be rich.—To be rich is to
have superfluity, more than we want. God more
than He wants ! What a thought !
1. The immensity of His treasures.
2. The variety of them.
3. Their delightfulness to creatures. Can God
possibly create two things more insatiable than
the spirit of an angel and the soul of a man ?
4. His liberality.
5. But in mercy, St. Paul hints, eminently, un­
speakably, unimaginably rich.
II. The inside of the treasury of God.
1. Creation—what a vastness it is, what an out­
pouring it was !
2. Grace, its beauty and abundance.
3. Mary with her sorrows, joys, glories, and dear
offices.
4. Jesus, with His immensities of Bethlehem,
Nazareth, and Calvary.
5. The unsearchable magnificence of His own ever
blessed Self.
III. Mercy sweetening life.
I. Are we in trouble about our past life? Hark,

16

PART I.

how sweet that apostolic voice ! Listen, it is
an angel singing, Rich in mercy !
2. Trouble about present vileness ? The very wild
flowers from the earth breathe forth the words,
the silence tingles into a sound, and articulates,
Rich in mercy. It is like one of those beams
of God which sometimes fall athwart the dark­
ness of our prayer.
3. Trouble about those we love, whom we have
long prayed for, and who seem past prayer?
Rich in mercy ! Blessed be St. Paul for that
lucky word, or rather, Blessed be the Holy
Ghost for that tender inspiration !
4. Trouble about our dead, whose faults come
pertinaciously to mind ? Rich in mercy !
5. A death to die, and a judgment to go through ?
These are panics such as to be almost unbe­
lievable — yet they are infallible : Rich in
mercy. Yes ! in a torture of believing love,
we cry, it is the utterance of our human faith
Rich in mercy I
IV. We often talk of a thing we know till it strikes
us that we do not know it. Familiarity has a
way of making things strange to us. What is
mercy ? What an unanswerable question ! but
let us try to answer it.
1. It is all the wants of the creature satisfied in one.
2. It is all his difficulties answered and turned
into revelations.
3. It is all the sweetnesses of God put into one.
4. It is the beautifulness of God to us: (1) Power
become gentle. (2) Wisdom dissolved into kind­
ness. (3) Magnificence made tender. (4) Justice

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

i7

grown indulgent. (5) Love’s delight in us,
fidelity to us, inability to do without us.
5. Oh no! mercy is far more than all this; look
up into God, wait awhile till your eyes get
accustomed to the blaze, look up to His highest
heights, gaze into His deepest depths—there
now, you see mercy. Oh, how unutterably
beautiful ! and you may read the new name
God gave to mercy—and when He gave it the
songs of the angels thundered round the throne
as they had never done before—Thou shalt call
His name Jesus ; for He shall save His people
from their sins.
All this is incredible: it is incredible; but faith
manages to believe many incredible things. If all
this be true, what becomes of the justice and sanctity
of God ? I do not know, I cannot think, I must not
question. Sin is encouraged ? I hope not ; but if
men take scandal with the justice of God, no wonder
they take scandal with the mercy of God : for it is
more excessive, more unexpected, more out of place,
more unaccountable. God must see to it. God must
provide. I grant it is a difficulty, a miracle, a secret,
a mystery ; but to faith one phrase, which St. Peter
invented, and which I will put alongside of that word
of St. Paul’s on which I have been commenting, one
ph rase unlocks the whole, answers the whole, illumi­
nates the whole,—the whole Church is sounding it
to-day as through a silver trumpet :—The Precious
Blood !

VOL. T.

PART 1.
VIII.
THE MERCIES OF GOD.

Each one’s life is a miracle of mercies: like the
lives of the Old Testament Saints and patriarchs.
I.
The multitude of God’s mercies.
1. God is not distracted by the numbers of His
creatures.
2. The continual outpouring of His mercies upon
them.
3. What a mercy from God must be like ; think
then of their multitude.
II. The variety of God’s mercies, like vernal and
autumnal woods.
1. Different to different persons.
2. No two of the same person’s mercies are the same.
3. Varieties, slow and sudden, unasked and long
prayed for, silent and loud, direct and indirect,
secret and public.
III. The way in which He does them.
j. As if laying Himself under an obligation instead
of conferring one.
2. For the purpose of gaining our love.
3. In such a way as to make us feel more free with
Him instead of less free.
IV. The way they are mingled with sorrows.
1. They come before sorrows to make us better able
to bear them.
2. The sorrow is always less raw than it seemed as
if it inevitably must be.
3. They follow like the rain when the lightning has
come: then be on the watch for His mercies;

■

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

19

as the flower which the hot sun has caused to
droop, when the rain comes, lifts up its coloured
eye to heaven, and breathes sweet odours on
the air.
V. Their perseverance.
1. They do not cease because of our ingratitude
and sin.
2. They do not wear out like human kindnesses.
3. They multiply as we grow older.
VI. Their sweetness.
1. Special sweetness in the circumstances and
adaptations of each.
2. Timely sweetness—always in season—only God’s
kindness is always seasonable—human kindness
is often harsh for want of this.
3. Extra sweetness, more than needed or promised,
or than is natural ; every mercy of God is a very
supernatural thing.
VI f. Conclusion.
1. What a picture of God it gives us I He so loves
thanks.
2. Also what a picture of ourselves, yet what a joy
to have such a God as ours.
3. Yet all this is only a shadow of the mercies of
heaven.
Yet earth’s mercies end in heaven’s mercies. How
many secret mercies of each one of you is but the
beginning of a gladness and a glory that shall be
eternal. Oh let us go home and think of our good
God, and weep secret tears of joy over the beauty and
the pleasantness, over the patience and the plenty,
over the freedom and the kindliness, of our Father’s
exceeding goodness.

»0

PART I.
IX.
THE DIVINE FORBEARANCE.

The immensity of the Majesty of God, and so the
dreadfulness of offending Him, and the unspeakable
wonder of His being so patient and still under it all.
London at this hour.
I. God’s forbearance generally.
1. With individuals, nations, and tho world.
2. His silence.
3. His continuance of blessings, and so seeming
approval.
4. His forbearance lasting even through a quiet
deathbed.
5. Then the awakening.
II.
His forbearance with our own selves ; which none
but we can know, for none else know the depth
of our own badness.
1. The graces heaped upon us.
2. Our relapses and fresh rebellions.
3. Continual hourly new forgivenesses.
4. Negligence in His service.
5. Poorness and ungenerosity of it.
III. Our present state.
1. We on earth—many less guilty in hell.
2. God’s present love of us.
3. The reason of this—because He sees us in Christ
4. Our resolutions for holiness.
5. Present practice—for the rest of Lent—De­
votion to the Passion.
Shut out the world from our hearts, even while
woiking for the world with our hands—catch Hie

ÇY3/8
GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

21

voice—hear the dropping of His Precious Blood—
His low sighs, not so much of suffering as of love
—by Easter we may kiss His wounded Feet.

X.

GOD’S PATIENCE WITH US.

I. His slowness to anger.
1. Number of our offences.
2. Increase of graces.
3. Delay of punishment.
4. Gentleness of punishment.
5. Even when punishing He often is not angry.
II. His disinterested sweetness in His disappointments
with us.
1. As if His glory was nothing to Him.
2. What He cannot get in one way He tries to get
in another.
3. If Ho fails He will not give it up.
4. He acts as if He had made a mistake in asking
too much.
5. He does not make things decisive, as if He said,
Well, now try this Cross, my child.
III. His incredible allowances, and the interpretations
of His wisdom.
1. His knowledge of us as our Creator, fountain of
millions of mercies, which would seem foolish
to the sharp-eyed blindness of the world.
2. He sees no fault when we often see much.
3. What He sees in secret all goes to extenuate
our faults.
4. He sees how much are stupidities well meant.

PART I.

22

He sets such a value upon efforts. No mother
is so blind as the all-seeing God.
IV. His marvellous indulgence.
1. Evil ways less heavy in His scales than in those
of man.
2. While good weighs far more heavily.
V. His own astonishing placability.
And all this because He is the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
5.

XI.
"KNOWEST THOU NOT THAT THE BENIG­
NITY OF GOD LEADETH THEE
TO PENANCE?”

Is there any one present who does not wish to
change his life ? However good, he must be in a sad
delusion. At this present moment where should we
be, if we had our due ? In eternal punishment, for
sin, and through the absence of grace to which we
have had no title. If we could always think this
thought, how changed our lives would be !
I. The benignity of God is what has saved us—and
it is the characteristic of His benignity always to
be leading us to penance.
1. At last it overcomes our hardness, by its very
patience and forbearance.
2. Were there less benignity, penance ever being
accepted would be simply incredible.
3. It makes the penance not only possible, but even
sweet, by supernatural aids.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

13

4. Think of the punishment ot resisting such a
benignity, and the reward of obeying it.
5. It is because it is benignity that it presses
penance, because it knows we cannot be saved
without it.
So then penance is necessary to salvation—look at
it as we will.
II. Practice.
1. Have we ever done worthy penance for our sins ?
2. Anything like worthy penance ?
3. Any penance at alii
4. Are we going to do any ?
5. What steps are we going to take?
III. That I leave to yourselves: only I would urge
upon you the three grand helps, and not helps
only, but facilities also, of penance.
1. Continual remembrance of our sins.
2. Continual remembrance of His Passion.
3. Continual remembrance of an undoubting faith
in hell. The devil’s worst and most fatal
preparation for the coming of Antichrist is the
weakening of men’s belief in eternal punish­
ment. Were they the last words I might ever
say to you, nothing should I wish to say to you
with more emphasis than this, that next to the
thought of the Precious Blood, there is no
thought in all your faith more precious or more
needful for you than the thought of Eternal
*
Punishment.
• Fourth Sunday in Lent, 1863.
on which Father Faber preached.

This was the last occasion but one

24

PART I.
XII.

• THE BRUISED REED HE SHALL NOT BREAK,
AND SMOKING FLAX HE SHALL NOT
QUENCH.”
Many things in life are questionable : but this at
least is unquestionable : here we are all agreed.
I. If there be one thing more certain than another
it is that we must not go into the eternal fires
of hell : this is beyond controversy.
1. No difficulties in religion are to be thought of in
comparison of this necessity.
2. No sacrifices are too great to be made to ensure this.
3. No length of efforts is too long to be sustained
in order to escape this appalling doom.
Hence we must take religion as we find it: we
must accept God on His own terms.
II. The many beautiful descriptions of God and of
our Saviour in the Bible ; none seems to me
so beautiful as that one in Isaias xlii. : The
bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking
flax He shall not quench.
1. Observe that the Father says of our Lord’s
Sacred Heart, My soul delighteth in Him : I
have given My spirit upon Him ; then after­
wards, The bruised reed He shall not break,
and smoking flax He shall not quench.
2. Then our Lord in St. Matthew xii., hurt at their
wanting to stop His doing good on the Sabbath,
tells those that He heals not to make Him known
—and the Evangelist quotes Isaias, and says
our Lord did this to fulfil that prophecy.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

a5

The beauty of the Three Years’ Ministry comes
from this : the woman at the well ; the woman
taken in adultery ; the great clear shining love
of the great apostles, even that prince of divine
lovers, that model of heavenly enthusiasts, St.
Peter, once it was only smoking flax ; that con­
flagration of love, which has set the Church on
fire for centuries, the Heart of Magdalen, once
it was only smoking flax ; that furnace in which
millions of hearts are for ever being molten, the
heart of Paul, once it was flax that smoked so
little and so feebly that it needed the Eye of
God to see that it smoked at all.
III. The ways in which this is true of God.
1. The immense value He sets on the slightest
smouldering of piety and love in our souls ;
how He nurses beginnings ; how He coaxes fears
and entices relapses ; we read of no feast days
among the angels, but those to celebrate the
return of sinners to their Father and their God.
2. In falls—the huge allowances He makes; Jesus
even gave scandal by it ; slow to anger, swift
to pardon ; long in leaving, instantaneous in
coming back ; nay, effort is always victory in
His sense, even when it is defeat.
3. He sees good where we do not see it ; it is greater
to Him than it even looks to us, and He makes
more of it ; St. Teresa even says that often what
seems faults to us are not faults at all to Him.—
Comfort of this. Surely without offending against
humility we may trust we have some bruised
purposes, ah, sadly bruised, of good, some smoking
flax, to the eyes of Jesus visible, of divine love !

3.

26

PART I.

Now, look at ourselves, at the kindest amongst us,
how different we are : we go about life doing just the
reverse, breaking the bruised, quenching the smoking ;
our very love is ungainly and unloving, and our
charity such a poor miserable shadow of what it is
in God ; we are so clumsy, so awkward, so harsh, so
dry, so stiff, so pedantic, so unaccommodating, so
humiliatingly untender and ungraceful.
And what a miracle the opposite is in God ! how
the vastness of His immensity can leave us so at ease
and at large I the terrific extremity of His power can
be so smooth, so soft, so light—the frightening exac­
tions of His spotless holiness, so kindly, so forbearing,
so easily contented, so sweetly unimperious. Oh what
an incredible God ! what must heaven be simply as
the place where God’s goodness has its own unhindered
and eternal way ! See how beautiful this is—the
extreme indulgence of an earthly mother has to come
out of the very foolishness of her love ! the far more
extreme indulgence of our Heavenly Father would be
impossible to anything but the boundless wisdom of
a God. Ah Lord ! with such a God as Thee it will
not be hard to save our souls.

XIII.

GOD OUR FATHER.
I.

The beauty and consolation of this idea.
1. It destroys the sense of loneliness in the world ;
2. Gives a new and consoling view to afflictions
and chastisements ;

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.
3. Makes the sense of weakness more endurable;
4. Enables us to trust God for problems we cannot
solve.
5. Sense of relationship with all our fellowmen.
JI. How it enters into all spiritual actions.
1. In sin.
2. In sacraments.
3. In aiming at perfection.
4. In temptations.
5. In suffering.
III. How God is our Father, and proves Himself so.
1. In the ordinary events and course of life.
2. In protection from evils which we shall only
know at the day of doom.
3. In answers to prayer.
4. In doing good to those we love.
5. In forbearance, and the continuance of grace.
IV. How He is our Father.
1. Not nominally, but really.
2. This comes out of creation.
(1) Marvellous sensible love.
(2) Identity of interests.
(3) Reflection of Self.
3. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
4. He has made Himself still more our Father by
covenant ; and He effects what He promises.
5. Additional ties of grace and glory.
Happy sunshine of this thought—(1) more trust in
Him ; (2) more freedom with Him ; (3) more gene­
rosity towards Him.

28

PART I.

XIV.
THE JOY OF BEING THE PROPERTY OF
GOD.

There is one wish ruling over all mankind, and it is
a wish which is never in any single instance gratified ;
each man wishes to be his own master. It is a boy’s
beatific vision, and it remains the grown-up man’s
ruling passion to the last. But the fact is, life is a
service ; the only question is, whom we will serve ?
I. What it is to become the property of our own selves.
1. Habits of sin which imperiously rule us even to
pain and to death.
2. Misery of many wants, which gnaw us if we do
not satisfy them.
3. Continual mortification of not getting our own
way.
4. The few ruling passions—so as often to upset
reason.
5. There is not a vestige of liberty left to us.
II. The property of the world.
1. Success is a perpetual struggle—what absence of
repose.
2. Unbearable tyranny of human respect.
3. False promises of worldly pleasures.
4. Total want of sympathy, and kindliness in the
world.
5. Way in which all about us, reputation, privacy,
time, passes from under our own jurisdiction.
Moreover those two services make us in effect the
property of Satan.

GOD AND TUB MOST HOLY TRINITY.

29

The property of God. “ I belong to God—what is
all else to me ! ’’ Blessing of this indifference to us ;
most unhappiness is from want of indifference.
1. We belong to Him by all titles ; but He will
have us give ourselves to Him of ourselves.
2. In His service every hardship has its own
reward, every sorrow its special consolation.
3. In sorrow the sweetness,
(1) As coming from our Father.
(2) As deeply compassionated by Him.
(3) As eternally rewarded.
4· i" joy.
(1) That it is pleasing to God.
(2) Of a heavenly character, and
(3) Leaves the soul at rest.
5. In work,
(1) It is for God.
(2) No fretfulness about success.
(3) Full of spirit and courage.
6. In weariness,
(1) Sweet sense of fatigue for God.
(2) How He rests us with beautiful soft thoughts
and visitations.
(3) He is no taskmaster.
7. In death,
(1) Full of solemnity but not of terror.
(2) A beginning, not an end.
(3) Tremulous joy of increasing nearness to God.
And then He takes His property back again, dearest
of Masters, and we go to Him, and then and not before,
and there and not elsewhere, we are at rest ; for His
bosom is the weary man’s own house—his very own
delightful home I

III.

3°

PART I.

XV.

GOD’S LOVE OF SINGLE SOULS.
A soul of mediocrity : its unexciting commonplace­
ness to us.
I.
God’s view of it.
1. Intense interest simply because it is a soul.
2. Eternal choice of it, and mysterious preference
of it to other possible souls.
3. Desire to have its eternal companionship, as if
an augmentation of His glory.
4. A certain peculiar glory destined for it.
5. It represents some definite peculiar beauty and
excellence in God Himself.
II.
His behaviour to it.
1. Every single perfection exercised for it, and
livelily interested in it.
2. The yearning character of His immense love for it.
3. The way in which He interests all other crea­
tures in it.
4. His separate devotion to that one soul.
5. The devices and condescensions with which He
makes love to it.
III.
The Three Persons.
I. The Eternal Father
(1 ) Is stirred in all the abysses of His Paternity ;
(2) Would give His Son a second time for its
salvation ;
(3) Receives it, as a returning prodigal, again
and again.
2.
The Eternal Son.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

3»

(1) The immensity of His wisdom makes Hirn
love it all the more.
(2) Ready to be crucified a second time for that
one soul alone.
(3) Continual communication of Himself to it
in grace and sacraments.
3. The Eternal Spirit.
(1) His immense Will bent on that one soul.
(2) His faithful, pathetic pleadings with it, as
if almost there might be some unhappiness
in God.
(3) How tenderly His omnipotence handles that
single soul.
So it is as if the Holy Trinity could not bear to part
with the creature who had been an eternal idea in His
mind, an eternal love in His affections.
And all this is for my one soul—my soul just as
it is now—my soul just as I know it to be ! Surely,
I must either lose my faith, or die of love.

XVI.
THE STRANGENESS OF GOD’S LOVE
FOR US.

Many persons go about the world without in the
least seeming to see anything strange or preternatural
in life ; nay, none of us realise how much is involved
in common things and everyday expressions. God's
love of us—we take it for granted—let us look into it
I. How do we know God loves us ?
I. It is not our own loveliness.

32

PART I.

2. Nor the state of the world, with sickness, death,
&c.
3. We find a difficulty in religion, from the facility
of sin, chance of hell, &c.
4. Yet there is something in our nature which
refuses to let us believe in the possibility of
the Creator not loving His creatures.
II. Why does He love us ?
1. Not for our merit’s sake.
2. Not for any dignity or intrinsic worth we have.
3. Because of His own adorable perfection of in­
finite love.
III. What kind of a love does He love us with ?
1. The very absence of all worth on our part shows
that His love is a wonderful thing, quite different
from human love.
2. His love of us as our Creator.
3. His love of us as our Redeemer.
4. All the imaginable kinds of human love together
approach not to this.
IV. What a support to us this consideration is !
1. He will accept our least services.
2. It is not easy to weary and exhaust His love.
3. Past blessings and graces are a sort of guarantee
for future ones.
4. There must be a loving meaning in all adversity
and suffering.
5. How wonderful must be that state in which
these two wonders, the two loves of Creator
aud Redeemer, are satisfied and fulfilled in the
creature’s glory.
Importance to ourselves and acceptableness to God
in our having a most vivid faith and a bold trust in

GOD AND TUB MOST HOLY TRINITY.

33

God’s love of us : it is quite a sign of predestination
—to feel as if we could not be lost, for all we are the
miserable perverse sinners that we are. No ! God is
for us—who shall be against us ?

XVII.

“BE NOT DECEIVED—GOD IS NOT
MOCKED.”

How the Bible is always startling us ! We children
of men are deeply fallen, but are we come to this—
that we dare to mock God ? It seems incredible.
We children of men are indeed far gone in folly : but
are we come to such downright madness as this, that
we mock God ? Yet an apostle thinks it needful to
warn us against it. There are few things in the Holy
Scriptures stranger than this.
I. To mock God.
1. The scene in Herod’s courtyard : what if His
Divinity had burst forth !
2. God in His Majesty, amidst the burning angels,
and the vast fires of heaven.
3. God with the inexorable pressure of His just
hand in hell.
4. But even in hell no one dares to mock.
5. To mock God! unspeakable, unimaginable wild­
ness ! I never heard even of madness that did
it Yet an apostle thinks it a sin we are not
unlikely to fall into.
II. Who mocks God ? I fear there is no one of us
vol. I.
0

34

PART I.

who has not at some time mocked Him. What if
we are mocking Him now ? as in Herod’s court.
What it is to promise to God.
1. Those that promise to Him and do not perform
—perhaps hardly mean to perform when they
promise.
2. Those who perform carelessly and indifferently.
3. Those who do not even take the trouble to pro­
mise, like not answering a man when he speaks
to you.
4. Those who delay, trusting to future repentance.
5. Those who do some things for God, and leave
other things undone, as if they were His judges
and superiors.
Ill, Playing a part with God is a mockery of Him.
1. Shirking examination of conscience and self, for
fear of discovering things to change.
2. Indefinitely adjourning correspondence to grace.
3. Bargaining with God for reserves.
4. Praying for what we seriously do not wish.
Thy will be done, &c.
5. Trying to outwit Him—to have both worlds—
to make Him equal to others, not sovereign, &c.
Oh, it makes one desperate to see how men go on
with God. Do you not see that He is not in the
least the God your conduct makes Him out to be ?
Do you not perceive that everything is mockery of
God which is not the fear of Him, the day-long, the
lifelong fear of His most holy and overwhelming
Majesty? You—you who have not the courage to
throw God off altogether, but are serving Him with
half a heart—you who pray at times, who come to
church, who give an occasional alms, but to whom

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

35

fashion, pleasure, frivolity, expensiveness, amusement,
are far more sensibly sweet than God—do you imagine
God does not see through you ? Do you imagine
you will succeed ? Do you suppose you will surprise
God, and slip into heaven by a stratagem ? Fools !
Fools I Do you not see the enormity of the imper­
tinence, which even your very religion is to His
unspeakable truthfulness, to His inexorable sanctity ?
Oh incredible audacity of human nature, audacious in
its levity, audacious in its insincerity ! How a cruel,
a very cruel, but strictly just eternity will swallow
up souls by millions, because they would neither face
this honest truth, nor live upon it—that everything
is mockery of God except a downright genuine con­
version of the heart !

XVIII.
GOD SO LITTLE LOVED.

I.

Some things are so serious that we say we cannot
allow them to go on any longer; and then it is
amazing what the power of our wills can do.
Now here is a very serious matter—God being so
little loved. Can we look on this with indiffer­
ence ?
1. The honour of God being so little loved.
2. His immense majesty.
3. His own incomparable goodness to us.
4. What must happen to those who do not love
Him ?
5. What danger those are in who love Him so little

J

PART I.

3«

All the miseries of this life are because of God
not being loved.
7. Hell is also filling hourly.
8. And all the while the love of God seems really
growing less and less.
II. Do you mean to say that we are indifferent to
all this ? No.
1. Are we doing anything to hinder it?
2. Does it give us any real sorrow or uneasiness ?
3. Was life then meant for other things to be
attended to, and this to be neglected ?
4. Is religion a private luxury—a simple sofa of
sweet soft thoughts for conscience to lie down
upon and take its ease ?
5. Love is work—God must have work from us—
real thorough work.
6. We can at least begin with ourselves and in­
crease our own love of Him ;
7. And we must begin at once, to-day, this morning ;
8. And we must begin manfully and in earnest.
We want conversion—nothing short of it—
look at the past ; it will never do.
HI. But we cannot stop at self. Is our piety to go
to sleep while the world is perishing ?
1. Are all these souls to perish and we not to
lift an arm ?
2. But what can we do ? Oh ! rather what can
we not do ?
3. Prayer is pretty well omnipotent, and we can
all do that.
4. But have we ever set ourselves to pray down
the sins of London ?
5. But I must have something more than prayer
6.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

37

—God’s cause is in fearful case—I must have
great things.
6. Can you not send a child to school, or bring a
sinner to the sacraments ?
7. Or give more abundant alms to good works ?
8. Driven to a holy despair by the awful scenes of
dead and dying souls around you, what sacrifices
are you making for Him who sacrificed Himself
upon the cross for you ?
Look the crucifix in the face, and answer these
questions, not to me, but to Him.

XIX.
MORE FOR GOD.·

My brethren, I wish you would be more for God
than you are!
We have been among the mountains lately, the dark
mountains of the Passion, and the illuminated heights
of the Resurrection : now let us look at ourselves, at
our own height, our place before God, our union with
Him, our practice of virtues, our correspondence to
grace.
I. Easter questions.
[. Will this do? Is it safe, just as it is? Is it
satisfactory ?
2. Is it capable of being improved ?
3. If so, of what sort of improvement ?
4. Have we actually set about this work ?
• Low Sunday, 1861.

PART I.

If not, why not ? For what reason have we
delayed ? Have wo decided not to improve ?
II. More for God.
1. Do you not need to be so ?
(1) Is God satisfied ?
(2) Could you die as you are ?
(3) Do you look forward to never being more
than you are ? If you do, you will uot even
be saved.
2. Do you not wish to be so ?
(1) The marvellous contentment of it.
(2) The safety of it.
(3) The immense recompense.
3. Yet is it not easy ?
(1) More for God—if it were but a little more.
(2) More for God—if it were but gradually
more.
(3) And even were it hard, would it uot be
worth while.
HI. All for God.
1. This surely is the sweet and the glorious thing.
*
2. The wonder that we can be anything else. It
is the common sense of life.
3. This alone makes life bright, and death delight­
ful, and eternity so replenished with glory.
4. Yet, alas! how little we are for God—how in­
significant His place in our lives.
5. Then I will be contented to ask you to be more
for God, somewhat more than now. Nay, 1
will ask you only this. By His Cross and
Passion, and by His glorious Resurrection, to
resolve now to be more for God than you are.

5.

* Eodes. xliii. 32.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

39

At least deliberate about it—at least seriously
entertain the idea.
For your own sake, for God’s sake, I cannot bear
that you should be so little for God as you are. I do
not ask you to be all for God, only to be more for God,
more for God than you are. I ask no more than this,
because I think I should get no more. Is it want of
faith in you or want of love for you ? Oh, not want of
love for you, but it is want of faith in you. Ought I
to be ashamed of this want of faith, or ought you to
be ashamed ? Anyhow, of one thing I am ashamed: I
am ashamed to look a thousand Christians in the face
at Easter, and yet not dare to ask them to be all for
God. But I dare not, and therefore I do not. But
will you try to be a little more for Him than you are ?

XX
WILL YOU COME TO GOD NOW?
I.

Years have passed, and each year God called you.
He urged you, He begged, He prayed, He entreated,
He made great promises. But you would not.
The world, youth, riches, honours, above all things,
pleasures, were tempting. God was put off. Will
you come to God now Î If we would not then,
why should we now ?
1. Because we have lived longer, and we cannot
help learning more and more that the salvation
of the soul is our grand and only work. Will
you come to God now ?
2. Because, if it was always dangerous to delay, it

40

PART I.

always grows more dangerous. Will you come
to God now ?
3. Because we have enjoyed our share of the world,
and it is at least God’s turn now. Will you
come to God now ?
4. Because, when we see others who serve God,
and think it all over, we suspect we magnified
both the difficulties and the dulncss of being
religious. Will you come to God now ?
5. Because the world, we must confess, has dis­
appointed us. Will you come to God now ?
6. Nay more, it has been an exceedingly heavy
yoke upon us. Will you come to God now ?
7. Because death is advancing very rapidly. Will
you come to God now ?
8. Because we cannot face the eternal tortures, and
repentance grows harder by delay. Will you
come to God now ?
9. Because there is an irresistible sweetness in God’s
very invitation. Will you come to God now ?
II.
Practical Reflections.
1. God is waiting to forgive, eager to forgive.
2. His salvation is abundant, complete, and full of
delightful pleasantness.
3. Our past sins will be all obliterated.
4. We shall get ample supplies of grace for the
future.
5. Peace, rest, brightness—will gather round our
remaining years : and all these things will be
the greater, the younger we are when we give
ourselves to God.
Can there be a heaven upon earth, a joy that is
more than a match for any sorrow Î Oh yes '. it is the

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

41

joy of those who have trusted God’s goodness, the
blessedness of those who have found peace aud pardon
in Jesus Christ

XXI.

Λ TASTE FOR GOD.

We are apt to exaggerate the change which death
makes in ourselves, because it makes so tremendous a
change in our position. We must not confound these
two things : as the tree falls, so shall it lie.
I. What will cause our joy in heaven ?
1. It is a life of prayer, praise, vision, and con­
templation.
2. To an evil spirit or impenitent soul it would be
the sheerest monotonous misery.
3. God, and only God, is the direct bliss of heaven.
4. He is also the joyousness of the indirect joys in
heaven.
5. So the best we can take to heaven is a taste for
God and the things of God : our real tastes are
not the best prophecies of our predestination.
II. What are our tastes now ?
1. Distinguish between our tastes and our frailties ;
as a miser may be led into expenses by love of
pleasure.
2. Are prayer, sermons, services, distinctly pleasures
to us ?
3. Have we a taste for God, and the things of God ?
4. How is our taste for God, alongside of our taste
for the world ?

PART I.

42

Scripture moreover assures that the two are
incompatible.
III. A taste for God is a magnificent grace ; it is such
a security to us ; such a thing to rest upon ;
such a proof to us that we are drawn into a
supernatural world. In what it consists.
1. Sweetness in the thought of God.
2. The thought of God quietly making itself the
centre, and righting itself after struggles. We
have disturbances, but gravitate back to God
when they are past.
3. Resting in God, even when there is no sensible
sweetness.
4. Contentment, coming of this rest.
5. Something inward which is beyond words.
6. It does not in itself secure holiness, but it goes
far towards doing so.
7. It is a gift of God, yet I incline to think it can
be acquired.
IV. How it is to be cultivated and dealt with.
1. It must be taken care of, and defended against
dangers.
2. And even augmented by our own efforts.
3. We must not presume on it, as if of itself it
would kill worldliness like some antidote.
4. We must not be afraid of its manifest encroach­
ments towards sovereignty.
5. Its growth is in a life of prayer.
6. Its health is in sweet patient lovingness to all
around us.
7. To ourselves it is our life, the budding of our
eternity : not a sight or hearing, or an odour,
or even a taste, though we call it so : it is a
5.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

4j

touch of God, yet not a touch outside us, but a
touch on our souls within us, and so causing a
taste ; a touch in the dark, which often makes
us lie still and thrill with love.

XXII.

OUR HOME IN GOD.
In the Bosom of the Most High God, amid the
astounding marvels of the Most Holy Trinity, amid
the boundless silences and the uncreated fires of the
illimitable majesty of God—there is our home—there
is to be our life—there are our interests, our tastes,
and our occupations for all eternity ! What an in­
credible faith, incredible even from the very exceeding­
ness of its simplicity. What grave, broad thoughts it
suggests to us, and yet such homely, plain practical
truths ! The grandeur of the mystery of the Most
Holy Trinity makes us children all at once.
I. Description of our Home.
1. Multitudinous Majesty of God, outlying beyond
all spaces, full of countless ever-flashing life.
2. The ravishing loveliness and eternal surprises of
His Attributes.
3. The adorable grandeur and sweetness of the
Three Persons.
4. The immensity of the revelations of the Vision ;
and yet,
5. The jubilee of the incomprehensibility of God.
II. The life we lead in that Home.
I, Beauty beyond all imaginable beauty.

44

PART I.

2. Interestingness, fascination, and absorption.
3. Joy that would break the hearts of all the men
who ever have been created is not as one drop
to our joy in the Bosom of God.
4. Magnificence of the love with which we can love
there.
5. But overwhelming ecstasy of the love with which
we are loved.
III. The life we are now living is at once nothing,
and yet all in all to that life.
Practical Conclusions.
1. Are our present tastes and interests fitting us
for it.
2. Are our present occupations congenial to it, and
practising for it ?
3. How immensely we must be changed even to
bear, let alone enjoy, that other life !
4. How obviously our spiritual life must be our one
care here !
5. What is it we want? what is it we must
cultivate ? A desire for God !
My brethren ! is it well with our souls ? How
shall we know ? Each passing year does the sense
of exile grow upon us, the feeling that earth is not our
home ? Do we become less interested in worldly
things, and more weary of them, yet with an active,
practical, charitable weariness ?
Does a kind of
Christian discontent spread more and more over our
souls, and yet grow more peaceful, as we grow more
discontented ? All this is well ; but it must pass into
something higher, something deeper, something sweeter
—into a hunger and a thirst for God !

part first.
GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

SECTION II.

THE HOLY GHOST.

L

THE HOLY GHOST
*

CHAPTER I.

THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST.
We are going to dare to mount up into the eternal
life of God, to see what we may be able to see regard­
ing the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Undivided
Trinity. We must leave far behind us all the ideas
and images of earth. Our inquiry must itself be an
act of worship, and its end be more holiness and fresh
love. We must be content sometimes with words,
which seem to have but little meaning, the little
meaning being not in the thing signifying, but in their
way of signifying it, with momentary glimpses of bright
things, which are almost immediately withdrawn again
—with reverent guesses—with truths half seen—with
pictures, which though seen, rather puzzle us than repre­
sent anything intelligible. Are we willing to hazard
such an enterprise ? Let us see.
I. The effects upon the soul of investigating any
portion of the mystery of the Holy Trinity.
1. The unworldliness which the inquiry gives.
• The five following chapters are the sketch of a proposed Treatise.

PART /.
(1) Because the images and ideas are all un­
earthly.
(2) Because we know the intense and tran­
scendental truth of it all.
(3) Because it helps towards either self-oblivion
or self-contempt.
2. There is a reality in everything about God—so
that we cannot come in contact with Him with­
out something happening to us : a child amid
tools and machines, metals and precious stones,
of which he does not know the names or uses,
or to whom the names are only hard words, yet
has grown in mind by what he has seen : how
much more then with the things of God !
3. From this reality it comes to pass that some sub­
stantial effect is wrought by this in our souls.
(1) Our faith is enriched, and also invigorated
by the exercise.
(2) A celestial standard of beauty, as yet beyond
the grasp of our own thoughts, is infused
into our souls.
(3) The powers of the soul probably gain new
capabilities by contact with God.
4. We unconsciously gain, and hereafter find out,
a better understanding of the mysteries around
us, e.g. creation, the permission of evil, the
variety of graces in men, the exclusiveness of
truth, God’s seemingly arbitrary ways with His
creatures, and other problems, of which each
individual mind has one or more peculiar to
itself, haunting and distressing it by its distorted
shapes and exaggerated shadows.
c. The knowledge we obtain by such inquiries

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

49

gradually dawns into a dearer and quieter view
of God.
6. Love outgrows knowledge, and comes from the
inquiry, even when there are so few appreciable
results : this is partly because of—
(1) The reality of God.
(2) The standard of beauty infused into us.
(3) Our own personal concern with the mystery
in question.
7. It is always to be remembered that it is our own
eternal home which we are looking at.
II. The object of our present inquiry is the Holy
Ghost : Who is He ?
1. True and Eternal God.
2. One only, however, of the Three Divine Persons.
3. The last of the Three in order, but All co-equal.
4. Of Whom many marvellous distinctive things
have been revealed.
5. Who manifests a peculiar love of ourselves,
proper to Himself, and shown in His own
way.
6. Who has been mixed up secretly with all our
lives since childhood.
7. Who is actually dwelling in us at this moment
in a peculiar manner, over and above the
omnipresence of God—quite different from the
dwelling of the Blessed Sacrament within us,
yet only to be paralleled by that.
III. The life of God.
I. It is the same this hour that it ever was : as it
never had any beginning, so it has had no past
history—but it is one simple act never begun,
never finished, never in process from a beginning,
VOL. I

η

So

PART I.
ne>er on its progress towards an end, never
left incomplete.
2. All acts in God are necessary : else God would
not be perfect, there would be something in
Him which need not have been there, which
He could do without, and this it would be
blasphemy to say. Inside Himself, God has no
liberty : to the grandeur of His simplicity liberty
would be a feebleness and an imperfection.
3. Unity of Essence :—this unity is so unspeakable
that the word is below the meaning ; all closest
unities are but far-off shadows of it : it consists—
(1) In singularity.
(2) In indivisibility.
(3) In simplicity.
(4) In identity.
(5) In plenitude.
4. Trinity of Persons.
(1) The Unbegotten Father.
(2) By His knowledge of Himself and all things
begetting the Word.
(3) And these Two, as one principle, by Their
love of each other and of all things, breathing
forth the Holy Spirit
(4) And the Holy Spirit returning upon the
Two, and being their junction, expression,
joy, term, and love.
(5) All co-equal, co-etemal, consubstantial : one
substance as described above.
(6) No sort of inequality ; only priority of order
and emanation.
(7) Yet with the most extraordinary distinct­
nesses as Persons.

GOD AND THB MOST HOLY TRINITY.
5.

This is the completion of the life of God,—
which causes it to result—·
(1) In the most stationary immutability.
(2) In the most vital activity.
(3) In the most indefinable simplicity of act.
(4) In the most profound peaceful separateness,
yet universality.
(5) All combining in the most unimaginable
abysmal beatitude.
1V. The Procession of the Holy Ghost.
1. His procession is not from the Divine Essence
viewed as apart from the Two Persons, but
from the Two Persons as subsisting.
2. He proceeds from the Two Persons, as one
principle.
3. He proceeds by the way of the will, as the Son
by the way of the understanding : hence the
Procession is not a generation.
4. To use a human word, the method is by respira­
tion :—and therefore is—
(1) From the interior.
(2) From the ardour of love.
(3) Perpetually, by the, so to call it, identical
reciprocity of the love of the Father and
the Son.
(4) Refreshing as it were the inward heat,—the
necessity in God of this refreshment, if we
may dare so to speak.
5. From the triple love of the Father and the Son.
(1) Appreciation.
(2) Benevolence.
(3) Complacency.
6. The love of us and of all creatures, entered into

52

PART I.

the love by which He proceeded, not necessarily,
but as a matter of fact, per accidens et concomitanlcr.
•j. This Procession is eternal, and is eternally going
on every moment, as part of God’s life, like the
breathing of a living man.
8. Yet He who thus proceeds is in all respects
co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial with
Those from whom He proceeds.
V. Certain eminences of the Holy Ghost.
1. What He does for the Person of the Father.
(1) Gives Him an exercise for His unbegotten
fecundity.
(2) Gives Him an expression for His love of
the Son.
(3) Is as it were the terminal ocean to Him
as fountain of deity.
2. What He does for the person of the Son.
(1) Gives Him an exercise for the fecundity the
Father communicated to Him.
(2) Gives Him an expression for His love of the
Father.
(3) Illustrates the distinctness of His Person
from that of the Father.
(4) Is the occasion to Him of the grandeur of
being, with the Father, the principle of a
Divine Person.
3.
What He does equally for Both of Them.
(1) Unspeakably sanctifies Them by the exer­
cise of love.
*
(2) Returns to Them Both as an impulse ;
(3) And is reflected by Them;
* Rail. Théologie Affective, 2me, Traité, Med. xii.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

53

(4) And draws an eternally beautiful life out
of Them.
(5) By a procession which is to Them, as well
as to Him, an infinite beatitude.
4. He is the bond or chain or kiss of the Father
and the Son.
(1) For they have no plurality as the principle
of Him, but one simple sovereign unity.
(2) They have but one relation to the Holy
Spirit, not Each of Them a separate rela­
tion ;
(3) And He has but one relation to Them.
(4) The Father could not be this bond ; for the
Son and the Holy Ghost have different
relations to Him.
(5) Nor the Son for the same reason; because
the Father and the Holy Ghost have different
relations to Him.
(6) Unutterable strength of this uncreated Bond,
who is a Person.
(7) The life of God is completed in it—not held
together by it ; for that would imply com­
position, which is impossible.
5. He is the term of the interior productions and
necessary acts in God.
(1) The last Person produced, as if God would
mix with creatures unless He had a term,
a term to His infinite life !
(2) The only Person not Himself producing, but
returning backwards rather.
(3) His knowledge of Himself essential and
speculative, not productive.
(4) The same is true also uf His will

PART 1.

54

Note then that the fulness of God and the
repose of God is not in knowledge but in
love : the Holy Ghost is the uncreated
sabbath of the life of God !
VI. He is the jubilee of the Father and the Son.
1. Because He is their term—and so completeness
—and so beatitude.
2. Because He is Genitoris Genitique suavitas, as
St. Austin calls Him.
3. Because love is akin to joy.
4. Because the seat of jubilation is in the will, and
He proceeds by the will.
5. His procession is itself the endless, everlasting.
divinely musical, stately-gleaming, unimaginable
jubilation of the Holy Trinity, within itself
and also in all creations lying in its externa]
omnipresence.
VII. He is the fulness of the Father and the Sou.
1. His not producing is not rightly infecundity
—no infirmity ; nay, it is His very personal
eminence, and characteristic perfection ; for all
characteristics of the Divine Persons are per­
fections.
2. He is fulness, which is akin to joy.
3. He is fecund with the high fecundity of falling
back upon the Father and the Son, and, as it
were, completing Thera, and bounding the bound­
less Trinity.
4. He is the crown of fecundity, because He is the
jubilation of fecundity.
5. He is fecund, because He has drunk in, and
possesses in Himself all the power of the God­
head to produce by will ; He holds all possible
(5)

GOD AND TUB MOST HOLY TRINITY.

55

uncreated love, and is the Ocean of the Father’s
unbegotten Fountain.
Such is the Holy Ghost, all beautiful, all holy, in
His unimaginable Procession, and who is condescending
at this moment to be wrapping us all round with His
eternal love, longing to lead us willing captives to the
shores of His jubilant eternal Sea I

CHAPTER II.

THE HOLY GHOST AND CREATURES.

There was a time, or rather there was a timeless
eternity, when God was all in all ; no space, no matter,
no created spirit, no life out of God : no place where
life could be, no conditions under which life was pos­
sible : creation then lay a complete ideal in the mind
of God, in the clear soft light of His decrees ; a pro­
cession, but not an eternal one, a procession which
was one day to be. The date came when time should
be born, a certain indiscernible point in unsuccessive
eternity, and then creation lay outside of God, though
in His lap.
I. Creation might have been eternal.
1. The possibility of this throws considerable light
on the life of God.
2. We must beware of thinking that the Divine
life had to be completed before Creation could
take place ; the Generation of the Son, and the
Procession of the Holy Ghost, are always going
on, posterior to Creation as well as prior to it.

0

PART I.
3. The eternity of Creation is possible.
(1) On God’s side, because His power is eternal,
and He could at any moment have created.
(2) On the side of creatures themselves.
1. Because creatures never began to be pos­
sible ; they were possible from eternity.
2. Though not capable of being eternal by
essence, creatures may be eternal by
participation.
(3) On the side of the act of creation itself,
because—
1. The action of God is instantaneous.
2. Such an action on His part, as Creation,
would not be the less free, because it was
eternal.
3. Creation, rightly considered, is not a transi­
tion from non-being to being, but the
production of a whole thing from no
presupposed subject.
4. Yet even if it were but such a transition,
non-being need only precede the creature
in nature and not in fact.
4. All this applies more easily to permanent things.
*
Billuart
thinks it more probably would not
apply to successive things ; still even this is
not certain ; for our ideas are so welded now
to things as they are, we can hardly put
ourselves in a position to judge of such a
question.
5. God doubtless could have made a non-successive
creation.
6. St. Thomas says that without revelation the
• De Opere Sex Dierum.

Diesert. 1, art. vL

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

<>Ί

temporal nature of creation ia credible, but not
demonstrable.
7. As a matter of fact, creation is temporal, and
that it ia so is de fide.
II. Creation lying outside of God.
1. The immeasurable quantity of strange inanimate
matter.
( i ) Of various composition ;
(2) Of magnificent and subtle properties;
(3) Of extreme beauty and variety of form ;
(4) Reducible to very considerable simplicity,
perhaps to one element—and to one force ; *
(5) Whose inner life seems unattainable;
(6) And is a life of continual protean change.
(7) Indestructible, and now everlasting.
(8) It is as it is, for some deep reason unknown
to us.
(9) Doubtless bearing on itself the most intimate
transcript of His perfections, Who made it.
2. Life ia an especially godlike gift.
(1) To be organic is an approach to life, and
is a state doubtless full of divine wonders
beyond our sciences.
(2) Life requires peculiar and subtle conditions,
and varying adaptations.
(3) It is also inimitable by any marvels of man.
(4) Countless varieties of life from angels down
to zoophytes : and all have feelings, character
and consciousness of their own.
(5) It is a secret into whose ultimate recesses
it seems as if we could never penetrate.
* See Smee’s Monogenesis of Physical Forces, and per contra Fara­
day's Conservation of Forces.

58

PART I.

(6) Yet life is always a happiness: the greatest
of treasures which most creatures have, if
not all: indeed it is the greatest, for a
martyr is only one who has the courage to
change a lower life for a higher.
(7) It is most plainly an outpouring of God’s
goodness, even of His beatitude.
3. Double life, material and spiritual.
(1) Material life.
1. Ever changing.
2. The greater portion of it simply mortal.
3. Yet capable of supernatural operations, in
man at least, which immortalise it.
4. Strange unions of matter and spirit, as in
sacraments, and certain mental conditions.
5. Glorified life of matter, without any violence
done to nature.
(2) Spiritual life.
1. Immortal, but not intrinsically so.
2. Its extreme simplicity is an approach to­
wards God.
3. Its changes—their peculiarity, as in angels
when they fell.
4. Horror of spiritual wickedness, because it
is seeming to come into such immediate
antagonism to God.
5. Immense capabilities of glory which a spirit
has.
(3) All this creation shaped out of the Divine
mind.
1. God was never an uncreating God.
2. No change passed over Him, when he
realised His idea.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

59

3. Hence no incompleteness or overlooked
minuteness is possible in creation.
4. It was the work of all God’s combined
perfections.
5. The product therefore quite as much of
His love as of His wisdom : perhaps more
so, inasmuch as His uncreated Love was
the Person next to creatures;
6. And, as we shall see, creation was at least
let loose through His love ;
7. And when fallen, brought back neither by
Wisdom alone, nor by Love alone, but by
both together ; and in the case of the
individual soul by Love as inclusive of
Wisdom.
4. The Divine Concurrence keeping Creation out
of nothingness.
(1) There is nothing in creation to which God
has given an independent existence.
(2) God is, as it were, the life underlying, sus­
taining, and rendering possible our life.
(3) If He were to withdraw His concurrence
for one moment, it would all fall back with
hideous relapse into nothingness.
(4) The Divine Presence is more intimate to us
than even the principle of life.
(5) It is threefold—
1. By Essence, His substance embracing and
penetrating all the extremities of the
world.
2. By presence, eyes, knowledge, light, no
darkness.
3. By Power, the activity and vigour of all

6o

PART I.

activities and vigours, the fountain of
forces.
(6) Conservation is the same act as Creation,
and indivisible from it.
(7) No effort, no successive attentions, on God’s
part, necessary to this calm concurrence.
5. His own glory is the end of all creation, and
of all possible creations.
(1) God’s essential glory is untouched by crea­
tion—which leaves no mark on it.
(2) He is necessitated by His perfections to seek
His own glory in all things : self-love is
divine holiness.
(3) We are left free to fulfil this glory—
1. Either by making our happiness identical
with it,
2. Or by magnifying His perfections through
the ill-success of our opposition to them.
(4) But we are necessitated to fulfil it in one
of these two ways.
(5) Hence there is no neutrality possible for
creatures, with regard to God.
6. Yet creation is wholly unmingled with God.
(l) Impossibility of any such mixture.
1. On the side of God, because of His com­
pleteness, perfection, and unity of sub­
stance.
2. Ou the side of creation, because of its
composition, derivation, and essential de­
pendence.
(2) Concurrence, even with evil actions, is a
wonderful display of the agency of God’s
purity.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

61

Yet extreme awfulness of sin, of which the
Divine Concurrence gives such a stupen­
dous view.
III. Creation lying outside, yet in the embrace of God.
1. What is meant by nature.
(1) That which is due to the shape and capacity
of a thing as God designed it.
(2) That which is not out of the reach of its
acquisition.
(3) That which is congenial to it, and can blend
with it, without the infusion of any super­
natural principle, i.e. with the common con­
currence of God.
2. Natural unions with God.
(1) The union of origin, conservation, and last
end, with the Divine Essence.
(2) The union of dependence, filial humility, and
accountableness, which seems to draw us to
the Father.
(3) The union of the light of reason with the
light of the Word, which joins us to the Son.
(4) The union of will and love of God, simply
as the Author of nature, which joins us to
the Holy Ghost.
3. The order of grace.
( i ) Sanctifying grace a participation of the Divine
nature—a quality of the soul or habit.
(2) Actual grace an impulse of the Divine Will :
varieties and powers of it.
(3) Nature cannot merit the first grace, nor can
the last grace be merited : so that the world
of grace floats separately, as it were, from
the world of nature.
(3)

PART I.
4. Creation was in a state of grace, to angels and
men, who alone were capable of grace. °
(1) Unnecessary love of this.
(2) It was so both to angels and men.
(3) So that reasonable nature was never tried by
its sole self : both trials were of creatures
in a state of grace.
(4) This shows the closeness of the Creator’s
embrace of creation.
(5) And that we, by sin, did no less than struggle
out of His arms.
5. Unions of grace.
(1) A higher knowledge of God.
(2) Virtues, not only more heroic in degree, but
different in kind.
(3) The union of merit, through a supernatural
principle.
(4) The substantial indwelling of God far beyond
concurrence.
(5) The Father more our Father because we have
a supernatural real worship.
(6) Greater union with the Son is the fountain
of grace.
(7) Our wills capable of closer union with the
Holy Ghost.
(8) The ultimate union of seeking and enjoying
God for ever.
6.
The Incarnation of the Second Person.
(1) The Creator still more closely embracing His
creation.
(2) Yet it was in the original idea of creation :
nay, the fontal idea of it all.
(3) The propriety of the Second Person being

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

63

incarnate, because of the connection between
the Word and creatures.
(4) The Incarnation wag efficient by anticipation,
both for angels and men.
(5) Yet that previous efficacy, at least so far as
men are concerned, is not to be compared
with the change it has now actually wrought
on the earth ; witness the unopening of
Limbus.
7. Unions because of the Incarnation.
(1) Sacramental Unions.
(2) The unions of grace are now more lofty and
more entire.
(3) Mystical unions and likeness to Jesus.
(4) Unions since the Incarnation differ—
1. In kind. (1.) New Mission. (2.) Sacra­
ments. (3.) Other uses of matter.
2. In degree : constantly approaching, and at
last emanating in transformation.
3. In method. (1.) Sacred Humanity. (2.)
Imitation of Jesus. (3.) Christian Voca­
tions.
(5) Union is the special work of the Incarnation,
itself the greatest of all created unions.
8. The indwelling of the Third Person.
(1) Its substantial reality
(2) By sanctifying grace.
(3) By His gifts. Vasquez says, non ratione
augmenti habitus gratiœ, sed ratione alio­
rum donorum.
(4) By His impulses, pleadings, and inspirations.
(5) By His plenary presence in the Church,
which is our enclosure.

PART I.

64

9.

Unions through Him.
(1) The processes of justification and sanctifica­
tion the same before Christ as after, so far
as they are interior.
(2) Yet in some sense the Holy Ghost was not
given until redemption was actually accom­
plished. He follows the Word in the order
of our salvation, as in the order of the
Trinity.
(3) All unions with Jesus are completed in Him,
and by Him.
(4) His own extraordinary intimacies with the
saints.
(5) Even within our souls His posture is the
same as it is in the divine life, a peculiar
unitive relation to the Father and the Son.
10. The order of glory.
(1) Glory in reality is not an order distinct from
grace, only a time and place and fixed
ultimate condition of it.
(2) Free will threading its way through the
superincumbent weight of spiritual helps
and appliances.
(3) In the actual order of Providence nature has
no end, no natural end ; we cannot see what
reasonable nature is to end in ; it has to rise
out of itself into a supernatural end.
(4) Thus glory becomes the normal state of nature
at the last.
(5) The creature is meant to look the Creator in
the face—this is its glory.
ii. It is then we have the person of the Eternal
Father.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

65

( i ) Words of the Apostle St. Philip : Lord ! show
us the Father, and it is enough.
(2) We must become likenesses of Christ, and
we shall be so after the resurrection, and
only then shall we be satisfied, and our
satisfaction will be in being with the
Father.
(3) The Father is to be all in all, when the
mediatorial kingdom of Christ comes to an
end.
12. We shall indeed possess the whole Trinity.
(1) The Three Divine Persons will belong to us
as an enjoyed possession.
(2) We shall dwell with Them for evermore, in­
tuitively beholding Them as They are.
(3) Creation rose out of the Incarnation, and by
the Incarnation the wandering creation is
brought home to the Creator.
IV. The Threshold of the Uncreated.
1. The freedom of all divine acts outside God—im­
portance of this truth, that Creation was free.
2. The oneness of action in all that the Three
Divine Persons work outwardly.
3. Ike doctrine of Mission, Visible and Invisible.
(1) Temporal, yet representing the processions in
the Holy Trinity: the world of grace mirror­
ing the Holy Trinity, momentarily and per­
petually, as does the world of matter, though
less intelligibly.
*
(2) Mission threefold in the individual soul.
I. First Justification.
• See "Creator and Creature,” p. 170.
p. 277, &c.
VOL. I.

‘‘Blessed Sacrament.·’

K

66

PART I.

2. Each augmentation of grace.
3. Eternal beatitude.
(3) It is to produce an end, and its end is that a
Divine Person should begin to exist in us
in a new manner, as in a temple, and that
the soul thereby may possess or enjoy God
in a new manner—so that Mission touches
on heaven, touches on the Beatific Vision.
(4) Imperfect Missions.
1. Reason’s knowledge and love of God, which
is not a fresh possession and enjoyment
of Him.
2. Actual graces, which are rather a knocking
at the door than an indwelling.
3. Infallibility of the Pope is rather a moving
of the intellect.
(5) The Father is not sent, and the Son is sent
only by the Father.
(6) The Son and the Spirit are not sent separately.
(7) But mission is attributed to each separately
by appropriation.
(8) The unsent Father is always present in in­
visible Missions.
(9) The reality of Mission—the Persons sub­
stantially present.
( 1 o) Horror of heresy as impeding Mission : it is
like an imprisoning of God’s mercy within
Himself, and restricting His liberty in His
own Creation.
4. AU creation is stamped with the likeness of the
Uncreated, probably far beyond our powers of
perception,
5. Aud this is a Trinitarian likeness.

GOD AND TUB MOST HOLY TRINITY.

67

6. Yet perhaps each Person has some relation of
His own to creatures, though inexpressible, just
as relations constitute the Persons in God.
7. If we begin with the Father, we travel down to
the Holy Ghost, and rest in Him as the Thres­
hold of the Created.
8. If we start with matter and zoophytes, and travel
up to the Holy Ghost, we rest in Him as the
Threshold of the Uncreated.
*
9. Here we get the right view of Him with regard
to creatures: there is nothing between the created
and the Uncreated ; the Uncreated Spirit con­
fines on creation, creation confines on Him.
10. Thus the shadow of the Uncreated on the
created doubles back like the shadows in a
mountain lake : the first choir of angels, the
Seraphim, representing the near Term of the
Godhead, the Holy Ghost; the second choir,
The Cherubim, the Word and Wisdom of the
Father, which is the Son ; and the Thrones in
their, kingly peace and stability, the Person of
the Father. This explains why devotion to
the Eternal Father and devotion to the choir
of Thrones co-exist by a kind of instinct in so
many saints and others, who were probably
not conscious of the reason. Yet the personal
angels, who stand alone, follow the personal
order in the Blessed Trinity : Michael the
angel of the Father, Gabriel of the Son, Eaphael,
with his characteristic mixture of pathos and
joy, of the Holy Spirit.
• Holy Ghost nearest to creatures—Henri cue de Balbis in Thomas
of Jesus. De Orat. Div. lib. iv. cap. ix. p. 389-90, 8vo. ed.

68

PART I.

The Holy Ghost the end of creatures.
1. Creatures come down to the brink of His sweetwatered sea and pass in.
2. The powers and affections of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus return into Him.
3. The Immaculate Heart of Mary, with the holi­
ness of Joseph, the Baptist, the Apostles, and
the hierarchy of the Incarnation, pass into
Him.
4. The love of the Seraphim, the science of the
Cherubim, the peace of-the Thrones, the empire
of the Dominations, the energy of the Virtues,
the force of the Powers, the dignity of the
Principalities, the defence of the Archangels,
the charity of the Angels, all pass into Him.
5. So do all hearts of men that are grace-touched
and virtue-loving.
6. To flow down into Him is the beautifulness of
life.
7. Yet we are not lost in Him, but find there the
eternal distinctness of eternal life.
VI.
The History of the Holy Ghost.
1. Eternally proceeding from the Father and the
Son, which He is doing while we are speaking.
2. Joining in the predestination of Jesus and Mary.
3. Brooding over Creation.
4. Immense nameless communications of grace to
the angels, through the Seraphim His own
choir : some think all the three first choirs
receive light immediately, not mediately.
5. Intense love of the Sacred Humanity of Jesus.
6. Inspiring patriarchs with desires and prayers to
hasten His coming.

V.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

69

7. The poet of the prophecies describing the life
and passion of Jesus beforehand.
8. In the heart of David dictating the psalms.
g. Sanctifying Mary, David’s daughter, and His
own Spouse.
10. Preparing, creating, or fashioning the Body of
Jesus, by overshadowing Mary.
11. His share in the Magnificat.
12. Sanctifying St. Joseph.
*
13. Given immeasurably to Jesus.
14. Descending at the Baptism of Jesus
15. Driving Him into the wilderness, and then
commissioning Him to preach.
16. His love of the apostles.
17. His passing with the breath of Christ into
them, which was an adumbration of His eternal
Procession by spiration.
18. Meeting Jesus in the Ascension Cloud.
19. Descent on Mary and the Apostles at Pente­
cost, f
20. Dwelling in and building up the Infant Church,
almost visible, so manifest was His agency.J
21. Punishing Ananias and Sapphira, visible sample
of many like invisible providences, or at least
* The Holy Ghost was Himself the conjugal love of Joseph and
Mary, and so the Bond of the Earthly Trinity as of the Heavenly.
Raffaello Maria Vita di S. Giuseppe, p. 48, v. Bethlehem, p. 433.
+ Giry says it was revealed that the Holy Ghost rested on Mary in
one flame, and thenae separated off into tongues. Vies des Saints, vol.
i. p. 145·
* For the Holy Ghost after Pentecost compared with the Holy
Ghost before, see Thomas of Jesus, De Orat. Div. lib. iv. cap. viii.
Visible descents were frequent in the primitive church, because the
sins of Christians had not interposed obstacles between them and the
effusions of the Holy Spirit. Mistica Ciudad, Lib. vii. cap. xiii. No. 226.

70

PART I.

indiscernible interferences, so suitable to our
Lord’s words about the sin against Him.
22. Welcoming Mary His Spouse at her Assumption,
and joining in her Coronation.
23. Inspiring the epistles.
24. Giving St. John the Apocalypse.
25. Acting in the Church now as executor of Jesus,
tutor of the Saints, and teacher of Mary His
*
Spouse.
Such is a sketch of God’s huge creation, and the
action of the Holy Ghost in it, and His position with
reference to it. It is equally peculiar with His place
in the Divine Life of the Holy Trinity.

CHAPTER III.

THE HOLY GHOST AND JESUS.

As creation sprang out of the Incarnation, and the
Incarnation embraces and is the reason of creation,
the relation between the Holy Ghost and creation
leads necessarily to His relation to Jesus: it is in
Their mutual relation to creation that we must now
bring them together.
I. The History of Creation.
I. The Predestination of Jesus.
(1) Eternal in the Divine Mind.
• For the story of the Holy Ghost, electing the Archbishops of
Ravenna, beautifully told, see Tufo, Hist, de Teatini, cap. 88, p. 335.
For office of Holy Ghost in Purgatory, v. Finetti sopra il Purgatorio,
cap. 28.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

7»

(2) It was for the same reason as we may sup­
pose creation at all, viz., love : only it was
the cause of the rest of creation, the nucleus
round which creation gathered.
(3) It was the first externation of the goodness
of God.
2. The Date of Creation.
(1) It took place at a fixed and foreordained
time.
(2) A moment which had a vast reasonableness,
unrevealed, and beyond our powers of dis­
covery.
(3) We may be sure it had to do with the pre­
destination of Jesus.
3. The Angels.
(1) The eldest-born of God’s creatures.
(2) Of a different nature from that which was
predestined for the Word.
(3) All their graces were from Him, and because
of Him Incarnate, though not in the shape
of redemption.
4. The Creation of matter.
(1) Original matter out of nothing: one atom
could fill the universe.·
(2) Gradual cosmogony was perhaps meant as a
visible Bible to the angels, full of types and
prophecies of Jesus, and loud hymns of
material forces which their intelligence
could translate.
(3) Perhaps the angels took part in the cosmo­
gony ; certainly in the custody and admini­
stration of the finished world.
• Smee’e Monogeneais.

73

PART I.
5. The Trial of the Angela.
(1) I am inclined to place this after the creation
of matter, at least of primary matter ; else
their trial would be less significant, regard­
ing the material nature of Jesus.
(2) The presentation of Jesus to their intellects
and wills, the Word clad in an inferior
nature, to be so worshipped.
(3) Ample grace was given, yet one-third fell,
and fell irrevocably.
6. The epochs of the material world.
(1) Science would lead us to infer that they
have been of enormous duration.
(2) The glory of God in the evolutions of matter,
inorganic, organic, and animated—in the
lawfulness of uniformity, or the restrained
and balanced fury of catastrophes.
(3) Glory to Him from the activity and contempla­
tion of the angels ; for though the idea of the
predestinated Jesus was not yet fulfilled,their
interest in the material world centred round
Him as their Incarnate King; it brought them
into an affectionate relation with matter.
7. Preparation for Jesus.
(1) Sin changes His manner of coming.
(2) All history of patriarchs and Jews a pre­
paration for Him.
(3) Pagan history, with its outworn and out­
wearing mythologies and philosophies, par­
tially a preparation, but also a working out
of the proposition of His necessity, from the
rampant growth of all corruption, and the
tyranny of decadence in all its shapes.

god and the must holy trinity.

73

8. He comes.
(1) Mary’s Immaculate Conception, and fifteen
years.
(2) The Thirty-three Years, with all their mys­
teries, living on still as it were in the hearts
of men.
(3) The Passion-death the only terms of redemp­
tion with the Father.
9. The Church.
(1) This is the living and real continuation of
the Incarnation.
(2) The earthly dwelling of Jesus in the Blessed
Sacrament till the day of doom.
(3) The Church is as it were a part of heaven
in exile upon earth.
10. The place of the Holy Ghost in the Church.
([) To carry on the work of Jesus:—in pope,
theology, sacraments, priesthoods—the Holy
Oils are breathed into in order to consecrate
them.
(2) To fill it with the precise spirit of Jesus, and
to fill it abundantly: this spirit of Jesus
is the practical exorcism of the world and
its spirit from the Church.
(3) It is a sort of Palestine to Him, the sphere
of His activity, His dispensation, so to speak.
II. The devotion of Jesus to the Holy Ghost.
1. He begins teaching Nicodemus about Him, and
in connection with the special Christian gift of
regeneration.
2. He establishes His apostolate by the imparting
of the Holy Ghost.
3. He declares sin against Him to be unlike sin

ΊΙ

PART I.

against Himself, and some sin unpardonable, as
if by the terror of this to defend His affectionate
familiarities from profane liberties.
4. He knew the beautifulness of His own visible
presence, yet said it was expedient He should
go away, in order that the Holy Ghost should
come; so Jesus seems in a certain sense to
abandon the field to Him.
5. He left His own work incomplete, for the Holy
Ghost to finish ; He did little more than make
a beginning, so far as His ministry went.
6. He made the office of the Holy Ghost one of
love to Himself—to bring to mind all that He
(Jesus) had said.
7. He let Himself be immensely sanctified by Him.
8. He possessed Him without measure.
III. The devotion of the Holy Ghost to Jesus.
1. His Conception, which is especially appropriated
to the Holy Ghost.
*
2. This devotion disclosed at our Lord’s baptism
and transfiguration.
3. His munificence to the Mother of Jesus.
4. No one can profess our Lord’s Divinity but by
the Holy Spirit.!
5. He defends His Person, Natures, Sacramental
Presence, and Mother from heresies in all ages.
6. He steps in in confirmation to strengthen the
wavering loyalty of Christ’s soldiers.
7. In ordination He, as it were, multiplies the sphere
of Jesus, as Jesus by the Incarnation had already
enlarged the sphere of the Holy Ghost.
8. His way of leading the apostles into all truth
• Billuart v. 340.

+ l Oor. xii. 3.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

75

was by bringing to their minds all the words
of Jesus.
9. The saints, who are the handiwork of the Holy
Ghost, are but multiplied likenesses of Jesus.
IV. The Holy Ghost and Mary.
1. Mary is inextricably bound up with Jesus, from
His predestination downwards.
2. She stood in separate relations to each of the
Three Divine Persons.
3. Her relation to the Holy Ghost was that of
Spouse : what does that imply ?
(1) That as He was the term of God, the Incar­
nation took place through His overshadowing
Mary.
(2) That He fashioned the Sacred Humanity of
Jesus.
(3) That He did this with her consent.
4. He overshadowed her at the Incarnation as it
were to shield her, and keep her alive in that
mystery, just as she was miraculously kept alive
beneath the Cross.
5. Her different sanctifications were great indescrib­
able operations of His.
6. His descent on her at Pentecost, as if more with
her now that she was childless.
7. As Spouse, she rightfully occupied His position
in the earthly Trinity.
V.
The Holy Ghost and the Incarnation.
I. His connection with the Sacred Humanity, both
Soul and Body : Jesus, being full of the Holy
Ghost, returned from the Jordan, and was led
(driven out, Mark i. 12) by the Spirit into the
desert. Luke iv. 1.

76

PART I.

2. It seemed as if the Incarnation, as it were, let
Him loose, and gave Him space.
3. This would be a personal reason for His having
so much to do with the preliminaries and pre­
parations of it.
4. Pentecost was His advent, as it were, with His
new Mary; and the apostles were almost as
much His as they were our Lord’s.
*
5. He has the same end as Jesus, the exaltation
of the Father: for He is the Spirit of adop­
tion, by whom we cry Abba, Father ; just as
the Father sent Him in the Name of Jesus.
John xiv. 26.
VI. The Holy Trinity.
1. All these things were done in the utmost unity
by the Holy Ghost and by Jesus.
2. The Sacred Humanity belonging, and infinitely
dear, to all the Three Persons.
3. The Holy Trinity absolutely One in its action
in all these things ;
4. Yet variously representing its distinctness of
Persons.
5. Nevertheless those representations are but ap­
propriations.
6. In Mission now One comes forward, now An­
other: One manifests Himself in the effect,
visible or invisible, where all are really present.
7. Yet by far the greatest amount of Mission is
appropriated to the Holy Ghost.
• The operations in the "fond de I'&me" in high mystical states
are a miraculous union of the Holy Ghost parallel to what the Second
Person does in the Blessed Sacrament.—Barbançon, Secrets Sentiers,
chap. 13, I·. 325·

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

77

8. The Father is not sent, but present, and operat­
ing concomitantly with the Others.
9. Impossibility of our clearly understanding this :
but so it is in all discourses of the life and action
of God, whose unimaginable simplicity falsifies
every word we say.
VII. On what we may reverently conceive the devotion
of Jesus to the Holy Ghost was based.
1. On His love, as a Divine Person Himself, for
the Person of the Holy Ghost.
2. On the worship which in His Human Nature
He paid to the Holy Ghost.
3. On gratitude, as it were, for His Sacred
Humanity being especially fashioned by the
Holy Ghost.
4. On His immense love of holiness, and delight in
the operations of grace.
5. On His love of Him as the Spouse of His
Mother.
6. On His choice of Him as His successor in the
Church.
7. On the peculiar sympathy between His Human
Nature and the Divine Nature of the Holy
Ghost.
(1) Because of the love of His Human Nature
for the Holy Ghost in consequence of its
exceeding holiness, which was the work
of that Divine Person, and an unparalleled
communication of the Divine Nature by
sanctifying grace to a created Nature, simi­
lar to that in some measure which His
own Divine Person communicated to His
assumed Nature.

PART I.

78

Because of the substantial indwelling of the
Holy Ghost in His Human Nature by
Mission, the most magnificent of all His
Missions : so that He dwelt in Jesus eternally
by the beautiful mystery of Circuminsession,
and temporally by Mission.
Love of the Holy Ghost is therefore a prominent
feature of the spirit of Jesus. Unless we also have
a very special love for Him, we are not yet thoroughly
penetrated with the spirit of Jesus.
(2)

CHAPTER IV.
THE HOLY GHOST AND THE SOUL.
The multitudes of souls which there are in the world

—their variety and varying circumstances : there is
not one with whom the Holy Ghost has not had most
numerous, complicated, and persevering relations, if
they have come to man’s estate.
I. His names are illustrations of His work in the
individual soul.
I. Spirit.
(1) This represents the method of His uncreated
origin.
(2) It also expresses His office in the soul.
(3) He is in the soul the initiative, representative,
and ally of all immaterial interests.
(4) The hiddenness of His work is in fact an
excellence of its spirituality.
(5) His method of operation is peculiarly subtle,
delicate, and spiritual.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

79

2. Love.
(1) lie is Himself an uncreated Love;
(2) And also the fountain of all holy created love.
(3) He is wedded indissolubly to a state of grace,
which is a state of love.
(4) He never comes to us without augmenting
our love, and our love is never augmenting
without His coming to us substantially.
(5) He breeds in us especially a love of Jesus.
3. Paraclete.
(1) This is expressive of the tenderness of His
office towards us : St. Athanasius notes that
the word does not occur in the Old Testa­
ment.
(2) Comforter, inwardly comforting us—espe­
cially—
1. In the uncertainty of our salvation : the
wonder that this is bearable : He makes it so.
2. In temptation: we occasionally see how
powerless we are of ourselves.
3. In exile from God, continued for so many
years of mortal life.
(3) *Advocate, which is comforting us outwardly,
by getting us aid: mystery of a Divine Person
being called an Advocate.
(4) Both these offices flow from His love.
(5) The last is the same office as that of the
Sacred Humanity and the Five Wounds in
heaven : only the wounds are silent, the
Spirit has unutterable plaints.
4. Gift.
( I ) All good gifts are from Him ;
* Corn, a Lapide in Rom. viii. 26.

8o

PART I.

(2) Yet all from the Father.
(3) Because He is Himself the gift of the Father
and the Son.
(4) He also gives Himself.
(5) And with Himself gives Them.
II. His most ordinary operations in the soul are
those of grace.
1. Sanctifying grace is the foundation of every­
thing ; and it is His Mission.
2. His indwelling in the soul substantially by grace.
3. By each augmentation of grace He dwells there
in a different manner from what He ever did
before.
4. Then there are the inward pleadings and struggles
of actual grace.
5. So that one while He looks like natural con­
science, another while like Guardian Angel.
6. His share in the sacraments : ordination—con­
secration—illapsus.
7. What we call the interior life is the life we lead
with Him in our souls.
III. His gifts, which are still higher operations.
1. He has some very special gifts, seven in number,
with which he works in souls : they are marvel­
lous tools, undreamed possibilities of grandeur
of soul, unsurpassed forms of beauty, working
miracles with our natures without doing viol­
ence to them ; by them we touch, and taste,
and relish, what we know by faith.
2. They are infused habits, enabling us to graceful
promptitude in the service of God, on which
His actual impulses play as on sweet-voiced
keys of music: the divine germs of all real

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

81

human heroicity, foundation of all high prin­
ciples, mine of all supernatural instincts, freeing
us from the slavery of creatures, and giving us
liberty. Isaias arranges them in their mutual
connections and attractions.
*
They also have
occult connections with the fruits of the Holy
Ghost, and our Lord’s Beatitudes.
3. Wisdom—to see the causes and fitnesses, and
taste the savour, of divine things : the fruit and
beatitude—
(1) Fruit:—Faith.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are the peacemakers : for
they shall be called the children of God.
4. Understanding—to penetrate more intimately into
the truths of faith : how much is supernatural
in the operations of a Christian intellect !
(1) Fruit:—Faith.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are the clean of heart :
for they shall see God.
5. Science—to judge correctly of human things, ac­
cording to God’s view and the principles of grace.
(1) Fruit:—Faith.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are they that mourn :
for they shall be comforted.
6. Counsel—to direct the actions of faith : grace
for details, is my own view of it.
(1) Fruit:
A. Some say none, because its own opera­
tion is its fruit.
B. On my view, goodness.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are the merciful : for
they shall obtain mercy.
• Lallemant (English edition), pp. 142, 143.

VOL. I.

B

82

PART I.
J. Piety—softness to God and to others; giving
rihgt instincts.
(1) Fruit:—Benignity and joy.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are the meek : for they
shall possess the land.
8. Fortitude—to suffer, to dare, and to persevere in
daring ; also to protect us against ourselves.
(1) Fruits:—Longanimity and patience.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst for justice : for they shall have their
fill.
9. Fear—to repress our pride and forwardness, and
to give us the gift of adoration : in the edifice of
the spiritual life, this is the foundation.
( i ) Fruits :—Modesty, temperance, and chastity.
(2) Beatitude. Blessed are the poor in spirit:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
i o. These gifts, grand thought ! can grow, and do
grow with our fervour and charity : yet there
is sometimes, as in tepid priests and mere upto-the-mark religious, a mere physical growth
of them, without any corresponding actual
growth, or any proportionate eliciting of them
in acts of perfection.
*
11. They are very delicate—and are almost instantly
tied up by the thinnest ligatures of venial sin.
12. Also they insist on being our masters : we must
abandon ourselves to them, and give them their
fling.
IV. The fruits of the Holy Ghost, such as are specially
named so in Scripture, are the results of the
maturity of grace.
• Lallemant (English edition), p. 148.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

83

1. They are certain holyactions performed—
(1) With agility.
(2) With promptitude.
(3) With sweetness.
2. There is a maturity about them, which is a fourth
quality, distinguishing them even more than the
other three from common virtuous actions.
3. They very peculiarly fill the soul with God : this
also probably results from their maturity.
4. They represent the Holy Ghost Himself and His
divine life.
5. Fruits :—Charity—because He is the love of the
Father and the Son.
6. Joy—because He is the jubilee of the Father
and the Son.
7. Peace—because He is the bond of the Father
and the Son.
N.B.—These three fruits are the fountains of all the
rest : the remaining nine of the twelve are more or less
concerned with these three, and more or less sub­
ordinate to them.
8. Patience — moderate excess of sadness, and
secures joy.
9. Meekness—allays anger, which disturbs charity,
joy, and peace.
10. Goodness—an energetic inclination to benefit
others, which is joyous charity.
11. Benignity—the doing of this cordially and
genially : geniality is an emanation of the Holy
Ghost.
12. Longanimity—against weariness and fatigue,
which hold charity, joy, and peace under
pressure and in dulness.

84

PART I.

13. Faith—a facility in believing, without repugnance
or dulness.
14. Modesty—gracefulness of body, manners, and
speech, so as to be the outward beauty of charity,
joy, and peace.
15. Temperance — refraining bodily appetites and
inordinations by mortification, so as to protect
the rights of our spiritual nature, and make
room for charity, joy and peace.
16. Chastity—the virtue of purity : a kind of return
to innocence, or preservation of it—so as to
make the soul a fair temple of charity, joy and
peace.
V. His ways, familiarities, and excesses.
I. Gratuitous gifts, not necessarily sanctifying the
receiver, but part of the Holy Ghost’s love of
the Church.
*
(1) Word of wisdom—knowledge of eternal
things, so as to talk of them persuasively.
(2) Word of science—intuitive gift of counsel
about moral and human things.
(3) Faith—eloquence and clearness to teach and
make plain the hard mysteries of the faith.
(4) Healing—to cure diseases and heal wounds.
(5) Virtues — miracles unconnected with the
human body.
(6) Prophecy—seeing or making public things
future or things absent.
(7) Discernment of spirits—seeing into hearts
and judging of operations in souls.
(8) Tongues—to speak them or to hear them.
(9) Interpretation of tongues—to explain diffi• Teinpeuti, i. 379.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

85

culties in Scripture, or hard words in theo­
logy, or the tongues which others speak.
( I o) All these were in Christ habitually ; and of
our Lady, Novatus says,· Dico satis credibis
esse Beaten Virgini a primo suce conceptionis
momento omnes gratias gratis datas per
modum habitus a Deo fuisse collatas. Suaderi
potest ex nonnullis Scripturae locis, et rationi­
bus: but it was not so with any of the saints ;
they possessed them only transiently.
2. His inspirations.
(1) Their frequency, like a man talking softly to
us all the day long, even in crowds.
(2) Their delicacy, like muffled notes of music,
or thin leafy whispers of a breeze, or an
unseen lark up in white air—so short,
enigmatic, fragmentary.
(3) Habit of listening for them—this shapes
our whole life afresh, and gives it a super­
natural posture and attitude.
(4) They multiply by listening, like a bird in
a wood who is answered by another, or as
sounds come in quiet places when we listen ;
so we are ever hearing celestial music, broken
now and then by higher surges of wind,
when the world and life are stormy.
(5) All perfection consists in docility to them:
the faults of the saints came from want of
this ; it is the subject matter of their faults,
as disobedience to the commandments is the
subject matter of positive sins.
3. His caresses.
* Cap. xix. qu. xiv.

86

PART I.
(1) Sweetnesses—in prayer, suffering, and spiri­
tual occupations : a shred of His jubilee.
(2) Surprises—tears, smiles, holy fear, sudden
familiarity with God, momentary contacts
and senses of His presence.
(3) Sudden leaps in the road to perfection, out
of the common laws of slow acquisition, as
when all the species of evil thoughts were
suddenly destroyed in the mind of St.
Ignatius at Manresa.
(4) Special attractions in the spiritual life, and
the whole doctrine of vocation ; vocation is
His caress ; to go against it is to refuse
His kiss.
(5) Special and peculiar graces, one or more of
which distinguish nearly every man, such
as keeping recollected, and the like.
(6) Locutions, out loud or in the heart, common
to all the saints.
(7) Violent conversions, unlike the gentleness of
unresisted grace : sometimes also He is
violent with the saints, and on the whole
masterfulness, like the strong wind at Pen­
tecost, is a characteristic of Him.
(8) Curious states of some holy souls, as if free
will were almost gone : St. Gertrude could
only say what our Lord wished her to say
—others could only pray as He wished—
others could not hear when worldly things
were talked of ; but in all these and similar
states the spirit of Jesus is the predominant
thing which the Holy Ghost produces.
(9) Unions with some one attribute of God—or

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

87

one mystery of Jesus—or Mary—or the
Blessed Sacrament.
(10) Familiarities with simple souls, the Dove
nestling in human wills for ever, with a pre­
dilection like that of Jesus : instances from
Siniscalchi ; St. Gregory, St. Philip, &c.
Look at a building full of strange machinery—so is
the soul with all this machinery of the Holy Ghost.

CHAPTER V.

DEVOTION TO THE HOLY GHOST.
We have seen now Who the Holy Ghost is, and what
He has done, and what He does in our own souls ; we
now come to the practical question of the devotion we
ought to have for Him.
I. What devotion to One of the Divine Persons means.
1. Each Person is equal altogether to the other
Two : simple adoration is due to Him, as to
the One God.
2. Indeed one Person cannot be worshipped with­
out All being so : so that even when directed
to One it falls upon All.
3. Such devotion as we pay to Mary, angels, and
saints, is impossible ; although, as with those
inferior devotions, our devotion to Divine
Persons rests both on the imitable and the
admirable : God is almost more imitable than
the Saints, because of His inimitable simplicity.
4. We have a knowledge of the different Persons,
and the peculiarities of Their relative sub­

88

PART I.

sistence, putting out of view Their absolute
Essence.
5. On this knowledge certain feelings rise, which
are distinctive.
6. Devotion to One of the Divine Persons is there­
fore the simple worship of God, into which
these distinctive feelings enter ; and these feel­
ings direct the acts of the mind and heart
peculiarly to One of the Persons, as if specify­
ing, or giving a species to, the worship.
7. Thus it is devotion in the highest sense of
devotion : it is adoration of the Divine Essence,
not so much limited to One Person by being
directed to Him, but with the feelings excited
by the characteristics of One Person rather
than the other Two added to it, which makes
it a very special act of worship of the other
Two, as the Three Divine Persons are Their
own mutual love, and joy, and self-sufficiency.
II. By what means we arrive at devotion to the
Holy Ghost.
1. It is founded, first of all, on our knowledge of
His peculiar place in the Divine Life.
2. Next on His action in and upon creation, as
shown in its history.
3. Next on His connection with Jesus.
4. Next on His work and method in the individual
soul.
5. We must make an idea of Him as we do of
Jesus. Our devotion to our Blessed Lord is
based upon our idea of Him ; we should have
had a devotion to Him if we had only known
that He was our Incarnate Bedeemer : but,

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

6.

7.

III.
i.

89

having the four Gospels, our idea of Him is more
characteristic, intimate, and detailed, and our idea
of Him is drawn from them. So must we from
Scripture, theology, lives of saints, and our own
experience, make an idea of the Holy Ghost.
We must ascertain—
(1) What He is like.
(2) What He has done.
(3) What He does.
(4) How He does it.
(5) Our own concern with Him, His work, and
His method.
We must then correct our idea by the analogy of
faith.
This inquiry, and this correction, have been the
occupations of the preceding lectures ; so we
may now build up our devotion, simply recapitu­
lating what we have said. It is important to
remember that any probable opinion is sufficient
to form a principle and foundation for a devotion.
*
The likenesses of the Holy Ghost.
He has three kinds of likenesses.
(1) Likeness to the Father, from whom He has
received the Father’s own likeness.
(2) Likeness to Jesus—
1. From whom He has received the likeness
of the Son’s Divine Nature.
2. To whose Human Nature He has Himself
given the likeness of His Divine Nature.
(3) Likeness to Mary and the Saints, which is
wholly from Himself, and a reflection of
Himself
• Lallemant (English edition), p. 1S0.

PART I.

90

2.

His actual liknesses.
(1) To the Father.
1. In His habit of pleading with men, as if
He were their equal, as with Cain, Job,
Jonas, and the Jews.
2. In His non-incarnation.
3. In His repairing His ruined projects, like
a spider its web, as the Fall, vocation of
the Jews, Jewish kingdom, &c., and so
with each soul.
4. In His jealousy ; in this He is less like the
Son than like the Father.
5. In His sensitiveness; being so easily
grieved.
(2) To Jesus.
1. In His gentleness.
2. In His patience, and His power of waiting ;
though here, as we shall see hereafter,
there is a difference ; but in the forbear­
ance the likeness is complete.
3. In His minuteness of love.
4. Tn His prodigality—He is spendthrift of
His inspirations, as the Son was of His
Precious blood. Oh the waste of inspira­
tions ! yet each one of them, rightly consi­
dered, is more wonderful than the grandest
book ever written, or the finest work of
art ever designed, let alone executed.
5. In unity of spirit with Jesus.
(3) To Mary.
1. She has borrowed all from Him, and so
reflects Him.
2. In her love of Jesus.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

91

3. In her share in the Incarnation.
4. In her union of the deepest pathos with
the highest joy ever found in a creature.
5. In her intercessory office.
6. In the way she teaches Jesus, leads tc
Him, magnifies Hirn, glorifies Him, hides
herself behind Him, so that He may be
the more seen.
7. As in long years people grow like each
other by living together, so with Mary
and her Spouse the Holy Ghost, in her
successive sanctifications : she had become
so much more like Jesus upon Calvary,
that the Holy Ghost founded on that
another indescribable sanctification at
Pentecost.
(4) To Angels.
1. In invisibility of offices.
2. In fidelity of unwearied ministrations.
3. In joyousness, yet pitifulness for men ; as
St. Raphael, His own angel, so sets forth
with all his joy a romance of sympathy
with the sorrows of human life.
4. In the exhibition which they are of count­
less variety of His graces.
5. In their end, wliich is to glorify Jesus their
King.
(5) To the Saints.
They are His portrait of Himself: they are
saints, because He is the Holy Spirit;
His gifts in them, His fruits in them—
this is their sanctity. They are His
Bible ; just as the Old Testament reveals

9a

PART 1.
the Father, and the New Testament the
Son, so the saints of the Church reveal
the Holy Ghost.
, The likenesses of His created symbols.
(j) Wind.
1. Represents His invisibility, with visible
effects.
2. His seeming waywardness, as He lists : i.e.,
no law discernible, but some law deep
laid in His uncreated love, working up
from beneath the depths of His predes­
tination.
3. His vehemence, as at Pentecost the rushing
wind ; so the Church in some ages of the
world has been visibly shaken by this
wind.
(2) Dove.
1. The quiet pacific method of His common
action.
2. His brooding character, as at creation over
chaos.
3. His plaintive pathos, like that shy hidden
voice of the deep woodland life, that woos
and complains, and puts a soul into the
summer woods, overruling, yet not by
loudness, all other songs of birds.
(3) Fire.
1. His being the love of the Father and the
Son.
2. His intensity ; consuming, refining, trans­
muting all things, especially all created
attachments.
3. His masterfulness: He will reign alone.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

93

(4) Bright Cloud, as at Transfiguration and
Ascension.
1. Light, yet a light that hides—a privacy of
glorious light is Thine—breeds love of con­
cealment in others : all sanctity is shy.
2. Jesus hides in Him, and is borne about on
Him as on a car.
3. Silent procession of clouds, varying shapes,
melting off and reappearing, hanging about
heights, fantastic mutations in blue sky,
making light beautiful : all these pheno­
mena are images of Him.
(5) Shadow, as with Mary.
1. A shadow from creation’s garish light.
2. A shadow which fertilises, and preserves
the dampness, like a wood on the edge of
the sandy wilderness.
3. A shadow which cools nature’s heats, and
inspires a joyous awe as of God’s neigh­
bourhood.
IV. His peculiarities as exhibited in His action in
creation, and the way in which they each and
all correspond to what is distinctive about Him
in the Divine Life.
I. Something so very human about Him, rather
than angelic: at least as He reveals Himself
to men.
(1) As if, like the Eternal Word, He was more
drawn to our nature.
(2) The Scriptures specially attribute creature­
like feelings to Him.
(3) Griefs—plaints—Abba, Father—intercession
—likeness of dove. This answers to His

94

PART I.

being next to creatures as the Tenn of the
Godhead.
2. His likeness, in His action in creation, to the
Father and the Son, as above drawn out. This
answers to His Procession from them Both, as
one principle.
3. His tenderness and love, which we have already
seen. This answers to His proceeding from the
Father and the Son by the way of the will, and
not by the way of the understanding.
4. jOy—put forward especially in Scripture as
among His most prominent fruits and constant
effects. This answers to His being the Jubilee
of the Father and the Son.
The disciples were filled with joy and with
the Holy Ghost. Acts xiii. 52.
The kingdom of God is not meat and drink:
but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy
Ghost Rom. xiv. 17.
The fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace,
&c. Gal. v. 22.
Receiving the word in much tribulation, with
joy of the Holy Ghost. 1 These, i. 6.
5. Thus, His created symbols answer to His un­
created relative subsistence.
V. The spirit of devotion to Him; it is as to Jesus
in the Passion, not Jesus Risen.
1. A spirit of tearful tenderness and pathos.
2. A spirit of familiarity,—from His intimacy, and
the colloquial nature of His inspirations.
3. A spirit of docility—for He is master.
4. A spirit of detachment, because He is the end
of creatures : to us God begins with Him.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

95

5. A spirit of holy fear, because, 1. Of what Jesus
says of Him. 2. Of what we ourselves know
of Him.
6. A spirit of simplicity, as simple souls are His
own obvious attraction and devotion.
7. A spirit of truthfulness and reality : e.g. Ananias
and Sapphire.
8. A spirit of hatred of heresy, as it is a sin espe­
cially against Him.
9. A spirit of humility : He exhibits something in
God’s tenderness so like what would be humility
in creatures : there is nothing in the Divine
Nature on which God could base humility—
so He bases a sweet semblance of it upon our
necessities, and sorrows, and even our trans­
gressions.
VI. The effects of devotion to Him upon the soul.
1. It brings us, as it were, into the life of God.
2. It makes us gradually at home in the mystery
of the Holy Trinity, which is our eternal home.
3. It breeds in us the real spirit of Jesus.
4. It makes us interior, yet outlooking, just in the
right proportions.
5. It increases His gifts and multiplies His fruits
in us.
6. Its most direct effects are to give us facility in
believing, and promptitude in serving God.
7. A spirit of the most irrepressible joy, and exclu­
sive rejoicing in unworldly things.
VII. Examples of it.
1. The apostles, in councils, epistles, &c.
2. St. Gregory the Great with the dove at his ear.
3. Blessed Crispin of Viterbo.

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PART I.

4. St. Philip’s miraculous heart.
5. It ought to be the spirit of the Oratory.
(1) Because of its Founder.
(2) Its occupations—preaching, confession, prayer:
endless reliance on the Holy Ghost.
(3) Spirit of joy and brightness : sunniness—it
accounts for St. Philip’s.
(4) The institute has charity instead of vow.
(5) . Revelation to the Ven. Seraiina di Dio.·
VIII. How this devotion concerns us, seen by a con­
trast between hearts with the Holy Ghost, and
hearts without Him.t
1. To have, or not to have Him, makes all the dif­
ference of the beauty and reality of this life ;
2. And all the destiny of the life to come.
3. It means whether we belong to Jesus or not.
4. Amid Angels the difference is that between
Michael and Satan.
5. Among men, between Peter and Judas.
6. On the quantity of Him, or intimacy with Him,
or docility to Him, lies based all the huge dif­
ference between saints and common believers.
7. To be without Him is to have been by our own
fault created for nothing, or worse than nothing,
to have missed the end of our creation, to be a
part of everlasting darkness, of everlasting un­
lovingness.
IX. Contrasts between the Holy Ghost and Jesus.
* V. note at the end of the chapter, p. 99.
+ The devotion of the Curd of Are to the Holy Ghost ; Spirit of the
Curd of Are, p. 47. See also lives of Grignon de Montfort, Liebermann,
and Deeplaces, founder of the Séminaire du St. Esprit. St. Gertrude's
vision· concerning the Holy Ghost are given in her life lib. iv.
cap 4a

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

97

1. We are speaking of peculiarities, not oppositions,
in order to clear our view and base our devotion.
2. He is with us .now, like a Second Jesus, only
without Body, Eyes, and Voice.
3. All life the world over, all Christian life is now
like the thirty-three years in Palestine, teaching,
healing, being beautiful, as the Son was then :
or rather it is the three years’ Ministry prolonged
to the Doom—not the Infancy or Passion ; this
is remarkable, as devotion to Him is in spirit so
similar to devotion to the Passion : Jesus Him­
self continues the Infancy and Passion by means
of the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament, while
the Holy Ghost continues the Ministry, but con­
tinues it in the spirit of Jesus, with peculiarities.
4. His presence such as to make it expedient Christ
should go.
5. Seeming contrasts, or say rather, individual
features of the Holy Ghost by the side of Jesus.
(1) He speaks more, is less taciturn.
(2) More pathetic : it is we ourselves who mostly
put pathos into the actions of Jesus when
we preach : in the narrative of the Gospels
there is a peculiar, almost unpathetic, bright­
ness and simplicity.
(3) He takes the initiative more.
(4) He is more touchy and sensitive, if we may
venture on such words.
(5) He seems, with all His devotion to sinners,
to have a greater devotion to saints: whereas
this was less brought out in our Lord.
(6) He seems to make more haste : St. Ambrose’s
nescit tarda molimina Spiritus Sancti gratia.
vol. I.
Q

PART I.

98

He punishes more, ns if His justice were
more purely divine.
There is ever before me a dim vision of the beauty
of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the
eternally proceeding Love of the Father and the Son.
I have tried to image Him, as the dove or tongues of
fire ; then as the sound of the mountain-wind high up,
while the woods and lakes lay unruffled in the vales ;
then as a wondrous shoreless uncreated Sea of love.
But I was discontented. Then I tried to picture His
Divine Person, not like the Ancient of Days in Daniel,
as the Father, nor like the Lamb slain, as the Incar­
nate Son, but as a distinct person veiled in light, and
the white resplendency of shadow-casting clouds. But
it was not enough. Then I pictured Him as if He
were the viewless air, which I breathed, which was
my life, as if the air were He, going into me and coming
out, and He a Divine Person, sweetly envious of the
Son, sweetly coveting the Sacred Humanity which He
Himself had fashioned, and coming into the world on
beautifullest mission, seeking to be as near incarnate
as He could be without an actual incarnation ; and it
was so near that He seemed almost human, though
unincarnate. And this was the clearest view I ever
could see of that Divine Person.
May He forgive what I have written of Him, and
accept it, and bear with me a little longer, till I have
drawn my last breath in Him, and breathed it forth
again as my first breath of another life, a fresh son
newly born at the Feet of the Eternal Father !
(7)

St. Mabt’s, Sydenham,
The Annunciation, 1857.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

99

APPENDIX.
REVELATION TO THE VEN. SERAFINA DI DIO, CARMELITEM

AT NAPLES.

In 1699, on the evening preceding the Nativity of the
Blessed Virgin, the special feast of the Oratory at Naples,
the servant of God had a revelation which she gave in writ­
ing to her director : it is as follows :—
“ I should wish to write, not with a pen, but with the
tongue of a Seraph, not with ink, but with my own blood,
that this letter might be a flame of fire, to consume the whole
Congregation, or I should wish to send the very interior of
my heart to explain and make you understand what I heard
on the eve of the Nativity from the Blessed Virgin herself,
and from our and your Holy Father St. Philip regarding his
Congregation.
“ I saw the Saint with the great Mother of God in a flame
of fire, and surrounded with light ; I prayed earnestly to
him for his Congregation and for each individual of it in
particular ; and with a sweet countenance, he said to me
many beautiful things, of which I will tell you some briefly.
“ The Saint showed me what his sons ought to be and also
the dignity of the Congregation, made as it were after the
likeness of God and of the Three Divine Persons, especially
of the Person of the Holy Ghost : and he told me, that those
who belong to the Congregation ought not to be called by
any other name than sons of the Holy Ghost, and that the
Congregation ought to be called the Temple of the Holy
Ghost ; ho said, it was not my spirit that founded it, but
the Holy Spirit, and as such they ought to work and to be
all love for God and their neighbour ; I desire nothing of
them, but that they burn with that fire, of which they are
the sons ; and he made me perceive clearly that this is
suitable to this Congregation : and I saw the care he has for
it, and the many caresses that he bestowed on some of the
Fathers and the encouragements he gave them.

TOO

PART 1.

" I also saw that the Blessed Virgin is the Patroness nnd
Protectress of the Congregation, and this consoled me much.
Oh why have I not words to express the nobility of the
Congregation and its state and high condition, because its
members have no other obligation than to love God, who is
the summit and perfection of everything ; they are children
chosen for great heights of spirituality. Oh how noble did
it appear to me ! and how great did the least imperfection
seem in them, on account of the dignity of their condition
and the delights of their state, which I saw to be like a
meadow, rejoicing in the sweet breezes of the Holy Ghost,
who excites His sons to work nobly and of their own free
will.
“I knew in general, that in proportion to the nobility of
this state, a greater and more immaculate correspondence to
it is required : and I saw how frightful is the least stain and
dust of imperfection in him who professes it. The Saint told
me that with great affection he recommended them all to God.
All this was in general. May the Lord be ever praised and
blessed ! I knew then in the mind of the Holy Father what
he wished to say to me and what he meant by showing me
so many beautiful things. For without speaking he had
explained to me the perfection we must have, in order to
be children of light.
“ It would be monstrous, if fire were to produce snow,
light darkness, and crystal mud. I do not know how to
explain myself better, but I understood the meaning that the
Saint wished to convey. It would bo wonderful if a sweet
tree produced gall ; how much greater a prodigy would it be,
if in any sons of St. Philip, who are called sons of the Holy
Ghost, any defect were to exist I I saw the sanctity that
the state requires and that which he who professes it can
easily attain to and ought to possess. I saw the Saint caress
many of the Fathers and encourage many others. I write
briefly, for I had a night and a day of such delights as our
Lord only knows.”

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

IOI

II.

PENTECOST.

I. What can they want who have Jesus ? e.y. Disciples
in Judea.
1. Fascination of personal influence : His was be­
yond compare.
2. Marvellous beauty, variety, novelty, and yet
familiarity of His kindness and gentleness.
3. The secret, nameless, supernatural spell which
breathed out from Him.
4. The sheathing of His Godhead in His human
tenderness.
5. Yet the ever new delight of the knowledge of
His Godhead.
II. Yet our Lord Himself said they did want some­
thing : their want was the Holy Ghost.
1. A Divine Person who is specially love, and so
especially to be worshipped by love.
2. Overshadowing Mary—John said Jesus would
baptize with the Holy Ghost—last day of feast
(John vii. 37-39)·
3. What Jesus said Himself—It is expedient that
I go away—and that blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost is not to be forgiven.
4. His coming made apostles : it was Mary’s second
Pentecost
5. So our Lord taught as if the one grand thing
He had to teach was devotion to the Holy
Ghost. He came to kindle that fire, and He
yearned to bave it kindled.

loa

PART I.

We too are with Jesus—not in spirit only, but in
literal presence; yet we too need the Holy
Ghost; we need—
1. More love of Jesus Himself.
2. More putting in mind of what He said.
3. A more yearning spirit of prayer.
4. More power against self and worldliness.
5. More, oh, a thousand times more love of each
other. This is the grand want of the world
just now — the want that cries aloud and
clamours to be satisfied, lest the glory of God
and the spirit of Jesus should altogether cease
from off the earth. Here, then, is the way
in which devotion to the Holy Ghost is so
acceptable to our Blessed Lady. She sees the
earth perishing, not so much because men do
not love God, as because they do not love
one another. The heathen said of primitive
Christians, not, see how these men love God—
but, see how they love one another.
I seem always to see our dear and blessed God
bending over us, yearning to fill our hearts with,
oh such graces and such a much more exceeding
love—and He cannot, because we will not, make our
hearts large with love of each other 1

III.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY

'<>3

III.

GOD A GOD OF FIRE
*

I. I am come to send fire on the earth, and what will
I but that it be kindled ?—St. Luke xii. 49. How
strange this sounds from Jesus, meek and humble
of heart !
1. Compare the spirit of it with the night of the
Incarnation and the night of Bethlehem.
2. Or the quiet fires in the hearts of Mary and
Joseph in the holy House of Nazareth.
3. Or with the abysses of the abjection of the
Passion.
4. Or with the secret apparitions of the beautiful
Forty Days after the Resurrection.
5. Or with the passive, patient stillness of the
Blessed Sacrament.
II. Yet the scene at Pentecost.
1. They wait, Mary in the midst, and the chosen
few, for Him Who is to be so much to them
that it was well that Jesus should go away.
2. They wait for Him, Who is eminently the
Spirit of Jesus, and will bring to mind all
He said.
3. For Him with Whom Jesus in His Human
Nature has now been ten days in heaven ! Oh
the marvellous occupations of those ten days !
4. He comes to them in the vehement majesty of
a mighty wind, and scatters Himself in showers
of fire like cloven tongues.
* WhiteuncUy, 1858.

PART I.

104

5.

So that Mary and the apostles seemed to the
multitudes to be drunk with new wine.
III. God always a God of fire.
1. He calls Himself so: The Lord thy God is a
consuming fire. Dent. iv. 24.
2. He appeared as such to Isaias ; as a whirlwind
and enfolding fire to Ezekiel. St. John says
(Apoc. i. 14), His eyes were as a flame of fire
3. Burning Bush : in the inner folds of the desert,
and ravines of Horeb, to Moses.
4. (Daniel vii. 9, 10.) His throne like flames;
the wheels of it like burning fire, and a swift
stream of fire issued forth from before Him:
vision seen in the first year of Baltassar, King
of Babylon.
5. In these sweet fires we are to dwell eternally.
Isaias (xxxiii. 14) asks, which of you can dwell
with devouring fire ? which of you shall dwell
with everlasting burnings ? and the answer is,
he that walketh in justices.
IV. So our religion is a religion of fire.
1. It was the one will of Jesus to kindle this fire
on earth.
2. The Holy Ghost is never otherwise in the heart
than as fire.
3. The fires of the Eternal Father are to be our
everlasting home.
4. What manner of fire should we have then ?
Fiery love, fiery faith, fire consuming self, fire
burning the world out of our hearts, fire likely
to make men think us drunk or mad.
5. What is the case in reality ? Do we burn ?
Are we vehement ? Do our hearts throb and

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

to$

beat tumultuously with love of God ? Do we
understand that lifelong broken heart of our
great father St. Philip, burst with the ball of
fire, which was the Holy Ghost ?—Oh if our
religion be a moral indifference, a calm bargain­
ing with God, a prudential speculation, a disx
creet fear of hell, a frigid propriety, a servile
keeping of the letter of God’s law,—it may be
a religion—but is it the religion written in the
Bible ? Is it the fire which it was our dearest
Lord’s one will to kindle ?
Oh that that Divine Person would come down upon
us with His fire to-day, would break our hearts with
the magnificent excesses of the love of God, would bum
us with the pain of the great pleasure of His fire !
Sweet, gentle, plaintive, vehement, fiery, enthusiast
Spirit !—Oh that He would so light His flames in our
hearts that from this hour our whole life should be
nothing but an unbroken Pentecost I

IV.

DOCILITY TO THE HOLY GHOST.
In speaking of the Holy Ghost we can either rise up
into the ineffable splendours of the Most Holy Trinity,
or go down into the most secret and noiseless centre
of our own souls : this last to-day.
I. Our union with the Holy Ghost.
1. He Himself actually dwells in us.
2. We are more under His care than the disciples

106

PART I.

were under that of Jesus in the Thirty-three
Years.
3. He dwells in us in a new way with every aug­
mentation of sanctifying grace.
4. No words can describe the intimate familiarity
in which we live with this Third Person of the
Most Holy Trinity.
5. His ceaseless action upon our souls, through His
love of Jesus and of ourselves.
6. His gifts, and His fruits as well as His graces.
7. His inspirations, multitudinous and incessant.
IL Inspirations.
1. We are with Him as Adam was with God in
Eden.
2. To all good persons He is speaking continually.
3. Perfection may be defined as consisting simply
of docility to His inspirations.
4. He speaks low, and His operations are very
delicate.
5. He loves and expects to be consulted.
6. And furthermore, even when not consulted, a
habit of listening to Him is an essential part
of the spiritual life ; without it, prayer can
never be supernatural, or more than a pious
habit; not a real familiarity, or union of the
soul with God.
7. This life of perpetual secret colloquy with the
Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity is what
is meant by an interior life.
111. Consequences of not listening to inspirations.
I. Our own spiritual life, and God’s designs upon
us are nothing but mist, confusion, and un­
meaning generalities.

GOD AND THE MOST HOLY TRINITY.

107

2. So we come in outward things to work on
impulse, or from natural activity, without con­
sulting, or listening for the Holy Ghost.
3. Hence neither our works nor ourselves have the
secret of success, or the root of perseverance.
Oh the sweetness of an interior life—its firmness, its
repose, its clear atmosphere,—how beautiful it is, ever
at the feet of that Third Person of the Most Holy
Trinity learning the secrets of heaven, in whispers of
a sweet music, which no ear but ours can hear !

Ipart Second.
THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

SECTION I.

OUR BLESSED LORD.

ADVENT MEDITATIONS.

I.
THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BOSOM OF
THE ETERNAL FATHER.

I. His Eternal Generation.
1. Infinitely noble.
2. Infinitely pure.
3. Eternal.
4. Unspeakable and incomprehensible.
II. His residence in the Bosom of the Father.
1. His sojourn there.
2. His going forth.
3. His sojourn among men.
III. His Divinity.
1. His union with the Father.
2. His equality.
3. His independence.
IV. The mutual love of the Father and the Son.
1. Their conversation.
2. Their love.
3. The fruit of their love, the Holy Ghost.
V. The eternal plan of the Incarnation.
I. The fall foreknown.

Π2

PART II.

2. The exclusion of the angels from the remedy of
the Incarnation.
3. The choice of the Word of His Sacred Humanity.
VI. His eternal choice of sufferings.
1. Of the sufferings of His whole life.
2. Of His Death.
3. Of the Cross in particular.
VII. The Predestination of His Mother.
1. His choice of her.
2. That choice the source of her greatness.
3. That choice the source of her graces.
4. That choice the source of her crosses.
THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE WOMB OF MARY.

VIII. He begins a new life in her womb.
1. Infinitely precious.
2. Infinitely pure.
3. All for us and at our disposal.
IX. His beatitude from the first moment.
1. It was from the first moment.
2. He was the first of all the blessed.
3. He obtains beatitude for us.
X. His clear view of God from the first moment.
1. The first Man who enjoyed it.
2. The only one in this life.
3. More clearly than all men and angels.
XI. His first act of love.
1. The most perfect act which has been or can be
2. Extended to all the works of God.
3. And ardently to all men.
XII. Ineffable joy from the first moment.
1.
His soul’s joy in His Divinity.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

n3

2. His joy in infusing graces into Mary.
3. His joy in destining graces for each one of us in
particular.
XIII. His adoration of the Father from the first
moment.
1. Humble submission as to the Creator of His
Sacred Humanity.
2. Profound reverence from His view of the per­
fections of the Father.
3. Worship from a sense of the nothingness of
His Soul.
XIV. His praise of God from the first moment.
1. By the affections of His Sacred Heart.
2. By His works.
3. By exciting His Mother’s Heart to join with
Him.
XV. He thanks God from the first moment.
1. His Soul for the Hypostatic Union.
2. For all benefits received at that moment.
3. For all blessings to all creatures, past or to come.
XVI. His union of Viator and Comprehensor.
1. The state of Viator a violence to the Son of God.
2. A voluntary violence.
3. Love unites these incompatible states.
XVII. Oblation of Himself to the Eternal Father.
1. Offers the graces that instant received.
2. Offers Himself without reserve.
3. And for everything.
4. And with purity of oblation.
XVIII. His compassion for our miseries at that moment1. General pity.
2. For sin, our greatest misery.
3. For our sins in particular.
vol.

I.

u

π4

PART Π.

XIX. Takes our sins upon Him from that moment.
1. Takes the burden with love.
2. Embraces sufferings needful.
3. Takes the Cross from His Father’s Hands.
XX. Works for the glory of God and our salvation
from that moment.
1. Begins His work that instant.
2. With fervour.
3. Continues it with constancy.
XXI. Begins to merit from that moment.
1. His perfect freedom.
2. Infinite merits.
3. Each action infinitely meritorious.
XXII. The desires with which He inspired Mary.
1. To give Him to men.
2. To see Him with her eyes.
3. To serve Him as her Son and her God.

IL

CHRISTMAS DAY.
Love must be to us instead of mind, and heart, and
spirit, in order that we may understand and feci, and
worship the mystery of the cry of the Infant God
breaking the silence of the winter’s midnight at Beth­
lehem. And what was it first of all that the angels
sang? Glory to God in the highest. This is the
temper in which we must keep our feast.
I. God’s glory the first thought.
I. To look out for it was the habit of their blessed
spirits.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

nj

2. So also must it be ours.
3. We lose half the joy of feasts by thinking only
of ourselves.
II. But God’s glory is the same as man’s happiness.
1. How touching and how beautiful is this thought !
2. How intensely it ought to make us love God,
Who is so mixed up with His creatures.
3. What a lesson it teaches of trustful submission
to His Will.
III. And God’s glory in the highest is in His humilia­
tions in the lowest.
1. This is the grand character of Jesus, and of all
His mysteries.
2. The discernment of the angels saw the immense
glory of His humiliation.
3. As it was our Master’s glory, so is it ours.
IV. Now enter the cave.
1. The shepherds, humble men, adoring their new­
born King in humble simplicity.
2. Joseph, overwhelmed with pious humility as
foster-father.
3. Mary bad won the Incarnation by humility ; so
now who shall tell how she abased herself.
4. On that wisp of straw the Everlasting God !
Oh, my dear Brethren, we think too well of our­
selves.
We are less happy than we should be,
because we are less humble. We do hug advance,
because we do not keep ourselves down. We do
not love God as we desire, because ve do not despise
ourselves. Oh, it is so delightful a thing to be humble,
so full of joy, and peace, and love : let it be our prac­
tice now. It is a devotion in which we can make no
mistake, in which we can never go too far. Let us

ϊΐβ

PART II.

keep to the side of our Infant Lord, and sink with
Him out of the sight of men and of self, into tho o
depths of dear humility which will gently leave us
at the last, not in the poverty of Bethlehem, but in
the boundless riches of our Heavenly Father’s house
above.

III.
CHRISTMAS DAY.

FOR THE CHILDREN.
Bethlehem is more wonderful than a fairy tale.
The persons in the cave.
[. Jesus.
1. Eternal God : so disguised.
2. Beauty of His Body and Soul.
3. He saw this chapel of His foster-father, and
longed for our little love.
II.
Mary.
1. No other of God’s creatures is like her.
2. The unutterableness of her joy.
3. She is our own Mother, and it is part of her joy
to be so.
III. Joseph.
1. Joy of God in the love of His Son—this was
St. Joseph’s joy.
2. His familiarities with Jesus.
3. His love of all children for the sake of Jesus.
IV. Shepherds.
I. Simple-hearted and very reverent

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

117

2. Jesus thought of them first.
3. What they must have felt when they heard the
angels singing.
V.
The Wise Men.
1. Nobody wise but those who come to Jesus.
2. We must give Uim our best when we come to
Him.
3. But, oh ! what will not He give us in return ?
Love each other—let the houses love each other—
you shall both be together, happy, peaceful, bright, at
the Feet of our dearest Jesus for ever!

IV.
NEW YEAR’S EVE.

[. The view which the saints take of the world as a
howling wilderness compared with the view
ordinarily good men take of it: the latter view
stated.
1. The pleasure in living, especially if we have
health.
2. The pleasure of doing good, and being kind to
others.
3. The pleasure of relationship and love.
4. The pleasure of earth’s sunshine, and the world’s
pastimes, especially society.
5. The pleasure of sorrow, when it is blunted.
6. The pleasure of past adventures, and of memory.
7. The pleasure of the dead we possess as ours in
another state.

ιι8

PARTII.

II. If to ordinarily good men the world is such,
wherein does it fail ?
1. In not keeping its promises.
2. In not coming up to its own standard.
3. In its continual changing.
4. In having nothing to satisfy an interior want,
whose hunger increases as the soul loves God
more and more.
III. The Rest of the Soul.
1. What we thought last New Year’s Eve, and how
we have been baulked.
2. Have we the heart to ask no more of the coming
year ?
3. What our soul is, and what its destinies are.
4. The world at its best estate compared with the
soul.
5. What it is to be from home,—we have never
seen our home.
6. Our home is in the Bosom of God, amid the
assemblage of His Attributes.
7. The Infant Jesus was at home as soon as He
was conceived : Mary’s lap—the Bosom of the
Eternal Father.
He starts His Years—so let us start ours—and
with Him—and keep close by the side of our Elder
Brother : but what of the past ? Aye, what of the
past ? Let us go to Mary, and ask her what we are to
do with that. To-morrow our Brother sheds blood for
the first time ; let us go to the temple, and ask to be
touched with it, and like a lightning flash the past is
done away I

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

119

V.

THE EPIPHANY.
No history in the Gospel more strange, more
singular, or more apart
Lesson.—God will lead the most unlikely people in
the most unlikely ways to Jesus, rather than that they
should miss the salvation of their souls.
Yet though so singular a mystery, there is none
which describes more faithfully what has happened or
will happen to every one of ourselves.
I. We are to be led to Jesus, the end of our creation :
how sweetly our Father cares for each of us.
II. We were unlikely people ; alas ! who more un­
likely ?
III. We were afar off; oh yes : how very far—by sin,
by coldness, by ignorance, by relapses.
IV. We were led in unlikely ways—look back on
life—how strange is all that God has done—and
how plain, when we are far enough off to get a
good view of it ! Yet all in one way, which is
the true faith.
V. What is all life but stars of Bethlehem ? this is
the meaning of everything.
1. Every sorrow is a star to lead us to Jesus.
2. Every joy is a star to lead us to Jesus.
3. Every change in life is a star to lead us to Jesus.
This is the simple view of life : what is life without
God, without Jesus ? How it passes away in joy ;
how it lingers in sorrow ; how perilous, how anxious,
how doubtful it is when it comes to end in death !

120

PART II.

Oh ! poor, poor life of man ! it means nothing, but
one only thing—Jesus Christ and Him crucified, the
Son of Mary, the Babe of Bethlehem !

VI.

THE EPIPHANY THE FEAST OF
CONVERTS.
The Three Kings the first fruits of the Gentiles—
glory of the wideness of the Church. Epiphany a time
of prayer for the conversion of the whole world ; also
a time for those who have had the grace of conversion
to reflect upon the past.
Parallel between the kings and converts.
I. The life of the kings before they saw the star,
seeking the true God among the starlit rocks
of Arabia, and by the shores of its melancholy
murmuring sea ; seeking yet uncertain ; trying
to attach themselves to their home, and rest
there, and yet God would not let them.
II. The star rises—they hardly know why they trust
it—but their heart tells them to follow : it is
but a star, and yet so little: a glimmer—those
who love them blame and wonder, expostu­
late and weep—yet for them the glimmer is
enough.
III. They lose it—in Jerusalem—in crowds—even
when so near: yet enquiry is quickened by
the very withdrawing of the light.
IV. They had false counsel given—to go back and

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

121

tell : now, they must first iniud their own
souls, and go home another way.
V. The star conies out again, and stands over Bethlehem
—over Jesus and Mary : they hardly know
whether it is the Mother or the Son they saw
first.
VI. They were, for the most part, allowed the kiss of
Jesus—sensible sweetness, or undoubting faith,
or heaven awhile made plain.
VII. They had to oiler the costliness of affections, of
worldly goods, and of sufferings both inward
and outward—gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
VIII. Now, what is left but that their lives must be
lives of faith ?
The great grace of conversion is enough for them
to feed upon : that one first sight of Jesus and Mary
is a living vision in their hearts, and onward they go,
into the unfading light of that more perfect vision,
whose truth and beauty, satisfying joy and deep tran­
quillity, abide for evermore.

VII.

THE EPIPHANY.

I.

The mystery narrated in detail.
The three kings an example of faith in their long
journey. How much more sure are we : yet how
do we act ?
1. lu coming to mass.
2. In coming to confession.

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122

3.

In putting ourselves out of the way in coming
to Benediction.
II. Their journey a pattern of the pilgrimage of life.
1. In constant change, letting us have no abiding
home.
2. In dangers and difficulties.
3. In disappointments, as when we lose our star.
4. But our end is the same—Jesus.
5. And we have a better star—even Mary.
III. What did they do all this for, and consider them­
selves well paid by ?
One sight of Jesus, one kissing of His little Feet,
one look, one conversation with Mary—and they waited
patiently thirty-three years for baptism, and shed their
blood in martyrdom, so deep had the loveliness of the
Infant Jesus passed into their souls. We have not
kissed His feet once only, but even received His Blood
in penance, Himself in communion—how many, many
times—and an eternal vision of Jesus before us ! Ah !
see the difference between those who love, and those
who love not, my dearest children ! Oh why will you
not love Jesus more? Is life so sweet, is earth so
peaceful, that you need no better home, no dearer
friends ? You know how you look lovingly, and yearn
over your little babes when you rock them to sleep
in their little cradles—so take the Infant Jesus into
your hearts, let every beating of your hearts be like
the rocking of His cradle ; let no rude word, no rough
oath, no loud immodest word awaken the sleeping
Babe ; let no angry tempers, or evil deeds, cause Him
to cry with pain when He awakes. Mary will come
and teach you how to be a mother to her little Jesus,
in sweetness, and humility, and chastity : and oh the

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thought that He of whom we speak so lightly, and
so playfully, this pretty Babe, is none other than our
God!

VIII.
FEAST OF THE NAME OF JESUS.

The Name of Jesus—(1.) the greatest power on
earth—(2.) the greatest miracle—(3.) the greatest
happiness—(4.) the greatest attraction—(5.) the most
common of all the Divine Mercies. What the name
means : Thou shalt call His Name Jesus, for He shall
save His people from their sins.
I. Without Him there could be no salvation.
1. Men could do nothing with all their penances
and sufferings.
2. Nor angels with all their merits and holiness.
3. God wills to do it only through Him.
4. The misery of the earth without Jesus.
II. With Him is “ copious redemption."
1. The faith of the Church.
2. The abundance of grace.
3. The abundance of the sacraments.
III. With Him salvation is easy.
1. The little He requires from us.
2. The facilities of pardon.
3. His own interests in our salvation.
IV. The whole is done by Him.
1. He is beforehand with us in Baptism and in
grace.
2. Our merits are all by His grace.

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124

3. He gives us His own merits besides.
4. Our perseverance is His own gift.
V. How He has been a Saviour to each one of us.
1. His knowledge and love of us in His thirty-three
years.
2. The time past of our lives, full of mercies and
graces.
3. The time present all is from Him.
4. The time of death will be His choosing, and the
best for us.
5. All our future glory is from Him.
And all this is ours for a little generous love :
nay, He seems to count Himself as under some
obligation to us if we will only accept it. Let His
name then be our tower in which we dwell, a safe
refuge, and a happy home !

IX.
DEVOTIONS FOR THOSE WHO WISH TO
LEAD AN INTERIOR LIFE.
IN HONOUR OF THE EIGHTEEN HIDDEN YEARS
OF JESUS.

To the silent eternity of bliss which God enjoyed
before He created anything, in order to gain
detachment from creatures.
Π. To the nine months of Jesus in the womb of
Mary, to impetrate a love of the hidden
life.

I.

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12$

III. To the agony in the garden, to impetrate
fortitude in interior pains, and in repug­
nances in prayer.
IV. To the life of Mary in the house of St. John,
to impetrate continual recollection of Jesus
and union with God.
V. To the holy Angels, especially our own guar­
dian, to impetrate the union of inward recol­
lection with outward duties.
VI. To the Blessed Sacrament, to impetrate the
grace of holy abjection.
VII. To the Holy Ghost, as the minister of the
marriage of our souls with Jesus.
VIII. To the souls in purgatory, to impetrate con­
formity in suffering.
IX. To St. Joseph, to impetrate interior peace.
X. To St. Philip, for the gift of tears, and tender­
ness at mass.
XI. To St. Ignatius, for the love of concealment.
XII. To St. Teresa, for the gift of mental prayer.
XIII. To the interior life of Jesus, to obtain a thirst
for the glory of God.
XIV. To the priesthood of Jesus, to obtain the spirit
of sacrifice.
XV. To the infancy of Jesus, for simplicity and a love
of helplessness.
XVI. To St. Paul, for a special devotion to the
Eternal Father.
XVII. To St. John, for a devotion to the Sacred
Heart.
XVIII. To St. Clare of Montefalco, to obtain a special
devotion to the mystery of the most Adorable
Trinity.

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PART IL

X.
THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST.
Now this is eternal life : that they may know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast
sent. St. John xvii. 3.
I, Beginning of Lent, troubled clouds of past sin,
penance, &c.—now amid the clouds comes out
clearly the person of Jesus Christ, He Whose
Passion we are called upon to commemorate.
II. No mathematical God—idea—or form of words—
but a living Person, two Natures—this is the
solid of Catholic devotion : all else is from this
—Blessed Virgin Mary—Real Presence—feasts
of the year.
III. The one grand object of the Church is to make
the Person of Jesus Christ better known and
better loved in a forgetful world ; this in its
measure presses upon every Catholic of every
age, rank, or ability.
IV. Now, in Lent, we have also to reconcile ourselves
to Him, or to engage ourselves more deeply in
His service, or to pledge ourselves more solemnly
to Him.
V. What sort of a Person was He? (1.) A Child
flying to Egypt (2.) Sitting at the well of
Jacob. (3.) Refusing to accuse the adulteress.
(4.) Defending the Magdalen. (5.) Trying even
in the garden to save Judas. (6.) Father, for­
give them, for they know not what they do.
(7.) Feed My lambs.

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Wonder that men do not love Him ! Look at what
He has done for you in past life : we, when we grow
old, weary of sin : He wearies not in pardoning.
Come then, give Him a Palm-Sunday entry into youî
hearts—and while the thrones of the ancient earth
are tottering, enthrone Him more firmly, more honour­
ably, aye, and above all, more lovingly than ever, as
King over you, over all you are and all you have, and
all you can suffer for His sake. Oh, what a day will
Easter-day be, if thereon you solemnise the coronation
of our dearest Jesus in your hearts!

XL
OUR LORD’S CHOICE OF POVERTY.

The Holy Ghost was called Pater Pauperum: so
were the saints also : so was Jesus : love of the poor
is a characteristic of true holiness, as well as of the
true Church. The poor you have always with you,
but Me you have not always. This shows how com­
pletely they came to occupy His place, even more
than direct texts.
I. The choice of Jesus.
1. He being the Eternal Wisdom, chose poverty.
(1) As the state fittest for His great end.
(2) As the one in which He could raise His
Sacred Humanity to heights of holiness.
2. How consistently He kept to His choice through
the three and thirty years.

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PART Π.

3 How it satisfied the longings of His Sacred
Heart and His Divine Compassion.
4. The result of this fact that Jesus chose poverty
is that the poor are made authentically the
favourites of God.
5. Hence in the Church.
( i ) Voluntary poverty, and
(2) Sacrifice for the poor.
II. The blessed effects of this choice of Jesus, to all,
rich as well as poor.
1. The abundance of holy charity and liberality.
2. It rebukes the spirit of the world in us, and so
raises us to perfection.
3. It likens us to the Sacred Heart, and so makes
us dear to God.
III. Consolations of the poor : for there is no dignity
or poetry about poverty, as about other suffering.
1. God has been a poor man—tried it all—scant
food, hard lying, trust in alms, labour: those
that are sick even have no such consolation :
many an evening darkened in—where was He
to lodge ?
2. Not wrong to feel, and feel keenly, the priva­
tions of poverty.
3. New and supernatural motives for patience,
supplied by the choice of Jesus.
What then is your riches ? The Sacred Heart of
Jesus. Wliat have you but love of God ? How foolish
not to take what is yours ! What have you else to
make you happy? O blessed Poverty, if it drives
you into the Sacred Heart—this is its one blessing, in
which are all blessings. Forfeit this, and you are the
dull thing the world pronounces you to be.

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XII.

POVERTY THE CHOICE OF JESUS.

Discontent of a poor man—his comparison of his
fortune with that of the rich and noble—the ill
temper which results from that comparison—the
childishness and uselessness of it all.
IL Let him turn his thoughts another way.
1. Jesus was God, and might by His power have
chosen any state—yet He chose poverty.
2. He was infinite wisdom—yet He chose poverty.
3. He came to do His Father’s work, as we do : and
He chose poverty.
4. He chose it of the hardest and most continual sort.
Comparison between His poverty, and the com­
forts of poor men in general.
5. The love He bore to the poverty He had chosen.
III. Privileges of the poor.
1. Absence of temptation.
2. Penance for sin.
3. Special promises of the Gospel.
4. Easy deathbed—so little to part with.
5. Companionship of Jesus.
However dark your way may seem, however multi­
plied your hardships and your woes, you are what
Jesus chose to be, and is not that fortune enough to
make you richer than all this poor perishing world
can give ?
I.

vol. i

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PART II.

XIII.
OUR LORD’S PRAYER.

Many things about our Lord are wonderful—none
more wonderful than His prayer.
I. What prayer was in Him.
1. It combined all the eminences of His Soul.
2. It was the abundance of the treasures of the
Sacred Heart.
3. It met and saluted all the Divine Perfections.
4. It did to each of those perfections what was
necessary for us.
5. Its thanksgiving, intercession, and congratulation
mysteriously peculiar.
6. It was the prayer of true Man.
7. It was by an awful mystery the prayer of true
God.
II. Characteristics of His prayer.
1. Lifelong.
2. Principle of all He did.
3. Recorded ways and times.
4. Its efficacy.
5. Its lastingness in the Church.
6. Its privacy—public only once.
7. Intense reverence of it—He was heard because
He feared.
III. Our Practice.
1. The thing most needed to imitate in Jesus.
2. The thing most perfectly imitable.
3. The best prophecy of our final perseverance.
4. The most sure relief from present difficulties.

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5. Prayer brings all other holiness along with it.
6. It is like nothing else in the world.
7. But a life of prayer is the only true prayer.
No prayer is unheard, none is wasted, there is none
that we shall not meet again in the world to come.
Oh when we die, how bitterly shall we mourn that we
have prayed so little, prayed so negligently ; ah ! we
shall see then that life was hardly life, when it was
not also prayer I

XIV.

THE MYSTERY OF JESUS BEING THOUGHT
MAD.

I.

The Mystery of the Eternal Word being thought
mad.
1. As the Passion is a marvellous disclosure of the
creature’s treatment of the Creator, so is this
mystery of the look which the Creator when
visible had to His creatures. The Passion dis­
closes their will, and this mystery their under­
standing.
2. It was a witness borne to His ways being above
our comprehension.
3. It was a terrific measurement of the distance
which the world had drifted from Him.
4. It should be a continual subject of trembling
sorrow, and of frequent acts of the most tender
and respectful reparation.
5. Aud it was, of all the Three Persons the Eternal
Wisdom who was thought mad !

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PART Π.

IT. The lessons to be learned from this mystery
1. The world, even the good and kind part of it,
does not comprehend supernatural principles—
it was His own who laid hands on Him.
2. It is the cross which the world cannot take into
its calculations, and so blunders.
3. How hidden must Jesus have been—so then
also must we be I
4. How this mystery is realised in the saints : this
is half the wisdom of the Gospel—we should
lay it to heart, and make it thoroughly our
own !
5. What a contempt it ought to give us for the
world—so foolish in its wisdom that it thought
its God mad : one trembles to say the words :
surely the very angels invisibly shrink around
us.
Oh adorable foolishness of God ! how shall we wor­
ship our own honour and reputation, when He so
annihilated Himself, and stripped Himself of His ?
So let us be thought mad :—
(1) In our faith by heretics.
(2) In our holiness, even by our own people.
0 Jesus’, dearest Lord! give us the heart which
was in our father St. Philip, the heart not to be wise
with men, but to be mad with Thee ; and of the world
too we have one thing to ask which it will not be
slow to give, that as it made wild sport with Thee in
the court of Herod’s house, so it may for Thy dear
sake make sanctifying sport of us.

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iW

XV.
THE WEARINESS OF JESUS AT THE
WELL.

I. The Creature would desire to see—to have a loug
steadfast undazzled look at the Creator of all this
Universe—to look—to learn to love—to worship:
look at Jesus sitting on the broken wall of Jacob's
Well : He made that cold sparkling water far
down, and now He asks it of His sinful creature :
the weariness of God made Man ; awe-spiring yet
consoling also.
II. Weariness of Jesus.
1. With our sin and ingratitude.
2. With His own toils for us.
3. With the fervour of His love, which parched
Him on the Cross.
III. Consolation for us.
1. As sanctifying our toils for Him, even our bodily
fatigues, and the aching of the sleepless head,
the throbbing of the footsore limb.
2. As showing how He forgot Self to save a soul,
whereas she left her picture and went to the
city forgetting His thirst.
3. As rule and model for us in trying to convert
others.
He made, I say, that cold sparkling water far down,
and now He asks it of His sinful creature : so it is in
all things : He gives us hearts, He gives springs of love
to flow there as into a well, He sits and looks down
with a sweet thirsty envy, and we will nut give Him
drink I

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PART II.

XVI.
EASTER SUNDAY.

The three points of the world at the midnight of
Easter were the Soul of Jesus in Limbus, the Body
of Jesus in the tomb, the Mother of Jesus in the house
of John.
I.
The Soul of Jesus in Limbus.
1. Enjoying as it ever had done the Beatific Vision.
2. Imparting it to others, and so making Paradise.
3. Freed from the interior agonies of the Passion.
4. Delighting in its present conquests of grace.
5. Still full to overflowing of love for men.
IL The Body of Jesus in the tomb.
1. The silence around the tomb.
2. The angels watching.
3. The guards sleeping.
4. The seal set upon the stone.
5. The adorable Body in its grave-clothes, all seamed
with wounds.
III. Mary in the house of John.
1. Her dolours accomplished, as well as His Passion.
2. She is supporting the apostles.
3. She watches in prayer, as at the Annunciation.
4. Her Heart holds the Faith of the whole Church
in it.
5. She keeps adoring the Body and the Soul of
Jesus in spirit.
IV. The mystery of the Resurrection.
i. The angels collect the Precious Blood, and wor­
ship it.

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135

2. The soul of Jesus comes to the tomb, and enters.
3. The retinue of angels and Souls that are with
Him.
4. He opens the tomb, and discloses His Body,
pointing out the Wounds.
5. Adam and Eve, Abraham, Moses, David, St.
Joseph, the Baptist, and the rest adore it.
6. The grave-clothes are unfastened, and laid in
order on one side.
7. Jesus by His power as God, and at the word of
the Father, resumes His Body with the Blood.
8. Its instantaneous life and beauty; yet retention
of the Five Wounds.
9. Just as the light dawned upon the hill-tops,
He with His retinue enters His Mother’s room,
and strengthening her heart, He shows her His
everlasting Godhead, the surpassing beauty of
the Person of the Eternal Word.
Thus it was, 0 beautiful consummation! that He
who died for our sins, rose again for our justification.

XVII.
THF, VICTORY OF THE RESURRECTION.

The hour of weakness and of suffering was past
—the triumph come—the dawn of the morning
was the time—to the eyes of Mary first of all the
victory was proclaimed. Emancipation proclaimed to a
whole nation of slaves, what it would be like ! The

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PART II.

resurrection was the emancipation of the world. The
slavery of men—the slavery of Jesus in His Passion
—here it ended. Easter dawn is come, and with it
man’s victory.
I.
Victory of the Flesh.
1. Its weakness, pains, ignominies.
2. The prison house of the soul, almost forcing it
to sin.
3. The veil that blinds our eyes, and darkens us.
4. The glory, beauty, power, brightness, new self
of the resurrection.
II. Victory over sin.
1. Sin has done its worst to Jesus.
2. Sin does it worst to us.
3. Sin separates body and soul.
4. Resurrection the reunion of the two for glory.
III. Victory over death.
1. The empire of death.
2. The cowardice with which men crouched under it.
3. How faith comes and sets us free from this
dastardly bondage.
The extreme beauty of a disembodied soul in a state
of grace—its return as a conqueror to reanimate the
body—God’s care of the precious particles of the body
for that great day—the entry of the soul into it—
heralded by angels into the Presence of the Face of
God!

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XVIII.

THE EASTER JOY OF JESUS.
I. There are no marks of the Crown of Thoms upon
His brow—yet He looks more than ever a King !
The placid sunrise is beautiful, but there is not
half so much quiet beauty about it as reigns over
that incredibly sweet Face. What maturity and
yet what youth ! Oh look into Has eyes, what a
depth of love, what a tenderness of love, yet what
an overwhelming power of love. That smile upou
His lips, so royal and yet so wonderfully familiar,
how human it is in its gentle winning gravity.
What a light of unspeakable expression shines
over His whole Face, glows like sunshine on His
beautiful hair, and runs down like an unction
into His comely beard !
II. But He must not speak: if He speaks our hearts
will break with love. It is true He will speak
to us the very first time we see Him: but He
must not speak now. Jesus Risen! What think
you? Is that beauty the old beauty of dear
Bethlehem? or is it the look of the boy at
Nazareth ? or the sweetness of the preacher and
miracle-worker of Galilee ? It is all of them
and it is none of them. It is something of its
own. Somehow the Human Soul fills all the
features marvellously with a most human loveli­
ness ; and yet His Divinity shines through with
a masterful majesty, and with a gladness so bright
that it makes us worship to look at it.

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PART II.

III. 1 interpret His Easter look to be an immenso joy
—human joy carried to its utmost limit—the joy
of His Godhead made visible by His Human
Soul overflowing His Glorified Body with an
incomparable jubilee.
IV. His Easter joy was one of a constellation of His
joys—let us think of them.
1. His joy at the moment of the Incarnation.
(1) His delight in the worship of God at that
moment.
(2) His delight in His Body and Soul.
(3) His delight in the sweet sanctity of His
Mother.
2. His joy at His first sight of Mary.
(1) He gazes, and reads each feature; rejoices
in His likeness to her.
(2) She was His own creature.
(3) He exulted in her ecstatic delight at seeing
Him.
3. His joy at her first Communion.
(1) Like the Incarnation over again.
(2) The graces He found in her, and the new
ones He gave.
(3) The joy of her joy at this fresh ineffable
union.
These three joys met now, were all blended, and
were surpassed by the Easter joy.
4.
His joy in seeing her now ; Mary, so familiar
with all His old beauty, is struck with His
Easter brightness and loveliness.
(1) The joy to His human eyesight, as if long
years had parted them, such vast mysteries
had they both traversed.

TUB SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

ij9

(2) Iler fresh beauty from her dolours.
(3) Ilia ecstasy in filling each abyss her woes had
made in her heart, with fresh love and grace.
V.
Dearest Lord ! He had yet another Easter joy I He
thought of us and of our salvation, of each one of
us by name and look : He will have it over again
when we see Him first ; it is little, yet nothing is
little to Him, nothing little to love, while nothing
of His is little to our exceeding littleness—to Him
and to us it will be like His first apparition to His
Mother.
1. His joy at the particular judgment in passing a
favourable sentence.
2. His joy in being our Redeemer.
3. His joy in His mother’s gladness at our salvation.
4. His joy in the beauty and sweetness of our souls.
5. His joy in our unutterable joy.
Oh Easter is a happy day: but I think our true
Easter will not be till we look that first time on the
beautiful welcome of His Easter Face.

XIX.

DIES QUAM FECIT DOMINUS.
Can there be light after such a darkness ? Can
there be day after such a night, peace after the death
of God, joy after the Passion of our dearest Lord ?
What is Easter like ? Like the beginning of eternity,
like the dawn of God’s endless day I Easter has
come with its thousand thoughts, its thousand doctrines,

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PART II.

its thousand graces : how can the Church express it 1
With that sublime simplicity, with that artlessness of
a child which is close upon the wisdom of an angel,
she sums it all up in one word,—Hœc dies quant fecit
Dominus—This is the day which the Lord hath made.
I. Quant fecit Dominus.
1. This is the one joy of all things—that God
made them.
2. It is our joy that wc are created by God and by
such a God.
3. So we congratulate all creatures that they have
the happiness of having been made by God.
4. But He makes some things specially, and keeps
a special royalty over them.
5. Easter Sunday is one of these things.
II. But did He not make all days, and cause all suns
to shine ? Oh yes ! but never a day like this—
the sunrise of the Everlasting Saviour !
1. Because from it comes the blessing of all days.
2. Because the glory of Jesus was so infinitely dear
to the Father.
3. Because He is the true sunshine of the earth.
4. And His glorified body the sun and moon of
Heaven.
5. And He is a sun who has no setting—oh the
joy of this to us ! He is a day which is all
morning, fresh, pure, grateful, full of sweet
light and of sweetest odours !
111. The Resurrection.
i. The sun is not yet above the hills : in the pearly
dawn we see St. Mary Magdalen looking down
into the sepulchre : why does her face shine so
brightly if the sun is not risen Î It is from

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141

the two angels in white sitting in the sepulchre :
how her tears glistened in the light!
2. Dear loving Magdalen ! is it the memory of the
Passion that makes her weep? The angels,
beaming with gladness, say, Woman ! why
weepest thou ? Who has any right to weep at
Easter? Because they have taken away my
Lord, and I know not where they have laid
Him. Earth without Jesus ! no ! that could
not be. So Jesus had said about her brother
Lazarus—Where have you laid him ?
3. When she had thus said, she turned herself back,
and saw Jesus standing, and she knew not that
it was Jesus. Did she not feel, or was she so
engrossed in seeking Jesus ? Her eye was full
of that wounded Body on the Cross. She
turned herself back—what were even angels
when she was seeking Jesus? Jesus, as if to
have time to drink in her fond faithful love, as
if it was so great an Easter joy to Him, saith to
her in a feigned voice, Woman, why weepest
thou ? whom seekest thou ? 0 dearest Lord I
thus to play with her grief and love, to ask
Thy servant such a question—whom seekest
thou, as if Magdalen could seek any but Thee.
She, thinking it was the gardener—poor Mary !
truly He was the gardener—the gardener who
had once planted the paradise of old—saith to
Him, Sir, if thou hast taken Him hence, tell
me where thou hast laid Him : and I will take
Him away. What ! in thine arms like a child,
Mary ? as thy great namesake carried Him at
Bethlehem and in the Wilderness ? I will take

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PART Π.

Him away—oh beautiful—as if He was hers, as
if He should not be a charge to any one but
her, as if she was hostess of Jesus by office,
now and for ever. Then she seemingly turned
her face to the sepulchre. Did not the empty
sepulchre remind her of His words to Martha,
her sister, I am the resurrection and the life ?
If any word is like the last trumpet of the arch­
angel it is Ego sum resurrectio et vita.
4. Jesus saith to her, behind her, in that voice,
Mary. Does she live, or has that one word
broken her heart with the abruptness of its
jubilee ? She turning, oh with what speed,
with what surprise, with what unmanageable
ecstasy of love, said, Rabboni, which is to say,
Master. Oh in the long history of the world
how many sweet surprises has love contrived
for love—but was there ever any one half so
sweet as this ?
5. Joy says short words and few ones.
Her
beautiful bright face may have told the apostles
all when she met them, for her face had been
sad enough for days past ; but as for her tongue,
she could only say—I have seen the Lord ! and
these things He said to me. Oh happy, happy
Mary ! help us to our Heavenly Easter, to that
morning when Jesus our Judge will have spoken
a few words to us ; it is only a few years distant
now, and then we can come to thee in Heaven,
and repeat thy simple but all-sufficient words,
I have seen the Lord, and these things lie said
to me.

THP. SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

«43

XX.
THE RESURRECTION A MYSTERY OF
CALMNESS.

The peace around the tomb—the peace of Mary’s
desolation : we almost fear lest the notes of holy
triumph should break a spell so sweet, so calm, so
heavenly, so beautiful ; for peace is more like God
than anything else on earth.
I. The Mystery of the Resurrection.
1. The sunrise a type of its exceeding calm, its
tranquil glory and effulgence; light makes no
noise.
2. The soul of Jesus, not fluttered, not elated.
3. Calm adoration of the souls by which He is
accompanied.
4. Calmness of the Adorable Body lying separate
in the tomb.
5. Calmness of the Body and Soul in their joyous
union : witness the grave-clothes, and the rolled
stone, and the sleeping guards all unawakened.
6. Calmness of the bodies of the dead which rose
and walked the streets.
7. Calmness of His immense and unperturbed
Divinity.
How unlike the world is all this !
11. Peace and calm the gift, the special foremost gift
of Jesus Risen.
I. Exemplified in His apparition to His Mother at
the dawn.

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PART II.

2. To Magdalen He reveals Himself gradually, so
as to leave her calm, and by His voice, which
stilled the seas.
3. To the disciples going to Emmaus.
4. On Easter evening to the disciples—Pax vobis—
breath, priesthood of peace and calm.
5. On Low Sunday to St. Thomas—Pax vobis
again.
6. This peace displayed in the subsequent conduct
of the apostles.
7. Persevered in by our dear Lord all the forty days.
III. All this because He was God, for God is the God
of calmness and peace.
1. The unworldliness of it all in itself is a proof of
His Divinity.
2. Calmness is His spirit, and a token to us how
far that spirit is on us.
3. Calmness of God in His incomprehensible Self.
4. Unutterable calmness round about His throne.
5. Into that calmness we are day by day being
drawn, by prayer, by sacraments, by the silent
stealing away of life from under our feet.
0 heavenly Jerusalem, city of light and of the
Lamb, our true home, our real country, when will our
exiled spirits pass from all this sound and noise and
fatiguing distraction, into that joyous, boundless, endless
peace of God of which the great apostle himself can
only say that it surpasses all our understanding ?

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

«45

XXI.
SUNDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF
CORPUS CHRISTI.

I. One of the greatest surprises at our judgment will
be the sight of what we might have done for God
and have not done.
1. Natural talents unused.
2. Graces neglected.
3. Inspirations slighted or culpably unheard.
4. Opportunities wasted, and supernatural pro­
vidences unperceived through want of a sense
of the presence of God : amazing loss of souls
through idleness alone.
5. Faith not converted into practice.
II. God the opposite of all this.
1. Full of the most considerate love of us.
2. Minute in His legislation and arrangement for us.
3. Marvellously faithful to His promises.
4. Economical, even while abundant, in His giving
of grace.
5. Setting an immense value Himself on the least
of His graces, because it cost His Son so
much.
III. Example of all this in the mystery of the Blessed
Sacrament.
1. The wonder of the Mass, yet our infrequency
and indevotion.
2. The miracles of communion, yet the little change
they make in us.
vol.

I.

K

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PART II.

3. The potency of Benediction, yet how cold, how
uninfluenced are our hearts.
4. The facility and opportunity of His presence in
the Tabernacle, yet how unused, or how little
used, or how badly used.
5. The reiteration of all these things makes our
life an almost incomprehensible miracle : and
yet we perversely manage to make it trivial,
commonplace, childish, and undivinc.
Yet Jesus is not a little grace ! He is the eternal
riches of the Father. He has been His Father’s fascina­
tion and delight from all eternity. He has been the
gladness, the glory, and the most dear treasure of the
Holy Ghost, from all eternity, as He is at this hour.
His own delight, oh unspeakable, unintelligible taste
of a Divine Person ! is to be with the children of men
—and we treat Him as we do ! The Father and the
Holy Ghost follow Him to the altars of the Church,
while He comes to satisfy His insatiable longing for
human love by haunting the company of men. And
we meanwhile ? Do we lavish our riches on Him,
give Him our time, put Him foremost among our
occupations ? Do we lavish our love even upon Him,
our reverence, or our fear ? A Catholic without en­
thusiasm for the Blessed Sacrament ! Oh what manner
of Judas is he ? Ah, my brethren, you know, each of
you in your hearts, how you treat the Blessed Sacra­
ment. Jesus does not look you visibly in the face
now ; He shrouds His face in the white veils of His
dear Sacrament. But if we saw His look, would it
not be a look of reproachful sadness ? Oh, can you
not picture to yourself the piercing look of tenderest
reproof which He will cast upon us, as He reminds us

TUB SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

»47

of all this at the judgment ? Truly if we go straight
to heaven, it will be no little purgatory to pass into
the gates of the Golden City under that dear and
intolerable look !

XXII.

THE LENT EXPOSITION OF THE
BLESSED SACRAMENT.

The days of pilgrimage and sanctuary, with all their
peculiar graces, are renewed in the Exposition of the
Blessed Sacrament. But no sanctuary is equal in the
spiritual magnificence of a real presence to the Catholic
altar. Let us then prepare for this great gift by
renewing our faith in the presence of our dearest Lord.
Who is it that comes to us ? Who is the Blessed Sac­
rament, who this Guest, upon whose created robes of
childlike white we are to gaze ?
I. It is our Creator.
1. The immensity of the world—the wisdom required
to plan it—the power to put it into execution.
2. The end of all creation was His own glory in
obtaining our love.
3. He knows our weaknesses—He has known us
from all eternity—He seeks our love—He
values it above ten thousand stars.
Think of Him during the seven days—think of Him
when choosing our souls out of possible souls—think
of Him burning the world up at the last, and saving
not our souls only, but our bodies also, from the con­
flagration.

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PART II.

It is the Son of Mary.
1. Of like nature with us, not the less the Creator
though part of His own creation.
2. All Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and Calvary, are
there—the memories are in His soul—the
wounds are in His hands.
3. We had a place in that Sacred Heart during the
agony, we have a place there now—He woos us
to enter more deeply in.
We are men met together to worship our fellow-man,
who is our God as well
III. It is the Eternal.
1. He is coming who never had any beginning, who
leans on none, has none to lean upon, unchange­
able, and yet unspeakably changed.
2. He loved us eternally—there was never a time
when we did not exist in His love : how over­
whelming is this thought ! He loves each one
of us in Church, and changes not, though we
have done so much to forfeit His exceeding
love.
3. Now He desires to have us to spend the rest
of eternity with Him—He comes to give graces
—for the simple end of giving graces—He for
that object is about to spend forty human hours
of His long eternity in a special way with us,
to fit us for our eternity with Him.
Oh sweet thought ! Oh comforting sustaining truth !
The years, as they go by so quietly and swiftly, are draw­
ing us fast into His eternity, when He will welcome
us to His own home, and press us to His Heart, and
put aside His veils, and show us His face, and take the
sight of it away from us no more.
II.

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149

XXIII.
THE LENT QUARA NT ORE.

The business of our sanctification is carried on by
two sorts of opportunities, those which we impose
upon or make for ourselves, and those which the
Church in her office as mother is careful to supply
us with ; and these last advance us most because there
is no self-will in them, and we have the Benediction
of the Church.
I. God’s choice of times and places.
1. This is a feature in God’s manner which is very
much to be observed.
2. Old Testament examples of it
3. Christian pilgrimages and seasons.
4. Miraculous shrines and apparitions.
5. The end of these is not only to confirm faith, but
to destroy sin and increase holiness.
II. Lent is one of God’s times.
1. Apostolic institution : supernatural vigour of the
Church all the world over.
2. It is far more than the great feasts of the year.
3. It is the spiritual rudder of the year.
4. Fasting is a means, prayer the end.
5. Those who cannot fast are the more obliged to
prayer and interior mortification.
III. Church is one of God’s places, especially at the
time of Exposition.
1. Exposition is a substantial part of Lent now­
adays.
2. More than La Salette, Loreto, or Palestine.

i5°

PART II.
3. Angels are amazed at the graces ready, and which
only need our reverent taking.
4. What one Exposition could do if fervently
corresponded to.
(1.) For self. (2.) For the Church. (3.) Robbing
Hell. (4.) Purgatory. (5.) Glory of heaven.
5. Oh for fervent persevering pray er! whether mental
or vocal, with book or without, what matters ;
only let us pour out our whole souls iu prayer.

XXIV.
THE SACRED HEART.

To-day’s feast as refreshing as a cool wind in the
wilderness.
Need of consolations in these times : nowhere to be
found but in the Sacred Heart.
I. The Sacred Heart itself.
1. It is not a mere emblem.
2. But lives a human life this day.
(1) In heaven.
(2) In the Tabernacle.
(3) It has been in us at Communion.
3. Its power, science, love, for He is God.
4. The touchingness of the devotion.
5. And He Himself revealed it.
II. What it is to us.
1. No other real shelter from the world.
2. Nor consolation in sorrow.
3. Nor home so kind

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

i3,

Nor welcome so sure and sweet.
Nor such fulness of satisfaction.
Nor such abounding love.
Nor such assurance of heaven.
Nor such dear mercy when we have fallen.
Its maternal character—Mary-like.
It is so utterly our own.
The empire we exercise over it is like Mary’s.
The place, a particular one, we have always
occupied in it.
3. Its fidelity, and rewarding of little services.
4. The identity of its will and interests with our
own.
5. Yet it is the cabinet of the treasures of the
Godhead.
How hidden is this treasure ! Comfort to us that
it is hidden; for the world takes all from us that
it can.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
III.
1.
2.

XXV.

THE SACRED HEART.
I have given them Thy word, and the world hath
hated them, because they are not of the world.—St.
John xvii. 14.
Earth is a rehearsing for heaven : yet the world
forces us abroad ; it will not let us face God and duty
and the thought of eternal things. It is in this very
tiling that we must beat it down—be bold in the love
of Jesus—and assert our liberty. Yet here is the
secret of the Christian life. How shall we be in the

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PART Π.

world, yet out of it, upon the flood and riding safely
on it, in the heat, but under shadow ; in the storm,
yet sheltered from it? By living in the Heart of
Jesus. Ah ! let us invoke the gentle St. John to get
us grace to dwell continually as hermits in that sweet
hermitage, as doves in the cleft rock, always in charit­
able activity, yet always in contemplation.—The Sacred
Heart of Jesus—our model—our love—our sanctuary.
I. Its perpetual intention :—to glorify God—always
speaking of it in St John’s Gospel—thirsting after
it—the first great end of the Sacred Humanity.
II. Its interior occupation—(i) adoring, (2) annihi­
lating self, (3) oblation of self, (4) incessant
grieving for sinners and at them.
III. Its secret suffering : a secret consuming torment­
ing fire caused by love and sin from His Con­
ception to His Cross, only the depths of that
profound abyss may be poorly fancied from the
few echoes that came up to the surface during
the anguish of the Passion.
IV. Continual unbroken calm, putting away of all
pleasing of self, and assuagement, as though He
were in love with sorrow and interior bitterness.
This is the mystery, this the long lesson of the
Cross.
V. Horror of maxims of the world—He was Eternal
Wisdom.
World.
i. Esteem of greatness
and glory.

2. Care of reputation.

Sacred Heart.
ÇaoiZ altum est hominibus
abominatio est ante
Deum.
Saturabitur opprobriis.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.
3. Spirit of policy and
management
4. Attachment to wills
and ways.
5. Pursuit of pleasures.

'S3

Columbœ—^annUt.

Subditus Ulis—pleased not
Himself.
United in itself all body
and mind most shrink
from, and that from
choice.
6. Worship of comfort Stable—flight — poverty
—hard work—house­
and conveniences.
lessness — benediction
of the poor.
Ah ! we have much to ! ■arn ! but shall we sit down
in idle despair?—0 paradise! bright—beautiful—
eternal—how strange sound the words of thy wisdom
on this distracted earth : we have but to love—to love
Him whom it is so hard not to love, so wonderful all
men do not love—we have but to love, and all that is
ours—thy brightness, thy beauty, thy eternity. Oh
false and miserable and cruel world—this day we break
faith with thee, solemnly and for ever.

XXVI.
PERPETUAL FRESHNESS OF JESUS.
A deep chaugeableness in our nature—often against
our will—making things grow dull to us easily, and
making it hard for us to be faithful.
I. How even religious things grow wearisome.
I. Prayer, which was once so sweet.

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PART Π.

2. Books, which it seemed we could feed upon all
our life, and never want new ones.
3. Services, so full of unction to our souls.
4. Even sacraments, so fresh and exhilarating.
5. But Jesus Himself never: He is always fresh.
II. The freshness of Jesus.
1. He never tires us.
2. He is always equally loving ;
3. Or rather each time more loving than before.
4. Always the same, so far as regards fidelity.
5. Always new, so far as regards His charms.
III. Experience of this.
1. Christmases : He seems really newly come.
2. Changes in life—He suits Himself to them.
3. Sunshine—He makes it passing bright.
4. Sorrow ! ah, He is a new Jesus, so full of
delightfullest consolation.
5. We have left Him and returned—how do we
find Him ? Quite the same, yet altogether
new.
IV. Experience of all things else.
1. The world, its promises and its fulfilments.
2. Our own will, its plans, wishes, enterprises.
3. Pleasure, its transitory feverish excitement.
4. Age—always looking onward—brings nothing
like Jesus.
5. Even religious changes—nothing satisfactory
but Jesus.
And death — what think you death will bring ?
It has but one alternative, either everlasting darkness,
or Jesus to be eternally old, everlastingly new, in His
own bright land above.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

«S3

XXVII.
THE LIFE OF JESUS A LIFE OF LOVE.
What it is to love ! and what to lead a life of love I
The life of Jesus a life of love.
1. Love seemed to be His very life—His whole life.
2. It was unintermitting.
3. Deeply hidden, yet for ever flashing out.
4. It swallowed up all other characteristics of His
life.
IL IIis love’s characteristics.
1. Its utter disinterestedness.
2. Its propensity to self-abasement.
3. Its excesses, and its being given to excess.
4. Its mixed character of human and divine.
5. Yet evidently following some deep laws, not
appreciated or understood by us : it reveals
God to us. For this is the life most like the
life of God.
HI. His loves.
1. Of God.
2. Of His Mother.
3. Of sinners. He seems to sacrifice the other two
to this, as (1.) My God ! why hast Thou forsaken
Me ? as if He so clung to men and loaded
Himself with their guilt, that the Father was
compelled to forsake Hirn. (2.) Our Lady, whom
He martyred for our sakes.
4. It is our joy that we had even then a distinct
and recognized share of that love.
Our lives must be copies of His.

I.

J

156

PART 11.

XXVIII.
OUR LORD’S LOVE OF US.

As the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved
you.—St. John xv. 9.
Is there any sight in all creation we should so much
wish to see as the place we occupy at this moment in
the Heart of Jesus ? We know that He really loves us,
and immensely loves us : but how much, and with what
kind of love ? His own words quoted above answer
this question. He loves us as the Father loved Him.
1.
Now how did the Father love Him ?
1. He loved Him eternally, with an untiring love,
vehement yet peaceful, a love that was an
immense joy to Himself, a divine love. Think
what it is for us to be loved with a divine love 1
2. He loved Him with an enormous love, an un­
imaginable love. It is hard to picture an ocean
without a shore, or a world without an end.
Yet this is the figure of the Father’s love of
Jesus, and therefore of the love of Jesus for us.
3. An eternal love, a ceaseless love, must necessarily
be a love of undistracted detail ; so that those
words of Blosius come true, “ He would not even
allow a cold wind to blow upon His elect, unless
He knew it was expedient for their salvation." *
4. But the most striking of all the features of the
Father’s love of Jesus, is that He loaded Him
with crosses, cares, and sorrows : so will Jesus
do to us.
* Institutio Sniritualis, cap. viii.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

157

(1) Because His Father did so to Him.
(2) Because it is His longing to conform us to
Himself.
(3) Because it is what is best for our souls.
Now, are we prepared for this ? Do we take this
view of our troubles ? Alas I to strive against our
cross, is to try to make Jesus love us less.

XXIX.
COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT ARE
WEARY.

Tire intense happiness of Jesus in the Blessed
Sacrament.
1. Because He is God, Whose life is everlasting joy.
2. Because of the abounding joys of His vast human
Soul.
3. The intense pleasures of the senses of His glorified
Body.
4. His joy in His Mother, the angels, the saints,
and the Church on earth.
5. His joy in the hiding-place He has invented for
Himself in the Blessed Sacrament.
Why then does He seek sinners as if He needed
them ? Can we, or such as we, be a joy to Him ?
II. The life of sin. Have we not all once lived it ?
1. All we break through to begin it—baptism,
grace, faith.
2. Its poorness of pleasure.
3. Its rapid satiety.

I.

IS8

PART II.

4. Its discomfort of remorse.
5. The chilling prospect of its consequences.
III. The invitation, Come unto Me, will be some one
day sounded in our ears.
1. Can we believe our senses ?
2. But to such great sinners as we are ?
3. If to Jew or Pagan, still can it be to us who
have fallen from Him ?
4. His authority to speak, and His power to fulfil
His promise.
5. The proofs of His sincerity are in the Blessed
Sacrament—He has not tired these eighteen
hundred years.
IV. The interview : Lord ! what wilt Thou that I
should do ?
1. What penance ?—only be sorry
2. What reproof ?—absolutely none.
3. How long a process is forgiveness ?—momentary.
4. What forfeit ?—none.
5. As if He was the obliged person, not we.
Is not all this incredible except to the strength of
faith? Does not it baffle all understanding, and
transcend all explanation ? It is said of heaven, Eye
hath not seen, &c. ; is not the same true of the for­
giveness of a sinner ? It is the first step to heaven,
an earnest that He means to give us heaven, only let
us hold fast and persevere. Heaven will soon be
here; it will steal upon us almost before we are
aware ; and life with all its trials will be like a speck
in the distant past, the memory of which will be
almost forgotten in the beautiful delights of our
celestial home. You and I, brethren, have seen many
here in darkness and in struggle, in sin, in repentance,

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

’59

in the fight of poverty, the coolness of the world’s
neglect, and the achings of a comfortless and hard sick­
bed, who now are in the Bosom of Jesus in heaven, so
bright and glorious, so radiant and beautiful, that we
should die if we beheld them. 0 dearest brethren! only
love Jesus, and what an unspeakable eternity is ours.

XXX.

THE TEARS OF JESUS.·
Man is never so like God as when he is consoling
the afflicted ; and this is one of the functions of the
Confraternity ; it reaches it by prayer ; so consider—
I. The tears of Jesus.
1. Angels beholding with wonder the first tears of
Adam and Eve.
2. They look up to the Eternal Word—they will
one day see Him weeping man’s tears.
3. The tears of Bethlehem, for Himself, for sin, for
sorrow, for us.
4. At the grave of Lazarus—in sympathy with the
sorrow of the sisters.
5. On the Mount of Olives over beautiful Jerusalem
—over sin and sin's punishments.
II. The lessons of those tears.
I. The nature of sorrow.
(1) It is an angel from God.
(2) If it is punishment, it is that we may escape
punishment in another world.
* After the battle of Inkerman.

PART II.

160

(3) To make our hearts soft and gentle to others.
(4) To conform us to the likeness of Jesus : how
He loves those in sorrow.
(5) Grief is no imperfection: tears of resignation
are sweet to the Eye of God.
2. More confidence in Jesus.
(1) What confidence means, and how little we
have when proved.
(2) Sinners, why He loved them most of all.
(3) Littlenesses and meannesses of spiritual
persons. Oh He knows them so well and
feels for them so compassionately.
(4) We are inclined to despair because of tempta­
tions—why, your own mother will not guide
you so gently as Jesus will.
(5) The Name of Jesus is our trust—Thou shalt
call His name Jesus : for He shall save
His people from their sins.

XXXI.

WITHOUT JESUS IN THE WORLD.
*
I.

My dear brethren! what should we do without
Jesus in the world ? We have to live, we have to
die, we have to be saved. Oh what should we do
without Jesus in the world ? Dearest Lord ! you
see I am going to dare to speak of Him to you in
His own presence.
• Lent Exposition of tho B. Sacrament, 1856.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

t6i

1. In sorrow what should we do without Jesus?
2. In illness and pain ?
3. In poverty and hardships ?
4. In the loss of those we love ?
5. In the hour of death ?
II. Jesus—because He shall save His people from
their sins.
1. Look at heathen, what if we were like them?
2. Look at sinners, what if we were like them ?
3. Those outside the Church, what if we were like
them ?
4. Ourselves in past years, what if we were like
them ?
5. Without Jesus, where should we be now?
And can we ever spare Him—now ? in death ? in
judgment? after that? never, never.
III. And the Blessed Sacrament is our own very Jesus.
1. The Jesus who loved the poor.
2. The Jesus who wept over His dead friend.
3. The Jesus who consorted with sinners.
4. The Jesus who comforted the sorrowful.
5. The Jesus who feels more anxious that we should
be saved than we do ourselves.
And what is the Blessed Sacrament a sign of?
His unspeakable fidelity. He yearns over us while
we stay away : He implores us while we ungraciously
refuse His love : He clings to us even in our sins : He
longs to take us in His arms, and bear us away to
heaven, and to have us with Himself for evermore.
Our beloved Brother ! and shall we refuse to go ? Oh
no, no ! let us pour out our hearts before Him—let
us tell Him how deeply, how dearly we love Him—
let us beg Him to save us in spite of our own selves.
VOL. I.

l

162

PART II.

and to make us love Him more and more and more,
and to bear with us a little longer, and we will serve
Him better, and die in His arms, and then go with
Him to His Father, and be at rest for ever.

XXXII.
THERE IS NOW THEREFORE NO CON­
DEMNATION TO THEM THAT ARE
IN CHRIST JESUS.
Many words of wonderful beauty have been uttered
in the world which have lived on for generations like
music that could not die—but few more beautiful
than this, which came to St. Paul wliile making tents
at Corinth, and which he wrote to the Romans.
I. No condemnation ! Is not this just what we want ?
1. Feeling of people who are on trial, as we are :
it is just our business as creatures to be judged.
2. Conscience judges us within, and the world
without : we fear the stern truth of the inward
judge, and we chafe under the invariable un­
kindliness of the outward one : all happiness
and unhappiness depend on these judgments.
3. But God, Who knows all, understands all, sees
the secret truth of all, and is unutterably holy.
4. To be condemned by God ; it is very easy, very
likely ; all merit it : to know that we should
be saved—is it not heaven beforehand ?
5. Well, there is now therefore no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

163

II. But who are in Christ Jesus ?
1. Those who have the true faith and practise it
2. Those who have a great sorrow for their sins.
3. Those who love others for our Lord’s sake.
4. Those who are trying to be holy even if they
are not so yet.
5. Those who wish to love Jesus, though they do
not fed as if they loved Him yet.
Ah, my dear brethren, you may have many years
to live yet ; many temptations, much unkindliness,
much sorrow, much pain, many unworthy and simple
imperfections ; but through it all you can truly keep
saying to yourselves, as men murmur songs they love,
those beautiful song-like words of our dear St. Paul :
There is now therefore no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus.

XXXIII.

THE FIRST SIGHT OF THE FACE OF
JESUS.
Seek ye My Face I Thy Face, Lord, will we seek !
What it is to have Jesus with us; how it increases our
longing to see His face ; what joy and light and life
would that veiled Face pour into our very inmost
souls 1
I. Our first sight of Jesus.
I. We shall actually see Him, and it cannot now
be very long.

PART II.
2. But we must go through grave and solemn things
to reach this sight.
3. St. Simeon’s long years and then his Nunc
Dimittis, is it a figure of our lives ?
4. We must die, and are daily nearing the time.
5. The more we love God, the more real must be
our fear of death.
6. The act of death—the first moment of the
separate soul.
7. First sight of Jesus—judgment begins. What
will our thoughts be ? Saints have said they
should be almost distracted with the sweet­
ness of that first sight of His Face. Alas I I
shall tremble, and be first ashamed, and then
afraid.
II. We lose sight of that Face again.
1. Judgment is over—wherever we go, shall we ever
forget the beauty of that Face ?
2. If to Purgatory, it is no light thing to dwell
among those fires.
3. The pain of parting with that Face ; for long
years we may perhaps see it no more.
4. And yet it will haunt us like a ray of light in
our punishment.
5. Yet is Purgatory inevitable ?
6. No ! To avoid venial sin, to break with the
world, to have an abiding sorrow for sin, to be
patient—these are ways of avoiding Purgatory
altogether.
7. Perhaps a particular devotion to the presence of
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament may have a
peculiar power to avoid or shorten Purgatory.
Oh let no one be without hope of escaping Purgatory

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

16$

It is less hard than many think. The punishment itself
is fearful—the delay of being with Jesus is intolerable
to a loving heart. Oh after a weary life, is there still
to be another weary waiting for our deliverance and
our rest ? If we must burn, let it be with the fire
of love now, not with the fires of chastisement here­
after I

Ipait Second.
THE SACRED HUMANITY OF yESUS.

SECTION IL
THE PASSION.

I.
*
CALVARY

CHAPTER I.
THE PASSION ; ITS HISTORICAL,
DOCTRINAL, AND MYSTICAL CHARACTER.

L The darkness of an eclipse—it gradually lightens—
the white towers of a city not far inland at the
end of the Mediterranean—slowly being disclosed
against the darkness is the Body of Jesus hanging
on the Cross, facing the grand west, disfigured by
suffering; and a broken-hearted mother standing
beneath the Cross now wet with blood.
1. This is the fountain of all supernatural things,
and flows both before and behind.
2. Henceforth the history of the world can never
get from under the influence of this.
3. The sorrow and happiness of each individual
soul starts at the foot of the Cross.
4. It is the only earthly object of any real abiding
value : all is dross compared to it ; it is the
marriage of heaven and earth.
5. Its effects are eternal and unspeakable.
» The twelve following chapterx are the sketch of a proposed treatise.

170

PART Π.

II. The Passion considered as a history.
1. The congruous end of the Thirty-three Years oi
the Incarnate Word.
2. The Supper Boom.
3. The Garden.
4. The City.
5. The Mount.
On earth we can get no higher idea of God than
that which the Passion gives us.
III. Considered as a doctrine.
1. The two Natures and the one Person.
2. The accomplishment of Redemption : a different
idea from the Incarnation—(1.) Of glory. (2.)
Of suffering.
3. The Sacraments come out of it.
4. The daily sacrifice is a continuation of it.
5. The unnecessary suffering in it an abyss of
divinest doctrine. It is also remarkable that
our Lord’s satisfactions were not in voluntary
penances, but in things which came on Him
through His Father’s will—this is a characteristic
of His sanctity—the consolation of it to us.
IV. Considered as affecting the ritual of the Church.
1. The Blessed Sacrament the living Lord.
2. The connection of the Passion with the
Blessed Sacrament—mass, communion, use of
the Blessed Sacrament as reparation—Holy
Sepulchre.
3. In the Calendar—The Church nowhere drama­
tises so much—then there are memorial feasts
all the year round.
4. As a devotion characterised by (1) Its abiding­
ness ; (2) Universality ; (3) Connection witli

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

171

other devotions : (4) Variety, Stations, Wounds,
Words, Trials, Blood, Dolours.
5. The calm grave endless thought and memory of
the Passion by angels and souls even amid the
joys of heaven.
V. Its mystical character.
1. It produces a whole inward life of its own, on
peculiar supernatural principles.
2. To effect this more abundantly God has poured
abundant revelations of its details into the
Church through the contemplative saints.
3. He has also impressed the Passion on them in
physical and moral miracles.
4. He has strewn over the world the instruments
and relics of the Passion. Just think what it
is to be in the same room with a piece of the
true Cross.
5. All holiness, high and low, is imitation of the
Passion, while the Passion has and communi­
cates a substantial virtue which enables us to
imitate it, and exercises a mysterious attraction
over us.
The fervour of the primitive Church was owing
perhaps to a livelier memory of the Passion. The
days of creation—their wonders—these days were
more wonderful, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday : the
Triduo of the Passion was the creation of an invisible
world.

1

172

PART II.

IL
THE EXCESS OF THE PASSION.
The beauty of sorrow—its poetry, romance, philo­
sophy, and literature—the pathos of God’s world—
none like to the Passion—it is a very world, the
flowers of suffering made beautiful by the innocence
and also the divinity of Him Who bore it: we must
get a view of its extent.
I. The Thirty-three Years up to the passion were a
Passion in themselves.
1. Sufferings of the first twelve years—poverty,
weariness, use of reason, prevision of Passion,
view of sin.
2. Sufferings of the Hidden Life—the same, with
toil and Joseph’s death.
3. Sufferings of the three years’ Ministry, homeless­
ness, disciples, persecutions, fatigue, failure.
4. Steady, incessant, vehement, energetic view of
the Passion throughout.
5. His Mother involved in the same law of suffer­
ing, although exempt from the law of sin.
Thus the Passion is not one separate mystery, but
the blood-stained diadem of all.
II. The Mystery of unnecessary suffering in the Passion.
1. Why it was so long, and not done all at once.
2. Infinite value of each one of His satisfactions.
3. Prodigality of everything—pains bodily and
mental, shame, all exhausted—it is hard to
conceive of more.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

173

4. It cannot have been really unnecessary—this is
a profound mystery.
5. Probable reasons, at least on the surface.
(1) Because being God, He would do all things
in the most excellent and superabundant
way. We do not sufficiently look at the
Passion on God’s side. It is a many-sided
mystery.
(2) In order to make a more royal satisfaction
to the justice of God.
(3) To give us a deeper and more dread view of
the horror of sin.
(4) To exhibit the illimitable excesses of the
divine mercy.
(5) Because it was all for love, and of love.
(6) That God’s glory in creation, and that in the
Sacred Humanity alone, might far surpass
the curse of sin.
(7) To show what manner of service we should
render to Him, and to take away our hard­
ness of heart, which nothing short of omni­
potence can soften.
III. The Deep Sea.
1. The number of the sufferings—count up from the
Garden to the Cross. The unknown sufferings,
like the unknown perfections of God. There
is a sort of secrecy in the Passion : half is not
told ; men could not bear the details ; the
revelations of saints disclose now and then
these secret depths in the Passion.
2. The variety : every affection of the heart, every
faculty of the mind, every sense and nerve of
the body

t74

PART II.

3. Intense degree of them—in themselves—from
the circumstances—and to Him.
4. Concentration of them in a short time—no
respite to collect self, &c.
5. Aggravating circumstances of them—site, time,
company, presence of mother, spectators, and
their malice.
6. Inward circumstances—mental perturbation and
oppression, shame, injustice, view of each kind
and class of sin for which He suffered.
7. The indifference of those for whom He suffered
—this was unbearable to His Sacred Heart.
They were inflicting, and did not know it, a
most dreadful outward Passion on One who had
already an unspeakable Passion within.
8. Aggravation from those who afflicted Him—
(1) Rude Romans, (2) His own Jews, (3) Powers
of Hell, (4) Mary, (5) Eternal Father—think
of Him with these five enemies hemming Him
in in seeming appalling alliance.
9. The horror of that for which He suffered, viz.,
sin.
10. The love with which He suffered was of itself
an indescribable martyrdom.
11. Augmentation of suffering from the exquisiteness
of His Human Nature.
12. Augmentation of it by His Divine Nature—
(1.) What it withheld, and so contrast. (2.)
Strengthening Him to bear. (3.) Adding some­
thing peculiar to each torture.
IV. Results.
I. AU martyrdoms as nothing to His sufferings
(against Suarez).

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

175

2. All human suffering, inclusive of seven dolours,
far outstripped by them.
3. In intensity they exceed all the pains of purga­
tory because of His Soul.
4. In sensible pain they possibly exceed in intensity
all the pain of the lost, and of their bodies after
the resurrection.
5. He Himself could of God’s absolute power have
suffered more—this is all we can say.
6. Only His Divinity without alleviating any enabled
Him to bear all.
7. We shall perhaps never understand them—St.
Jerome says that what our Lord suffered on the
Thursday night will not all be known until the
doom, when the Father will reveal it according
to the prophecy of Nahum, Rcvddbo cunctis
regibus et gentibus ignominiam tuam.
What a scene ! God out in the darkness of that
night, amid the mountainous billows of that storm—
where all humanity and all angelic nature would have
foundered and gone down : God I God ! the Eternal
God ! That night, in that dark sea, with that affliction
and fatigue, my soul was saved I

III.

THE BODILY PAINS.

The Ecce Homo ! a worm and no man : His beauty
crushed out of Him : the nature almost trodden out of
Him ; life held in that mangled wreck by simple power.

176

PART II,

The bitterness of bodily pain.
1. Our own experienced inability to bear it.
2. AH generations have made their punishments
out of it.
3. The way in which it afflicts the soul.
4. The revolution it works in our characters.
5. The amazing merits and crowns of martyrdom.
6. Purgatory and Hell.
7. By tliis pain was redemption to be effected.
II.
General view of the Bodily Pains of the Passion.
1. Their length—some eighteen hours—but espe­
cially long to the swift operations of His Soul.
2. Their variety, and their being constantly inter­
mingled; and all over His Body. Revelation
to the V. Paola Maria Scalza, that the Wounds
and Disfigurements of our Lord’s Body were
above all that had been said, written, or
*thought.
3. Their keenness, from their severity and rapidity,
and from His sensitiveness.
4. Their all being violently contemporaneous one
with another.
5. Without respite, or refreshment, or time to collect
self; save only visit of angel in the garden.
III. Their kinds.
1. Stunning, aching bruises, Cedron, up the hill, the
Via Dolorosa.
2. Stricture of ropes.
3. Flesh wounds down to the bone, and all over.
4. Dislocations, with ropes, of jaws when struck,
and stretching on the Cross, and hanging
from it.
I.

• Vita, pp. 289, 29a

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

177

5. Excessive bleeding—intense anguish caused by
it, no repose allowed.
6. Stabbing through nerves with thorns and nails.
7. Flaying, with the two strippings.
8. Tearing flesh off, as martyrs had, at the
scourging.
9. Cold, Cedron, the night.
10. Fatigue to its uttermost limit of throbbing, dull,
seemingly impossible pain.
11. Hunger all those hours, and with such nervous
suffering.
12. Thirst after the loss of blood.
N.B. Breaking of bones and fire were the only two
pains not applied.
IV. His Sacred Limbs.
1. Head—blows, hair, crowning.
2. Eyes—filled with clotted blood, inverted lashes
—blows.
3. Mouth—swollen with blows, teeth loosened, lips
cracked, tongue swollen.
4. Face—blows, spittings, thorns half down the
brow.
5. Shoulders—raw with scourgings, laid open at
stripping.
6. Arms—ropes, bruises, scourges, out of joint
7. Hands—blood from under nails with ropes, nails
on the Cross.
8. Breast—torn with scourges, painfully distended
to cracking.
9. Sides—bones laid bare with scourging, bruised
and livid with blows of staves.
IO. Knees—broken with falls, skin hanging down, as
in various revelations.
vol.

I.

“

,78

PART II.

11. Feet—bleeding, sore, nailed, dislocated, wrung
into unnatural positions.
12. Heart—fever, anguish, bursting, fainting, irre­
gular spasms.
V. The instruments of His Passion.
1. Ropes.
2. Gauntlet.
3. Scourges
4. Thorns.
5. Reed.
6. Spears to prick Him with in the Via Crucia
7. Hammer and nails.
VI. His five Blessed Senses—mixed bodily and mental
sufferings.
1. Hearing.
Blasphemy—denial—Mary’s sighs—awfulness of
the cries of a crowd.
2. Seeing.
Sin—Mother—instruments of Passion—absence
of apostles—wicked faces.
3. Smelling.
Odours of sin, which sickened the saints—corrup­
tion of Golgotha—the well on Thursday night
4. Tasting.
Gall, blood, mud, spittle, hunger, thirst.
5. Touching.
Scourge, thorns, nails, men’s rude hands.
VII. His death.
1. Not the gradual failing of power, so as to be
easy.
2. The horror of the position to die in.
3. The combined unity of all the pains mounting to
one head and crisis.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

179

4. The loud cry, so unlike Him.
5. It has been said that the greatest pain in the
passion was the act of death, because of the
inexplicably perfect union of His Body and
Soul.
Oh the tranquillity of the Dead Christ on Mary’s lap :
we breathe now, like men just saved from shipwreck,
after this roaring sea of horrors, which has stunned and
bewildered us, has gone in its great ebb far down the
beach. This is that sweet stillness round the tomb,
that fatigue in tranquil rest recovering its bruised heart
and scattered mind, which makes the peace of Holy
Saturday almost a dearer gift than the joy of Easter.

IV.
THE MENTAL SUFFERINGS.

The feelings of Jesus, when for the last time, whatever
day it was, He woke from sleep before His Passion.
I. The mystery of our Lord’s sleep.
1. Not suspending the use of reason, nor the capa­
bility of meriting.
2. Peopled with the prevision of His Passion.
3. Scantily taken through all the Three-and-thirty
Years.
4. Yet a real rest to His Sacred Humanity, the more
so from Hiss inlessness, and perfection of Body.
5. But His waking was not a gradual dawning on
Him when He cast off drowsiness ; clear as an

18ο

PART Π.

Asiatic landscape, defined as a Greek sea-view
lay His Passion close at hand.
IT. Mental sufferings.
1. Mind has much greater capabilities of suffering
than the body, in variety, acuteness, depth, so
that there is hardly any limit to mental suffering,
except physical death.
2. And by His divine power that limit in His own
case was miraculously thrust back.
3. In purgatory and hell the pains of sense are
incomparably below those of mind.
4. The way in which apprehension magnifies coming
evils, and is a more real suffering than the
actual endurance.
5. But who shall estimate rightly the capabilities of
His Soul and Heart, or the wonderful torture of
wounded feelings and violated sensibilities in
Him ?
III. The mental sufferings of the Passion considered
generally.
1. Fear. Intense pain of it. (1.) Foresight. (2.)
Faces of multitude. (3.) Their cries. (4.)
Being hated. (5.) Eternal Father. He was
like a hunted animal, yet was the great God
omnipotent.
2. Horror. (1.) Of the Passion. (2) From the
vision of sin. (3.) From the excesses of un­
appeased justice.
3. Feeling of defilement. (1.) Clothed in all sins.
(2.) Stuck close to Him. (3.) Burnt into His
Soul.
4. Shame, as if He would have hidden Himself in
nothingness ; Adam’s shame was nothing to His.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

181

5. Sadness for the lost, for all sinners, for all that
sin should make any of us suffer.
6. Compassion, for each and all of us in our lost
state. St. Bonaventure thinks His Compassion
was a greater suffering than His Passion, not
only for each soul lost, but for each pain of the
elect: it was co-extensive (1.) With the Blessed
Virgin Mary’s dolours. (2.) All martyrdoms.
(3.) All griefs. (4.) All voluntary austerities.
(5). All our own private sorrows and pains.
7. Love as it were barbed and poisoned every shaft
that stung Him.
IV. The Agony was the Crucifixion of His Soul, and
may be taken as a specimen of these Mental
Sufferings. Look at the process of the Agony,
and see how the pains took possession of His
Soul progressively for three interminable hours.
1. Fear, with its alarms, unsettlements, shadows,
panics, chills.
2. Disgust, as if it was all so loathsome that He
could not persevere.
3. Weariness, so that all power to make head
against the commonest sorrow was gone.
4. Drenching bitterness, so that He had no vicis­
situde, no relief of posture in His mind, no
refuge in Himself, no privacy in His own
Nature.
5. Fight in His Human Nature, the novelty of it,
and the vehemence.
6. Tightness, or narrowness, and anxiety, as if
He was pressed in some spiritual instrument
of torture.
7. Desolation, deep darkness, accumulation and

ι8ϊ

8.
9.

10.

11.
12.

V.

PART II.
acme of interior trials and anguishes, all void
and vast around Him, with nothing to lean
against.
Crushing oppression, as if all His faculties were
squeezed into one immense sort of suffering.
Exhaustion, such as would have made death
sweet, such a mixture of restlessness and the
loss of all power of exertion.
Rush of love into this wounded Nature, like
drenching a wound in spirit or in acid ; it was
like goads. St. Bernardine says that the alter­
nate charges of fear and love against each other,
and with all the power of His Soul, caused the
Bloody Sweat.
Loss of blood and consequent increase of all the
former mental tortures left a complete wreck.
Aggravating circumstances. (1.) Multiplicity of
the objects which distracted Him.
(2.) The
vehemence of the impressions they made on
His Soul ; angels could not have borne it. So
that His Will seemed to totter: one angel,
Michael or Gabriel, comes to comfort Him. If
Michael, can that be the Word for whom he
fought in heaven his grand battle ? if Gabriel,
he thinks of Mary on Annunciation night, the
same 2 5th March.
The revelations to Battista Varani are like an
insight into the character of our Lord, and His
personal feelings as Man ; this is their special
beauty.
1. First Dolour. From the view of those who
should be lost eternally: like dislocation of
limbs—the eternity of the separation, quel mai

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

183

mi cruciava : but as separate from Him, their
torments after death did not enter into this
woe.
Second Dolour. From the sins of the elect, and
all their pains, penances, persecutions, and
temptations. As if He had millions of eyes,
and each eye in the insupportable agony which
the eye can feel. As not separate from Him,
the pains of purgatory did enter into this woe.
Third Dolour. From His Mother’s sufferings.
This was the one alleviation, the only one He
did crave for, that His Mother should be
exempt from suffering. With filial tenderness
and many tears did He pray His Father for
this. It was like all His Passion a second
time on the crushed Soul and sore raw Body.
Fourth Dolour. From the grief of Magdalen.
Except His Mother, none grieved as she. He
had told John secrets which supported him.
John would have crucified Him himself to get
the good which, when leaning on his Master's
Bosom, he learned was to come from the Passion.
This upheld him : but Magdalen knew nothing
of tliis. Heaven and earth seemed gone to her;
as her glorious love was without order or
measure, so was her woe. This was why He
appeared to her at the Resurrection.
Fifth Dolour. From the dismay and desolation
of His Apostles and disciples. His grief in
His last sermon to them on Thursday night
SLxth Dolour. From the treachery of Judas,
after all He had done for him. “ When I bent
over to wash his feet, My long hair fell over

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PART II.

My face, and when I pressed his foot to My
mouth and kissed it, I bathed it a second time
with hot tears of love.”
7. Seventh Dolour. From the ingratitude of the
Jews. All the old history, and then, Crucify
Him, crucify Him ! That Thursday night long
centuries ago, the Exodus of the chosen people
from Egypt, and now the Exodus of all Humanity
through the dry bed of our Lord’s Soul out of
the darkness of the land of the shadow of death.
8. Eighth Dolour. The ingratitude of all creatures.
To each of us He has done what He did to
Judas, to each of us what He did for the Jews,
and yet we love Him as we do. B. Battista
*
Varani,
when she saw Him in such a “ hell
of amorous pains,” almost doubted His being
God : but rather the very excess of the love,
so far beyond either the reason or romance
of earthly love, might have shown her that
it could be God alone who could love in such
a way.

V.
THE SHAME.
Look at that figure in the streets of Jerusalem, the
unresisting Captive ; men are pulling His beard, spitting
in His face, and kicking Him, as if they were driving
some stupid ox to slaughter, while then as ever count• See Battista's postscriptum about devotion to interior and to
exterior pains, in the French life of her, p. 155

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185

leas angels, awe-smitten and in ecstasy with the beauty
of His holiness, are singing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
round His throne I
I. The Worship of the beautiful Incarnate Word.
1. In heaven, since the trial of the angels, and all
through the Three-and-thirty years.
2. The dignity of His Sacred Humanity, and the
inconceivable glory prepared for It.
3. It was both sun and moon to the whole enormous
heaven : one spark could lighten all the earth.
4. To Him belongs the right of judging all men ;
He has ere now judged the smiters and the
spitters.
5. To see Him is to be happy eternally: it needs
no more.
II. Phenomenon of contempt of God.
1. It is earth’s lowest depth of sin—the stupidity
of earth is necessary to it—hell is too intelligent
to have it.
2. It combines hatred and indifference about God
in one act.
3. It only comes out in great sinners ; and seems
to rise round saints, as if their exceeding holi­
ness drew it out of the most pestilential part of
our corruption.
4. In our degree we all misjudge God; it is the
grand grief of those who love Him.
5. Hell swallows up contempt in fear; contempt
is earth’s own peculiar affront to God.
HI. Contempts and insults and shame of the Thirtythree Years.
I. His poverty and obscurity and dwelling place.
Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?

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PART II.

2. His wisdom. Is a devil and is mad. (John iii.)
How doth this man know letters, having never
learned ? (John vii.) We know God spoke to
Moses, but as to this man we know not from
whence He is. (John ix. 29.)
3. His doctrine. Called a Samaritan and a heretic.
4. His power. His miracles were attributed to the
devil and to magic.
5. His innocence. Called (1.) A sinner. (2.) Glutton
and wine-bibber (Matt, xi.) (3.) Seducer of
the people (Luke xxiii.) (4.) Prevaricator of the
law. (5.) Blasphemer (John ix.)
IV. Shame and indignities of the Passion.
1. Words—the opprobrious acts doubtless not half
recorded.
2. Actions — blows, kicks, pulling hair, spitting,
mock homage, Ecce Homo.
3. Thoughts—cowardice, vile magician, stupid fool.
4. Manner — Annas, Caiphas, Herod, Pilate, all
others : death by crucifixion, thieves.
5. Circumstances—His triumph on Palm Sunday,
the feast and multitude.
6. From whom it all came—His Jews, those whom
He had fed and healed, those who had cried
Hosanna.
7. Sheer barbarities, hell-inspired blasphemies —
scene at Herod’s court.·
V. What was wounded by this shame.
I. His love—contempt is the hardest of all things
for love to bear—and then it was such love and
such contempt.
v. page 132.

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187

2. The gracefulness of His patience—He felt how
this aggravated their sin.
3. His honour and reputation—how nature feels
this, and His nature most of all, as being most
sensitive.
4. His venerable dignity—He had always been so
mature and grave, and unseemliness was torture
to Him.
5. His intellectual perceptions—of what was right,
and due to Him, and base in them.
6. His modesty—especially in the stripping, both
for the scourging and the crucifixion.
7. His holiness — by coarseness, rudeness, sin,
scurrility, blasphemy, insolence.
8. His Divine Majesty—who can tell the horror of
this to His Holy Soul ?
VI. The mystery of what shame was in His SouL
1. In us shame is chiefly the undue revelation of
our true selves, of that which we most wish to
keep concealed.
2. The intense suffering of shame.
(1) Its keen penetrativeness into every recess of
our nature.
Ç2) Its nervous raw feeling, becoming unbearable,
like touching the quick of a wound.
(3) The way in which it prostrates all our powers.
(4) It makes everything around us an instrument
of.suffering.
(5) It drives us from our kind, into a mental
solitude.
(6) It surrounds us with darkness, deluding,
puzzling, bewildering us.
(7) Its confusion is the painful death of all that

188

PART II.

is most sensitively alive within us. And
yet, for the most part, all this comes from
the laying bare of our true selves.
3. Its office.
(1) The shame of the Passion is dwelt up mi in
Scripture as an essential element in it
(2) Its presence in all holiness : all saints are in
their measure made by shame.
(3) What it was in His Soul we can only guess.
He doubtless had shame from many things
which we are too obtuse and coarse to
understand.
4. We may guess that in Him it was.
(1) A false imputation of what was not due to
Him, and the mere imputation of which
was suffering to His pure Soul.
(2) It was an accumulation of opprobrious and
vile and ludicrous positions in which He
was placed, which to His keen sensibilities
were inconceivably more so than they could
be to us.
(3) It was like the flaying alive of the unimagin­
able modesty of His Sacred Humanity.
(4) It was the glare of publicity, to shyness
which eyes looked through as if they were
swords.
(5) It came upon Him when weakened and
crushed by tortures both of mind and body.
(6) It was a violence to the tranquil depths of
His Humility, digging them deeper all the
while by its outrages.
(7) It was immensely heightened by the sense
of injustice.

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189

(8) Glory was aa it were the natural life and
repose of His Soul because of the Hypo­
static Union.
(9) His Divine Person may have been in this
respect a source of suffering to Hie Holy
Soul.
The shameful Way of the Cross, His Mother bathed
in shame : the blasts of the Roman trumpets in the
streets reminded Hirn, if He ever needed His self­
collection reminded, of the angelic trumpet of the Day
of Doom—that day when all creation, even its holiest
heights, shall be put to shame, and God’s lovely purity
gleam unspeakably bright above us, through the holy
Soul of our dearest Lord and Judge.

VI.

OUTWARD DEMEANOUR AND INWARD
DISPOSITIONS.

The rough men of sequestered Nazareth, when they
were sad, used to say, “ Let us go and see Mary’s Son ! ’’
This was revealed by our Lady to St. Bridget. We
have treated of the bodily sufferings and mental
sufferings, and the shame ; now all these three things
affect outward demeanour and inward dispositions : we
must bear those three chapters in mind now, and see
how He bore up under them.
I. The external beauty of our Lord.
I. Everything about Jesus was full of living grace:
nothing was merely exterior.

PART Π.
2. His beauty and venerable appearance, breeding
holiness, yet attracting sinners.
3. If was the reflection of His holiness, and even
the working of His Divine Nature.
4. This beauty was part of Mary’s love of Him.
5. It is part of the joy of heaven at this hour.
6. How it added to the pathos of the Passion amid
those harsh voices and dreadful faces.
7. While it was defaced, it still remained venerable
and attractive as a spell.
II. His manner during the Passion.
I. His unselfishness, and unobtrusive considerateness,
as, Let these go their way ; also His words on the
cross.
2 Voluntary obedience, as in the garden when men
fell before Him.
3. Kind words, and grave pitful tone of voice, never
changed or quickened or heightened.
4. His look under the worst indignities was full of
mild forgiving sorrow.
5. The beauty of His patience was so imperturbable
and winning.
6. His silence was the more wonderful because of
His eloquence, and His exquisite sense of in­
justice, which last so rouses our nature, even in
reading history.
7. Yet He was neither stunned nor stupefied, but col­
lected, sensitive, attentive, observant, prompt to
the last. And all this with such natural grace that
we hardly come to think of it until we meditate.
ΠΙ. His demeanour to those who came near Him.
I. To St. Peter—in the supper room—when sleeping
—after the denial—then, as if He carried His

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191

loving thoughtfulness unbroken through cross,
and death, and limbus, and resurrection, He says,
Go and tell Peter.
2. To St. John—on His bosom at supper—in the
garden—at the foot of the cross.
3. Judas—making three attempts to soften him, one
in the supper room, eating out of the same dish ;
yet the others were not surprised; this shows how
usual this courtesy was.
4. Jews—He wept over the city from the hilltop—
in the garden His gentleness—women in Via
Crucis—no reproach—no anger at the cry of
crucifige—prayer on the cross.
5. Pilate—sent his wife to Him—admission of less
*
fault.
6. Herod—His silence with the excommunicated
sinner—His dignity overawing any but a brutal
mind, combined with the sweetness of childlike
unresisting humility.
7. The thief—sweet words—instant forgiveness.
8. His mother—in the Via Crucis—on the cross—
with less sweetness, as if He were in full
intelligence with her, and treated her on a sort
of equality.
9. To us—with our sins and waywardness—His
thought for all—His Sacred Heart almost
smiling on us with encouragement and welcome
through the dun eclipse on Calvary.
IV. The inward beauty of our Lord.
I. Interior beauty compared to exterior—not the
natural gifts of all angels are equal to one poor
soul in the lowest state of grace.
•John xix. 11.

192

PART II.

2. Not all saints and angels are equal to Mary, nor
countless Maries to the soul of Jesus.
3. Wherein it consisted—union with God—merits
acquired — sublimity of dispositions — their
intensity.
4. All this was heightened by the illumination of
His faculties, the capacity of His affections, the
order of His appetites, and the serenity of His
sensitive nature.
5. Then there was the glory of His Divinity which
was shed so sweetly, softly, fittingly over all:
the point of contact of His two Natures, riveted
together, yet unconfused ; this union, or junction,
is itself the most unsurpassed of all created
beauties.
6. To us all this is more beautiful, because it is for us.
V. His interior dispositions.
1. The most unbroken peace.
2. Unspeakable conformity of will with the Father.
3. Inconceivable horror of sin.
4. Incomparable tenderness and allowance to sinners.
5. Undistracted love of each one of us.
6. The royalty of His spirit of sacrifice: restraint
of consolation, &c.
7. His thirst for suffering.
8. The keen presence of every natural human feel­
ing: no insensibility, nor loss of humanness
such as perhaps some saints had.
9. His intense adoration of the justice and sanctity
of God.
0 my beautiful Lord ! Like the moon on wild
nights, the clouds of Thy Passion crowded round Thee,
and Thou movedst on in Thy heavenly gentleness,

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193

softening and silvering all things around, so that Thou
art still concealing what Thou hast done for us, Thy
very beauty making Thy Passion seem less a Passion
than it really was I

VII.

THE SOLITARINESS.
In the vastness and crowdedness of Creation there
is something overwhelming in the Unity of God.—
The Trinity seems to save the solitude of the Unity—
so also in the haunted darkness and wild clamours of
the Passion, it is terrible to think of the loneliness of
Jesus, the one Mediator between God and man.
I. Solitude :—the solitary saints are the fewest in
number—the most unknown—have the highest
vocation.
1. How it ties our nature down to its deepest depths
and brings up strange things.
2. Impossibility of not leaning on things to love,
and in this life on created things.
3. Desertion and estrangement are hard to bear,
because of the loneliness they bring.
4. The solitude of being misunderstood, and being
out of sympathy with those around.
5. The loss of friends desolating and diminishing
our circle—leaving fewer to love us, fewer for
us to lova
6. Old age is a kind of solitude—only insensibility
tempers it, and God is perhaps more with us.
7. Sickness is a drawing of us into still farther
solitude—yet kind ministries are round.
vol. I.

*

»94

PART Π.

8. Death is a very lonely action—yet we have
priest and sacraments and a personal visit from
our Lord.
9. Judgment is swift, but fearfully lonely, yet even
there is our Guardian Angel, and the Human
Heart of our Judge.
II. The outward Solitude of the Passion.
1. His Mother absent during part of the Passion.
2. His disciple whom He loved was gone.
3. Of those whom He had fed and healed not one
came nigh Him.
4. The usual kindlinesses shown to the worst
criminals were not shown to Him.
5. In all the steps of His Passion He was alone, in
the garden, well, guard-room, Herod’s court,
streets.
6. The solitude of His silence—no one to speak to :
except the women of Jerusalem.
7. The angels seemed withdrawn—at least so far
as their presence comforted Him.
HI. The inward Solitude.
1. None could appreciate His horror of sin, nor the
multitude of sins He had to bear.
2. None could understand His pains, not even His
Mother.
3. Where the eye looked for consolation, there was
aggravation, in Mary, John, and the Apostles.
4. Accumulation of the burden on Him alone.
5. The abysses He saw before Him of (1) the divine
anger—if one sin deserved hell, what must all
the sins of the world have deserved ? And it
was just that which He suffered. (2) Hungry
justice—(3) breathless suffering :—these were

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all like so many huge unpeopled creations which
He had to traverse alone.
6. His Human Nature as it were deserted by His
Divine ; the torture of this, as if Hypostatic
Union was going to be broken.
7. Thus left, It was beset with the usual assailants,
fear, sadness, wish to escape, fainting, all the
wild beasts of our own terrors let loose on His
exhausted strength.
IV. The presences which deepened His solitude.
1. The angel comforting Him, as lightning deepens
the night ; it also showed that the solitude was
intolerable, one ray of light had to break in.
2. Mary: her Immaculate Conception was to be
paid for then.
3. John, whom He so intensely loved.
4. The crowd, which always intensifies solitude.
He had stilled the stormy lake, but as He looked
over the wild sea of stormy heads, He was silent
and alone ; His power lay by His side like a
paralysed arm, unnoticed or restrained.
5. The external hurry of being dragged about from
place to place.
6. The distractions of trials and questions, each
making His loneliness more painfully sensible :
distracted loneliness is peculiarly painful.
7. A raining tempest of momentarily diversified
physical sufferings, attempting to dislodge His
self-collection.
V. The Dereliction of the Father.
1. Fearfulness of spiritual trials, evidenced by the
writhings of manly souls uuder them.
2. Horror of even great saints at the temporary

îç6

PART II.

hidings of God’s countenance, which they can
hardly bear. God justified even Job for his
words.
3. Usually solitude from creatures brings to us a
more intimate presence of God.
4. No interior trials were like those of the Soul of
Jesus, because no soul had so enjoyed His
presence, and none probably was ever left in
an abandonment so nearly total, or so complete.
5. The Father abandons Him: we have no line to
fathom this depth of the Passion : as if the
Unity of the Trinity were going to break up ;
creation opened under Him, and He sank, oh
horror ! He cried out piteously, and that moment
the angelic songs were all thrilled into mute
amazement ! it was as if He were slipping out
of creation—the Creator losing Himself in the
depths of a Created Nature, as if He had trusted
Himself to a spell, and was now spellbound, and
could not help Himself.
Let us turn away, or we shall go wild. Look at
Him on His lonely Cross : He hangs there as it were
till the end of the world : but men fall off from the
crucifix, like a crowd at a fair tired of some exciting
show : all are busy, in the fields, or on the roads, or
keeping the feast at home, or clustered like Sunday
idlers at the city gates. Jesus is left upon His mount
alone 1

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'97

VIII.
THE CIRCLE OF EVIL

These who have a devotion to the Passion must to
some extent share in it, especially in its want of repose,
and in the irritating presence of repulsive horrors and
violent images. We must beware of false delicacies in
this respect.
I. The presence and overshadowing of evil
1. The keen and various suffering which it is to us
increasing with our holiness.
2. The fear which great sinners, murderers, and even
drunkards, inspire into men.
3. The acute torture of coarseness and vulgarity to
extreme sensitiveness.
4. Dread of extreme cruelty joined with great power.
5. Horror of lawlessness; multitudinous clamour,
when justice and fairness seem unrealities, or
out of reach.
6. The loathsome presence of the wicked in hell is
one of its most exceeding tortures to the wicked
even.
7. What all this was to the sensitive and holy Soul
of our Blessed Lord.
II. The representative wickedness of all ages gathered
round Him.
1. The High Priests—falsehood, injustice, rage,
conspiracy, hypocrisy.
2. Herod—loathsome sin, sensual brutality, rude
blasphemy, daring to tempt to miracles, the base
violent pride of mere overbearing power.

PART II.
3. Pilate—the cruelty of weakness, contempt of
worldly indifference, paltering with conscience,
which was sacrificed to love of popularity.
4. The Jews—possessed, surges of howling passion,
natures transfigured, irresponsible fury.
5. The Roman soldiers—debauched ruffians, offscouring of all nations, sinful hands, stench of sin.
6. Even women :—as the one who made Peter fall :
children are not named—perhaps they kept to
their Hosannas : children crying after Him
would indeed be earth’s rejection of Him.
7. Judas :—treachery, avarice, hardness of heart,
stupidity in not seeing beauty and truth, con­
tempt of great graces, personal dislike of the
Saviour, despair, which rightly considered is a
sort of personal dislike of God.
8. Impenitent thief :—low base sin, vulgarity and
meanness consummated in impenitence close to
our Blessed Lord’s dying bed, so that He is
almost in contact with the damned.
9. Invisible legions of evil spirits—each of whose
history, and the horrible interior foulness of
whose spirit, during a long and crowded bio­
graphy of thousands of years, were known to
Him—an agony of desolation to His Soul,
which was shaken to its centre.
10. And where was the good ? It had fled, forsaken,
denied Him, was ashamed of Him, doubted Him,
as at Emmaus the disciples did, or at best
followed Him afar off. There was no fidelity
anywhere but in His Mother, and she drew
John after her to represent us all beneath His
Cross, and have His last breath which was to

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199

be our new life, breathed upon us in the person
of that dear Apostle.
III. The Creator’s visit to His creatures.
1. He comes with His eternal love, laden with gifts,
and beautiful exceedingly.
2. The holy intelligent stupor of the angelic
creation.
3. He comes with a created nature on Him, and
that nature is man’s.
4. With what love will they not receive Him ? for
they are captives, sick, hungry, thirsty, naked,
cold, homeless, condemned criminals—runaway
slaves with inevitable arrest before them—and
He is all to them.
5. The understandings of men not only cannot
understand Him, but so misunderstand Him
that they have a plain view that He is mad.
6. Their wills are so corrupt that eternal freshness,
beauty, and truth are to them tiresome, ugly,
and unpersuasive.
7. All that is most divine about Him, viz., His
doctrine, patience, absolution, miracles, and
Divinity itself, is just what is most repulsive
and hateful to them.
IV. The phenomenon considered.
1. He had doubtless mysterious reasons for choosing
that time and place.
2. His presence drew out the evil by some hidden
law, as good always seems to do.
3. Every nation and blood was perhaps represented
there.
4. The world may possibly have been less wicked
since, just as Satan has been more bound.

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PART II.

5. Satan bad now found out the Incarnation, and it
was the great battle, greater than St. Michael’s
of old.
6. The extremity of iniquity hunted and brought to
bay the extremity of holiness as its prey. Oh,
how men hunt in packs like winter wolves !
7. Human nature, around the Sinless Humanities
of Jesus and Mary, became half devil and half
beast, and was the fittest of all natures, because
of its double capability of spiritual and material
wickedness, for the awful insurrection of matter
and spirit combined against the Incarnate
Creator.
V.
The Creator in the power of His creatures.
1. The ring of evil drawn closely round Him in one
city in four-and-twenty hours.
2. It was made up of, (1) rage, (2) hatred, (3) scorn,
(4) indifference, (5) disgust, (6) weariness,
(7) petty spite, (8) political jealousy, (9) foreign
disdain, (God a foreigner!) (10) national fac­
tion, (11) persecution of false doctrine, (12) un­
reasoning cruelty, (13) malicious cruelty, (14)
inventive cruelty, (15) imitative cruelty.
3. And all this was at once triumphant, and outbursting in barbarities and indignities, which
one human life could not have had concentrated
in itself without the aid of omnipotence.
4. The phenomena are inexplicable except on the
supposition of the heights of human guilt being
topped, and its energies reinforced, by the awful­
ness of demoniacal possession. This makes the
Passion part of the sin of the angels.
5. The tempest is at its height in the streets of

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201

Jerusalem—awful end of creation, the creatures
triumphant, crowding in on their Creator, tread­
ing on His heels ; God is in their power, and the
wickedness of all generations is charging down
upon Him, to trample Him beneath their feet:
they will pull Him down as if to worry Him.
6. God’s ordinary control over corruption is appa­
rently withdrawn : awful unboundedness of the
freedom of sinful wills.
7. In the midst, almost trampled out of existence,
was a young man of three-and-thirty, well nigh
disfigured out of human shape, staggering under
a cruel instrument of punishment, and falling
with a dull sound upon the street, and a weak
woman, the victim’s heart-broken mother, flung
almost under the feet of the mob and the hoof
of the centurion’s horse, with her blue mantle
stained with mud. That young Man was God !
Has not evil won the battle ? Is there one hope
left of triumph for eternal love ?

IX.

HIS DIVINITY IN THE PASSION.

Listen ! the noise of frantic Jerusalem has died away,
or sounds faint and far off: and there are the soft
strains of celestial music with calmest rapture and
most penetrating melodies winding around the throne
of the Eternal Word, and dying down into pauses of
the most profound and restful silence.

PART II.
Devotions to the Incarnation, and especially to the
Passion, require a constant remembrance of our
Lord’s Divinity.
1. He is Himself that Eccc Homo, the Everlasting
God, in all things equal to the Father and the
Holy Ghost, no faintest shadow of subordination
falling on the measureless waters of His Divine
Nature.
2. His Person is the Second Person of the Most
Holy Trinity, and so the truth, beauty, and
wisdom of the Father.
3. His Advent and Passion are equally the act of
all the Three Divine Persons.
4. It was His own free will to come, and to be sent
by the Father, and to rejoice in His Mission,
which in no way encroached on His Equality.
5. No created holiness, singly or collectively, could
have merited His coming.
6. It need not have been with such profusion of
suffering and shame ; that was His choice with
a view to our enthusiasm, loyalty and love—and
perhaps, for other mysterious reasons, to slake
the celestial thirsts of His dear Human Nature.
7. His Sacred Humanity claims fullest divinest
worship, because of its union with His Person
and Divine Nature.
II. How this affects all the mysteries of Jesus.
I. It even seems to make them more human : as
His own Creator, He understands His own
created nature, and like one skilled in a perfect
but difficult instrument, draws out new and
enchanting sounds, in marvellous entrancing
combinations.

I.

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203

2. It gives an unerring beauty to all He said and
did ; everything is a model, a type, an ideal.
3. It throws a tenderness over all His mysteries,
like the revealed love of the Father, not like
any thin human love.
4. But especially it gives the uttermost pathos to
the Passion.
5· It is the only true basis for our real intelligent
horror of Sin, which must always be measured
not by the weakness of our nature, but by the
Divinity of Him who made the expiation.
6. It alone gives a light strong enough to reveal
the depths of His love for us.
7. It alone can nourish to its gigantic proportions
our love of Him by infallibly persuading us of
the immensity of the value which He sets upon
our love.
III. What His Divinity conferred in the Passion.
1. His omnipotence enabled Him to live to suffer
more.
2. His wisdom enabled Him to penetrate the revolt­
ing abominations of sin.
3. By it He could fathom the anger of the Father,
and know what it meant to have an angry God,
and how beautiful is the imperturbable dread
glory of anger in the Divine Nature.
4. By it He could pierce the darkness of hell, and
estimate sin’s punishments.
5. By it He could foresee the comparatively few
who would appreciate His Precious Blood, the
low esteem of It in those who should love Him
best, and the almost forgetfulness of those
whom It would save.

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PART II.

6. By it He was enabled to feel all the torments
there and then unconfused ly, and with indescrib­
able reality and vividness, both His own and
those of His elect.
7. It flooded His lower nature with a light, in which
it grew unspeakably refined and sensitive, and
which made shame an unspeakable stabbing,
sharp, deep, fiery, to a quick which other men
have not.
IV. What His Divinity withheld.
1. It withheld the joy-bringing effects of the Beatific
Vision from His sensitive nature ; and probably
also restrained His intellectual nature from
comforting and illuminating and restoring His
sensitive nature, at least to some degree.
2. It froze up all the joys of the human Nature,
except the point of the Soul, where the Vision
was.
3. It did not alleviate one single pain, or make it
less intolerable.
4. Neither did it console one single mental agony.
5. It did not let loose its omnipotence, which, seeing
how it loved the suffering nature with which it
was so intimately united, was a sort of constraint
and loss of liberty.
6. It doubtless withheld other mysterious influxes
of which we know nothing, but which had to do
with the living communion of the two blessed
Natures.
V. The use of His Divinity in the Passion, so far as it
regarded ourselves.
I. By it we know that we are separately and dis­
tinctly before Him in all that Passion.

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205

2. It teaches us not to shrink in thought, as it did
not shrink in fact, from the distressing horrors
of the Passion, as modern weak faith and fas­
tidiousness are fain to do. Oh, if it rends our
body and soul asunder, let us not be so irreverent
as to shrink from fathoming the terrible things
into which and through which we ourselves
actually thrust Him.
3. His Divinity teaches us that love alone can repay
Him, for love alone approximates to the infinite.
4. It intensifies our spirit of adoration.
5. It tries, stretches, invigorates, and gives new
capabilities to our faith, like exercise and moun­
tain climbing to the muscles.
6· It discloses in all its real grandeur the copious­
ness of our redemption, each of those countless
pains being simply infinite expiations.
7. It shows us that part of our own deification
must be imitation of the Passion, nay, more
than imitation, even true participation in it.
Oh then let us kneel down before the Divine Nature
of the Eternal Word, and feel our thoughts and ima­
ginations travelling away far beyond our reach, and
the fires of love burning with unconsuming heat our
holiest affections, and the deep, deep spirit of dreadest
speechless adoration taking possession with its calm
strength of our soul and flesh, and let us so love that
illimitable Nature in its pale, bleeding, disfigured,
crucified tabernacle, that we shall cease to pine on earth
for heaven, because earth contains what we most desire
in heaven : for Calvary is changed to Tabor, because
of the Divinity of Him who with sweet tones like His
Mother’s is speaking His beautiful words upon the Cross.

2o6

PART II.
X.

THE SPECTATORS OF THE PASSION.

Around that marvellous mystery were gathered such
spectators ! The whole universe was there to see ; the
angelic creation ; past generations whose eyes had been
fixed upon it, and were now in limbus, purgatory, or
hell ; and all generations to come ; probably repre­
sentatives of all peoples were actually on the spot;
and more than that, the Uncreated, God Himself, was
there to witness.
I. It was a trial—
1. Which decided the greatest interests.
2. Which exhibited the highest sublimities.
3. Whose effects were to be for ever.
4. Which wedded temporal and eternal as never
had been done before, and up to the limits of
what is possible.
5. Which involved the deepest and most numerous
mysteries.
6. Which resolved more of God’s secrets.
7. Which was more wonderful than even the sur­
passing pomp of the world’s last day.
II. The Spectators : what they saw, and how it looked
to them.
I. God.
(1) The beautiful accomplishment of eternal
decrees.
(2) The exhibition of the most surpassing ex­
cellence of created sanctity.
(3) The completest worship which ever satiated
His hungry glory.

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THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

207

(4) The greatest event in the history of creation.
(5) The furthest stretch of love out of Himself.
Oh what a mystery that it could not increase
His love of the Eternal Word, already im­
mutable in its Uncreated Excess !
2. Mary.
(1) She so penetrated each horror, that even the
prevision of it had taken nothing out of it.
(2) She saw each as the price of her own graces.
(3) She saw the redeemed Church in dusky
shadowy magnificence rising like a grand
and endless procession out of the tumult of
noise and blood and shame.
(4) Her heart was in completest union—1. With
her Son. 2. With the Saviour. 3. With
her own martyrdom. 4. With sinners. 5.
With the Apostles. 6. With the Eternal
Father.
(5) Even to her it was like a new revelation of
her Son’s beauty and sanctity.
3. Angels.
(1) A fountain of heavenly amazement, which
they looked into with intense desire, yet
which even their vast intelligences could
not fathom.
(2) It gave a new character to their devotion.
(3) Their having to be neutral, being bidden to
stand back.
(4) It seemed a new disclosure of God to them,
far more than the mere foresight of it
could be.
(5) It taught them in a more excellent way the
science of loving men.

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PART II.

4. The Apostles and Disciples.
(1) It stunned and overwhelmed them.
(2) They were simply supported by their Master’s
prayer and their Queen’s example.
(3) It explained to them so much of the past.
(4) Their faith in His Divinity took root in all
this shame.
(5) They, like the angels, began to learn the true
science of loving men—instinct for souls:
souls were in the world of the Passion what
bodies and hearts are in the common world.
5. Evil Spirits.
(1) A terrible bewildering amazement.
(2) An intensification of their misery.
(3) A piercing fear which loosened and made
faint all the compactness of their strength.
(4) An excitement of their rage and envy against
men : increased fury as fighting a losing
battle.
(5) Yet an actual diminution of their power.
6. The Jews.
(1) Everything indistinguishable in the first fury
of their possession.
(2) A source of aching misgivings when excitement
evaporated.
(3) A national shame, and a corporate sin not to
be retracted.
(4) The end of their history in a second Exodus,
when they would not cross : Titus was only
wanted to burn up the ruins.
(5) Yet a curse, and a living energetic stigma,
which they had evoked like a spirit out
of its awful depths—they branded them­

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

Î09

selves with the Precious Blood like Cains,
and the world watches them.
7. Gentiles.
(1) It lay before them like the great sea before an
idiot, an unmeaning commonplace expanse.
(2) Not of more consequence than to be the talk
of the guard-room for a day or so.
(3) It was their first actual contact with God
since the Fall or the Flood.
(4) The Roman empire really the servant and
lacquey of the Passion.
(5) It transferred to the Gentiles the divine
empire of the world.
8. The rest of the world at the time.
(1) A piece of news flying without much excite­
ment along the Roman roads.
(2) In some places combined with various
frightening phenomena of nature.
(3) Like God’s great works generally, it did not
disturb the ordinary current of affairs.
(4) Yet there was not a nation there, whose
future light was not to rise out of that
darkness.
(5) For each one apart, and with diversified
special application, that Passion is suffered.
9. Subsequent generations.
(1) A perfect revolution of ideas: strength of
weakness, wisdom of folly, glory of shame,
&c.
(2) New standards of moral excellence, forgive­
ness, patience, silence, &c.
(3) The deep imbedding of the supernatural in
the natural.

von. i

PART Π.
(4) The irresistible mould of their future litera­
ture, history, art, law, and even falsehoods.
(5) At once the creator and the destroyer of their
successive civilisations.
10. Ourselves.
(1) The deep in which to drown our past lives.
(2) The buoyant waters of the harbour where our
present rides at anchor securely.
(3) Out of which all hopes and successes for the
future are to come.
(4) Its shores are our sole terrestrial home in
the life of grace, exiled from which we pine
and die.
(5) The literal Red Sea through which must be
our Exodus to our eternal home
III. Let us look again.
1. There is no tranquillity anywhere but in Jesus
and Mary.
2. Hurry, precipitation, noise, frenzy, mental dark­
ness, moral delirium—no one thinks or sees
what it all means, but He and she.
3. Oh the unsuspicious impetuosity with which men
accomplish God’s decrees for Him.
4. Jesus still beautiful in His patience, venerable
in His sufferings, though sunk almost out of
sight in the depths of woe.
5. The quietness which follows round Calvary, the
new Sabbath after this second terrible creation
of the world. The second Adam has been the
Creator, and He lies cold and still in His
desolate garden, and the dark night falls on the
second Eve, driven with her broken heart in
that desolate wilderness of the cruel city.

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211

The green hill of Calvary—all the ages of the world
beat at its foot, and fling their surge over its base;
the ages before our Lord flooded darkly up, and sank
back, rolling the stones down the beach with hoarse
murmur, like the vain efforts of an ebbing tide. High
above all civilisations rises the green hill, with the sun
upon its sides, and the beacon of the crucifix, far-seen
and radiant, and in the dark night giving out unobscured
light—it is the sole harbour of tempest-tossed humanity,
its sole safe anchorage, where anchors never drag, and
the rolling billows fall back from its base, as if tamed
on the instant by a spell !

XL
THE SHADOWS OF CALVARY.

It is more hard to think of God within us than of God
without us, yet it is the best way of practising His
Presence : so it is hard to think of the Passion, not as
an historical fact or a mystery accomplished, but as a
living surviving thing, a power, a presence, a divine
energy ; yet this last is the true view of it.
I. The Passion living on in the Church.
1. Really in the Mass, which is the continuation or
renewal of the same sacrifice on ten thousand
altars daily ; and thus the abiding presence in
the tabernacle is through the continuation and
memory of the Passion.
2. In the sacraments, whose living efficacy in each
case is the application of the Passion to the
soul.

PART 11.
3. Martyrdoms are deep real shadows, nay, true
participations of it.
4. All the sufferings of the elect are sanctified and
made meritorious by the shadow of the Passion.
5. All the spiritual realities of inward and outward
mortification shadow forth the Passion, and they
are innumerable daily.
6. The shadow of the Passion on men and things is
the badge of Christ’s ownership.
7. The hearts of the saints, like sea-shells, murmur
of the Passion evermore.
II.
The Passion an attraction.
1. Our Lord’s prophecy that it should be so; If I
be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all
things to Myself.
2. Its attraction to sinners from the plentifulness of
its redemption.
3. To those who are simply world-wearied, like the
restful darkness of the welcome night.
4. To those who love God and are aiming at per­
fection.
5. Even to little children, who as yet hardly under­
stand sin.
6. It satisfies the doubts and cravings of all hearts
by reassuring them.
7. There is something quite supernatural in this
attraction over and above the beauty of the
mysteries.
III. The Passion in the active life.
1. The grand fountain of unworldliness, and super­
natural principles.
2. The daily works of mercy endlessly flowing out
of it. all over the Church.

THE SACKED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

213

3. Holy Week a sort of universal retreat to the
whole world ; one use of the functions is to
make it unlike all other times.
4. The stimulus of missionaries, and the converting
persuasion of nations and sinners.
5. Power of endurance of the calamities of life.
6. Excessive sweetness and mutual forbearance all
over society.
7. The constant occupation of the mind of Chris­
tendom.
IV. The Passion in the contemplative life.
1. With most contemplative orders the Passion is
the chief thing, and expiation the basis : some
are founded on the Passion.
2. Individual contemplative souls are brought by
attrait into some peculiar relation to the
Passion.
3. The way in which it out-tops with them all other
mysteries.
4. How it fixes the gaze of the contemplative
soul.
5. It becomes at last a kind of sacred possession.
6. It is lifelong, and runs the year round, deepen­
ing in Passiontide.
7. Its process is firstly compassion, then imitation,
then actual participation in the Passion.
V. The Passion working inward similitude.
1. The spirit of sacrifice and expiation.
2. Love of suffering independent of the idea of
expiation : thirst for it increasing with the
amount of it.
3. Supernatural horror and sadness, because of the
sins of others.

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PART II.

4. Efficacious desire to expiate the sins of others
thus passing beyond the sins of self.
5. Suffering in silence, and abandoning with un­
earthly discretion all self-defence.
6. Inward trials distantly resembling our Lord’s
with mysterious operations of grace in the
soul, mixed up of deep joy and intense
suffering.
7. Transformation of the whole man, intellect and
will, who views and feels towards all things as
He did then: the world gone out of sight,
hardly realisable even to the imagination—in
strange thick oblivion, so that the powers of
thought canuot advance in that direction.
VI. The Passion working outward similitude.
1. Revelations: constant increase of knowledge
poured into the Church through contempla­
tives.
2. Visions, both intellectual and imaginary; hardly
a saint is without them.
3. Pilgrimages either outward like St. Bridget’s,
or inward like St. Lidwine’s.
4. Inwardly feeling the actual pains of the different
mysteries, sometimes of the whole Passion
successively.
5. Stigmatisation—partial—complete—visible—in­
visible—gradual—instantaneous—transient—
perpetual—recurring.
6. Postures of body, acting out in ecstasy a real
drama of the Passion, called Mystical Sta­
tions.
7. Supernatural states, having reference to the
Passion—either habitual, or in sympathy with

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215

the Christian calendar; even martyrdoms of
saints shine forth through other souls.·
VII. Conclusion of all this.
1. The greatness of the Passion, and so the duty of
steadfastly contemplating it all.
2. Its ever-living power, fresh as the first day and
multitudinously reduplicated.
3. The mysterious way in which it works in soul
and body, like plants and flowers shaping,
colouring, and scenting themselves by hidden
chemistry.
4. How Jesus clings to it, thus renewing it in the
mass and the saints, and keeping His Five
Wounds in heaven.
5. How it is a great deep world underlying all
common holiness, which is overarched above it,
with saints perpetually working through it, and
all perhaps doing so in their death agonies.
6. It is not therefore an historical fact done and
over.
7. It is a perfectly furnished world, with creatures
of its own, and a way of life, and standards of
practice, and ideals of beauty, quite unearthly,
not formed on earth’s life, but as if creatures
and life of some other planet.
Thus everywhere is the vast Church resounding
with the Passion ; over its rich and populous lowlands
lies for ever the Shadow of Mount Calvary, and all
things good grow beneath its cool defence : in its
highest mountains its mystical echoes sound strangely,
from noon to midnight, and from midnight back to
noon, fearful and beautiful for us dwellers on the plain
• Gorres, Mystik. 1. iv. c. 20.

2i6

PART II.

to hear, while its rivers that wind everywhere amid
the close woods and peaceful fields, and through great
cities, bring down the plentiful Blood that was shed on
Calvary, from altars where the real Sacrifice, the very
Calvary, is transfiguring earth with its transcendent
truthfulness in the daily mass ; so that our sights and
sounds, the supernatural odours on our river banks,
what we touch and taste, and feed upon, feeding with
mouth no less truly than with mind, is all from Calvary
where those rivers rise—and the mouths of those rivers
are the harbours of eternity !

XII.

THE ABYSS.
0 Tabor ! Calvary is far better than thou art, for all
thou didst catch such a flush of glory once from the
open heavens. It is far better to be with John on Cal­
vary than with our great father St. Peter upon Tabor ;
and Peter thinks so too now, and thought so upon
his inverted cross at Rome, when he found his Calvary
so near the Vatican. But now is the great three hours
on Calvary.
I. The Seven Words. St. John’s word about silence
in heaven for half an hour: so now is there
silence and a beautiful darkening of the world
in the hearts of millions of God’s creatures.
The whole Church is as it were gathered on the
top of the platform of Calvary, to receive into
its heart the last words of its dying Lord.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

217

1. First word. Father ! forgive them, for they know
not what they do. Its circumstances. Eleva­
tion of the cross, blast of trumpets from the
temple below, insults, many minutes as if dead,
then the voice of the Creator heard.
(1) The beauty of its being the first thought.
(2) It sums up all the Passion—He breaks the
silence in behalf of sinners.
(3) The power of that word going on to this very
day.
2. Second word. Amen, I say to thee, This day
thou shalt be with Me in Paradise. Dismas
and Gesmas, the two thieves—darkness grows
—birds and beasts hushed by the eclipse—men
whispered only—Mary prayed for the thief—
then came the word of the Incarnate Word.
(1) No single soul was forgotten in the multi­
tude; but the thief was a happy type of
multitudinous souls.
(2) Exulting abundance of omnipotent grace,
going beyond the thief.
(3) Oh I when we come to die how that word
will make music in our ears.
3. Third word. Woman, behold thy son ;—behold
thy Mother. Not Me, but thy new son—He
looks at her, as if to thank her for her prayer
for Dismas—the whole history of the world in
His look, and oh ! the love of it.
(x) This is her second Annunciation.
*
(2) How He sanctifies thereby the holy solici­
tudes of domestic love.
• v. Foot of the Ci'O»·, p. 302—(in the Fourth Edition, p 32X.)

218

PART II.
(3) The grandeur and sweetness of the legacy He
left us.
4. Fourth word. My God ! My God ! why hast
Thou forsaken Me ? There is trouble in the
city—He is like God in the cloud of Sinai.
(1) He has given away His Mother: now His
Heavenly Father leaves Him.
(2) Momentary revelation of the depth to which
our sins had sunk Him.
(3) Yet He will approach His Father rather than
us: not one word against us was wrung
from Him.
5. Fifth word. I thirst. Light glimmers—His
whiteness red-streaked—His voice beautiful,
but faint.
(1) Revelation of His true Human Nature.
(2) He thirsts for more suffering.
(3) He thirsts for more souls, and is disappointed
with the scanty draught ; so few, and those
so ungenerous.
6. Sixth word. It is finished. Vinegar and gall
—the sweat—St. John wipes His feet—coming
of death—voice very faint.
(1) We repay His love with vinegar and gall,
and thus our malice is finished.
(2) The work His Father gave Him is finished ;
think of’Him in the temple at twelve years
old.
(3) Our redemption is finished : oh ! the joy of
this as in His Sacred Heart He saw each
one of us.
7. Seventh word. Father, into Thy hands I com­
mend My Spirit. Silence—His Wounds grow

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

219

red—He lifts His weary head—earth quakes,
rocks are rent, air is darkened, and in the midst
of all that the great God’s loud cry.
(1) He is going home—it is to His Father—so
creation after all is no home for the Creator ;
yes, there is still the Blessed Sacrament.
(2) He is the more homeless, as He has just
given His Mother away to us.
(3) The model of deathbeds: trust in God is the
last of all things, and the whole of all things.
II. Death is drawing nigh; watch
1. The fountain of salvation bleeding away in
human blood.
2. The eternal ending, Life unbeginning succumbing
now to death.
3. Omnipotence engulfed in the weakness of the
last faint of mortality.
4. The King of kings the slave, with all men and
all things for His rightful owners.
5. The Creator held to die by His creatures, by nails
through Hands and Feet.
6. The perfection of beautiful love pressed and tor­
tured to death by unmitigated diversified hatred.
7. The All-holy indistinguishably confounded among
sinners—it is hard to identify Him.
III. Death lays hands upon Him.
1. Creation is first silent, then broken up; its
material horror ; what was it among angels in
the depths of their intelligences ?
2. Angels are withheld, yet their forms are gleam­
ing like bristling silver as they lean eagerly out
of the gloom towards the cross ; but the dead
burst out of their tombs.

PART II.
3. God—all signs of Him are absolutely invisible;
the world was never so left to itself.
4. The sweet patience and excessive love of
Jesus—His Heart all on fire that moment:
oh 1 those flames shall one day burn up the
world.
5. The depths of Mary’s martyr heart, firm to
receive the blow of the last faint breath.
6. Time and eternity come to take their law from
His lips in death.
7. Actual separation of Soul and Body. He bowed
His Head, His Feet turned slightly on the nail
that fastened them. Mary ! thou art childless :
the Babe of Bethlehem is dead, thy beauty,
thy wonder, thy love. He is dead. The earth­
quake passed away, the darkness rolled off;
there arose a cool fresh wind, which blew over
the face of the earth, and round the cross, and
stirred His hair. See! it lifts the few locks
not matted with blood, and gives a momentary
look of life to His Face. But the rocks of
Calvary, the ears of John, the Heart of Mary,
nay, the very silence of the air, still rung with
the Creator’s cry ; nay, at this moment the
world over many a Christian deathbed is faintly,
sweetly echoing back that word, Father ! into
Thy hands I commend My Spirit !
IV. The thought which at the foot of the Cross over­
whelms the individual soul.
1. A God is dead for me: the occupation of all
holy souls on earth.
2. A God is dead for me: the ravishment of the

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

251

3. A God is dead for me : the endless despair of
the lost.
4. A God is dead for me : and ready to die for me
again, and as many times in number as my sins
are numerous, rather than that I should be lost.
5. A God is dead for me : and I know myself to be
what I am.
6. A God is dead for me : and He knows what
I am in His sight, so much more than what
I am in my own.
7. A God is dead for me : and for this was needed
(1.) A God’s wisdom to plan it. (2.) A God’s
power to execute it (3.) A God’s love to suffer
it. (4.) An incarnate God’s mind to conceive it
(5.) A supernatural gift of faith to be able to
believe it. (6.) An inability on the part of all
creation to repay it. (7.) The hardness of a re­
probate heart not to be touched by it. He was the
Man of Sorrows because He was the God of love !
V. Forthwith the soul under the pressure of that
thought, a God dead for me, begins to sink out
of its depth—the seven descents of the soul in
the deeps of the Passion.
1. Wonder—which is part of contemplation and of
the Beatific Vision, arising from the thought of
Who suffered, what He suffered, how He suffered,
for whom He suffered.
2. Exultation—that it is so divine a work, so much
our concern, so abundant, oh ! such a grand
glory of God.
3. Liquefaction—all dispositions running into one,
barriers melting down—it was all with such in­
tense love of us, and so pathetically, so beauti­

222

PART Π.
fully done, so unparalleled, and simply like
Himself.
4. Conflagration—heart growing hot, each affection
ready to ignite, each faculty of mind getting hot
as if it were an affection, in an outburst of fire,
consuming world, sin, self, and even imperfect
goodness.
5. Foolishness of love—fire like wine, wine too
strong for the soul, half involuntary gestures
and exclamations, holy indiscretions,—yet wis­
dom of much of the seeming folly—like foreign
ways which men laugh at, heaven the foreign
country from which they come.
6. Contemplative Union—annealed, steadfast, fixed
gaze, supernatural tranquillity of will, close union,
—real contact with Christ calms weak trans­
ports, and effaces previous signs of mortal want
of self-collection, and of inebriation,—strong
efficacious languor, like the weakness out of
which His loud d'y came.
7. Possession—the Passion wholly possessing mind,
heart, will, even body ; Jesus possessing the soul,
the soul in another sense possessing Jesus,—
espousals, mystical marriage, the boundary of
heaven and earth worn indistinguishable by
fretting flames of love.
Each of these seven descents has been like a fall
from the starry heights of heaven, and yet far down
and down and down I see angels in the darkness, just
visible by the light they shake from off their wings, and
as they rise, they tell me they are faint with their long
breathless fathoming, and they have seen no end, they
verily believe there is none, to the Abyss.

II.
CALVARY.

CHAPTER I.

THE PASSION:
ITS HISTORICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND
MYSTICAL CHARACTER.

Jesus Christ and Him Crucified—this is the object of
our present contemplations. In an age of abounding
knowledge, this is the knowledge which concerns us
most of all. It was the one sufficient science which
St. Paul desired to know. We grow older; and, as
age comes upon us, it seems as if the very years as
they passed drew us closer to the Cross. Life extin­
guishes its own lights one after the other, until the
darkness of Calvary is brighter than the obscurity of
a world, which has first played us false, and is now
deserting us. As we grow older, we set a greater
price upon fidelity ; and where is there such faithful­
ness as in the Cross ? Devotion to the Passion is at
once the surest sign of predestination, and the shortest
road to heaven. Happy are they whom the cruelty and
treachery of life have driven to the Cross ! But happier
far are they the chivalry of whose youth drew them there

aa4

PART Π.

in early days, and who have spent their lives in its
mysterious sanctuary ! In the cloister and in the
world, to young and old, to rich and poor, for clergy
and for laity, the Passion is the grand object of devo­
tion. Its intensity was the characteristic of primitive
times. All that was beautiful in the Middle Ages
shaped itself pre-eminently upon the Passion. It has
been the especial work of modern saints to propagate
and heighten this devotion. The Church herself is
perpetually adding feast, and song, and pensive com­
memoration, although it seemed long since as if she
had left herself no fuller means of honouring the
Passion of her Spouse. All this is a warrant for
another devotional treatise on the Passion. There is
nothing new to be said of it ; but every man has his
own way of saying old things, by which he reaches
unexpected places in the hearts of men, and kindles
fresh varieties of love. Let us ask St. Mary Magdalen
to lend us her heart, while we wade as far as we dare
into the depths of the Passion. Let us study the
science of Jesus Crucified with her for our mistress,
whose name and memory perfume the whole Church
with the balm of the Blessed Passion. It is a science
wherein we learn by prayer, and in whose deep places
our hearts see further than our eyes. It will give
us what in these days we want most of all, the
old simplicity of faith. What is progress but an en­
tanglement ? What is the breadth of literature but a
distraction from God ? What are the endlessly suc­
cessive theories, each in its turn claiming to be final,
but a weariness, under which we grow reasonably
impatient ? What are the vaunted discoveries of
science, but either lights which blind by night, or

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

235

heights from which the horizon of our ignorance is for
ever widening ? What are material prosperities, but
a slavery of increasing wants increasingly dissatisfied ?
There is no grandeur in our work, there is no heavenli­
ness in our repose, except through the old simplicity
of faith.
There are many ways in which we may treat of the
Passion. The majority of books lead us through the
mysteries in detail, from the Last Supper or the Agony
in the Garden to the Burial of Jesus or His Resur­
rection. Upon the whole, this is the best way to
consider the Passion, because it is the most necessary
to the devotion of the faithful. Every mystery has
its own lesson to teach, and contains its own treasures
of prayer and contemplation. We can never under­
stand the Passion, unless by repeated meditation we
have mastered it in detail. If then this successive
consideration of each mystery is not the only way of
handling the Passion, it is at least the method which
is most indispensable. We can do without other
methods; we cannot do without this. But there are
so many books which follow this method, that it is not
my intention to add to them by this treatise. I pro­
pose to treat of Calvary after the same fashion in
which I have treated of Bethlehem. The Passion, like
the Sacred Infancy, is not only an assemblage of divine
mysteries, united to each other by a similitude of
spirit as well as by the order of time. It has also a
unity of its own as a whole. Like the Hidden Life
at Nazareth, or the Three Years’ Ministry, it admits of
being regarded as a constellation apart. It sometimes
happens that, by exclusive meditation on separate
mysteries, we lose sight of many important truths.
VOL. I.

p

826

PART II.

We have a less distinct understanding of our Lord’s
Three-and-thirty Years. We do not appreciate, even
so far as we might, the magnificence and the lovingness
of the divine works. Nay, we do not even do such
justice, as it is in our power to do, to the separate
individual mysteries, because their connection with
other mysteries, or their position in the constellation
to which they belong, assist us in no slight degree to
the right understanding of themselves.
The way, then, in which it is proposed to treat the
Passion in this volume, is to look at it as a whole, not
to follow it in order of time, nor to break it up into
its component mysteries, such as the Scourging, the
Crowning, and the like, but rather to break it up into
its characteristics, characteristics which enter as in­
gredients into each of its separate mysteries. For
instance, we shall have to consider the Excess of the
Passion, its Bodily Pains, its Mental Pains, its Shame,
our Lord’s Outward Demeanour and Inward Disposi­
tione, His Solitariness, the Circle of Evil which sur­
rounded Him, His Divinity in the Passion, the
Spectators of the Passion, the Shadows of Calvary
which are cast over the world at this hour, and the
Abyss which the Death of God opens to Contemplative
Souls. These eleven subjects will furnish us with as
many chapters, as soon as we have considered in this
preliminary chapter the Passion generally, in its
historical, doctrinal, and mystical bearings. By this
means we shall get a different view of the Passion from
that furnished us by meditation on its separate details
and at the same time a view which will give to oui·
subsequent meditations a light, a force, and a touch­
ingness beyond what they had before.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

227

Let us begin by making a simple picture of the
Passion for ourselves, one which shall not distract us
by any multiplicity of detail. We stand upon the low
top of Calvary, that Calvary which in so many senses
is the highest mountain in the world. There is a
preternatural darkness, like the luminous gloom of an
eclipse, all round us. But it is preternatural, no mere
eclipse. There is silence there, only mingled with a
few sounds, there were some people in the darkness
stirring, yet only stirring as if afraid to move. It
gradually grows lighter. The white roofs of a city, not
far inland at the eastern end of the Mediterranean,
become visible. As the light waxes clearer, sounds
increase both in numher and in loudness. Slowly
disclosed against the darkness is the bloodless Body of
the Son of God, indescribably venerable in the excess
of its disfigurements, hanging on the Cross, facing the
west as if in prophecy of its grand Christian future.
Standing beneath the Cross, now wet with blood, is the
broken-hearted Mother Mother of God, and now also
Mother of men. There also is the Virgin apostle John,
with such impassioned calm upou his woe-worn features
as his knowledge of the secrets of the Sacred Heart
would be certain to imprint upon them. Among all
the sons of men there are few so great, so holy, so privi­
leged as he who by his beauty took captive the Human
Heart of bis Creator. There also is the glorious Mag­
dalen, the brightest trophy of God’s love, which men
take heart when they look upon, a very picture of the
uttermost forlornness of human sorrow transfigured by the radiance of adoration into more than angelic beauty.
O Magdalen I thou art there to tell how the hopes of all
men may be so bold as to take refuge upon Calvary.

228

PART ïr.

This is the Passion, the Passion consummated.
This is the grand event in the world’s history, giving
the law to all other events whatever. This is the
visible impression made on the decrees of the Creator
by the free-will of the creature. This is the incredible
revelation of the Divine Perfections, which an angel’s
intelligence could never have imagined, and even now
is unable to fathom. Incredible, even when revealed,
unless also a supernatural gift be given with the
knowledge, whereby we may be strengthened to believe
it. That mystery on the hill-top, which we express by
the name of Calvary, is the fountain of all supernatural
things, flowing both before and behind. That darkness
has illuminated forty centuries of time already, before
it actually overspread the green sward of the suburban
hill. That blood has inundated all the children of those
centuries, with innumerable graces, while it was still
unshed itself. There has not been a grace in any
human soul from Adam onwards, but it came from the
foresight of that Calvary. In all those dark, dreary,
lagging ages, there has been no lightening of any human
burden, no brightness in any human destiny, no
possibility of virtue, no struggle of manful hearts
against overwhelming evil, no birth of infancy, no death
of age, which have not been full of anticipations and
prophecies of Calvary. Even the inanimate creation
had some sort of consciousness that Calvary was the
centre of the world, when, as old tradition held, the
waters of the Deluge drifted thither the body of Adam,
and entombed it in the yielding soil.
But if the whole history of the world previous to the
Passion is fdled with presentiments of it, nay, is wholly
unintelligible except by the light of it, much greater is

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the influence of the Passion upon the history which
follows. Henceforth the annals of the world are little
more than the chronicles of the Passion. It has im­
planted new ideas in men’s minds. It has worn deep
traces upon their language. It has renovated their
philosophy. It has given another form and a different
spirit to their literature. It has enlarged their moral
instincts, while it has also refined and quickened them.
The victory of defeat, the triumph of self-abasement, the
divinity of suffering, the magnificence of shame, the
power of silence,—all these are ideas from the world
of the Incarnation ; and they have supplied men with
weights and measures, which, if not in all respects
literally new, are practically new from that irresistible
authentication which the Passion has conferred upon
them. As time goes on, the Passion will give out from
itself, as its own creation, a peculiar civilisation. Great
social institutions shall be based upon it. Govern­
ments shall acknowledge it as their authoritative guid­
ance. Peace and war shall often become questions of
the Passion. It shall shape and fashion private life.
Henceforth, from the day on which the mystery is
accomplished, the world shall never get from under
the influence of Calvary. Civil history shall more and
more tend to merge itself in ecclesiastical. Even when
the outward monarchy of the Holy See shall appear to
have passed away, or rather to have cast aside its
mediæval insignia, when the days of Concordats shall
have come, and it shall be the ambition of states,
especially of those which are destitute of ennobling
traditions, to stand apart from the Church, when the
empire shall dream that it is glorifying itself anew by
working itself clear from the priesthood, when diplo­

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PART II.

macy shall have had most cause to congratulate itself
on the unity which the balance of power, its own in­
vention, has brought about, when earth shall seem
more visibly man’s because it is less visibly God’s—
even then, more than ever, shall civil history become
religious. Alliances, instincts, sympathies, literatures,
philosophies, the temper of cabinets, all these shall
grow not only more religious but even positively theo­
logical. Christ has been crucified ; and every event in
the world shall draw from this fact more or less of its
significance. The world, as it gets further from Calvary,
shall become more personal in its hostility to Christ.
The dominance of heresy is but Satan’s protest against
Calvary ; and when the world comes to its worst, and
to its end, it shall be so influenced by Christ that it
shall instinctively concentrate itself into an Antichrist.
It is travelling thither daily, and in this day it would
appear to be attaining its end with more than usual
celerity.
But from the great outward world let us come to
our own secret selves. The sorrow and happiness of
each individual soul starts at the foot of the Cross.
However remote our generation may be from the era
of the mystery, whatever our lot may be among the
seemingly inexhaustible diversities of human fortune,
however far off from Judea our home may lie, and
however deeply hidden we may be in the indistinguish­
able obscurities of private life, our darkness and our
light come from the top of Calvary. It is well or ill
with us according as we are in harmony with the
Passion which was accomplished there. To that hill­
top centuries ago came every grief and joy of ours,
every word aud work and thought, every sin and every

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231

temptation, every secret shame and every undisclosed
design. They came there clearer than objects in the
noonday. They were seen by the inward eye of
our dying Lord. They were understood as a whole,
as composing one consecutive biography. They were
weighed in detail. Nothing escaped Him. Grace was
apportioned to each of them. His Precious Blood
was offered and accepted for each. Sorrows were
sanctified beforehand, and joys came out of the pure
superfluous mercies of the Passion. Every excess of
His torments was bidden to do its part, as a motive of
more fervent love within our hearts : and there were
colloquies between the Son and His Eternal Father, as
if our single soul were the exclusive cause of all that
happened upon Calvary, the one engrossing interest
regarding which the Divine Perfections came to recon­
cile themselves upon that mountain-top. Our eternity
was negotiated there, if we may use of these divine
things those figures of vulgar commerce which God
Himself by His apostle has condescended to make use
of. Thus it comes to pass, that, even when our life is
thickest and widest, there is no earthly object of any
real abiding value to us compared with the Passion of
our dearest Lord. All is dross compared with it ; nay,
all is dross compared with the knowledge of it. It is
an earthly object and yet a heavenly one as well. It
is the peacemaking, or rather the nuptials, of heaven
and earth. In the uttermost distances of our eternal
life, where in truth there are no distances, it is the
Passion which will still support us, the Passion which
will still keep the Vision open, the Passion out of
which the inebriating torrents of God’s splendours will
still renew our souls.

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PART II.

Thus the Passion rules the history of the world,
the history of the world before the Flood, of the world
of the patriarchs, of the Israelites, of the heathen,
before the coming of our Lord, and in a still stricter
sense is it almost itself the history of the world from
the Crucifixion to the Doom. Thus is it also the
secret of all biographies of individual souls. All their
ruin comes from their disloyalty to the Passion. All
their holiness in time, and their glory in eternity, are
the consequences of their loyalty to the Passion.

III.

MEDITATIONS ON THE CRUCIFIX.
I.
THE HEAD AND EYES.

Introduction. Jesus All in All. The crucifix is
a revelation. Our Lord said to St. Gertrude, that as
often as a man looks tenderly on the crucifix, Jesus
looks tenderly on him. Blessed Bernard of Corlione
wanted to learn to read it St. Philip Benizi called
it his book, kissed it and died. Consider St. Alphonso
at seventy-seven looking at his crucifix, and writing
his meditations. Why should earthly lovers have the
poetry and romance all on their side ? Now come, let
us learn Jesus. Mary will help us—how well she
knew His blessed Features. St. Peter too, with his
devotion to our Lord’s Face. Seek ye My Face ; Thy
Face, Lord, will we seek.

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»33

THE HEAD.

The voice of my Beloved knocking: open to me,
my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled : for my
head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the
night. His head is as the finest gold : his locks as
branches of palm trees, black as a raven.·
I. No golden crown! how is this? He is King of
the world.
II. Crown of thorns—mud—blood—handfuls of hair
gone—Head swollen—bruised—aching.
III. Our hearts the garden where those thorns were
grown—blame not the innocent earth or its
guiltless fields.
IV. That head which Mary nursed, the hair she
smoothed, the brow she washed, and then dared
to kiss.
V. Watch Him I He droops His head to die—He
croops it to us as a father to his children, that
we may kiss Him.
VI. Look upon Him once again, and now with the
eye of faith, and not of sight—bright upon His
throne, flashing in the light; Mary is wrapt
in exultation, wondering angels worship, saints
rejoice: Jesus, dear Jesus! we would see that:
we would go thither : ah ! sweetest Lord I Thou
canst do this for us, and Thou wilti

PART 11.

2.
THE EYES·

I. Once the joy of Mary, and the wonder of
Joseph : the sunshine of Bethlehem and Naza­
reth, the light across the wilderness ; the
revelations their looks made of the joyous
secrets of His Sacred Heart.
II. The vigils they kept for us.
HI. The tears they shed in infancy, for Lazarus, and
over Jerusalem.
IV. The looks upturned to Him in prayer.
V. The wistful look on the young man, and the
converting look on Peter.
VI. The scene before Him on Calvary.
VII. The blows, spittle, and blood : yet it is He who
gave sight to others.
VIII. Sun and moon darken as His eyes fade.
IX. His eyes turned to Mary on Easter morning;
in heaven now, they are turned on us.
Oh shall we one day see them, and live and love in
their sweet light ? Mine eyes have failed with weep­
* —His eyes are as doves upon brooks of waters
ing
which are washed with milk and sit beside the
plentiful streams.! Oh my Jesus, give us the gift of
tears, affectionate tears, holy tears. Dearest Lord ! we
have not loved Thee ; no I hitherto we have not loved
Thee, but we will love Thee now : make us love Thee,
make us love Thee more and more. Thy servants
sometimes ask many things of Thee, but we will ask
but one—Love, Lord, love, love, and then more, and
then eternal love!
• Lament ii. II.

t Cant v. 12.

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235

3·
THE LIPS, AND MOUTH, AND CHEEKS.

I.
II.
III.

IV.
V.
VI.
VII.

Filled with earth and blood in the garden : once
with the breasts and milk of Mary.
The spittle of the soldiers mingling with His own.
The blows breaking His lips, and making them
deformed and swollen : sweet lips that spoke
words of peace and love divine: His cheeks
which Mary fondled.
The kiss of Judas : the kisses of Mary.
The sighs that come from that sacred mouth upon
the cross.
The white parched lips, once red and plump at
Bethlehem.
The burning thirst, the vinegar and gall.
Evil words, detractions, impurities, oaths, &c.
4

THE TONGUE.

I. A hidden member, sheltered from the assaults of
blows, &c., and our teacher.
II. Why He kept it without suffering till the last,
except His Heart (and that too was wounded
inwardly) : that He might with it penetrate the
ear and heart of the Eternal Father, to pray for
His murderers, to absolve the thief, to bequeath
His Mother, to show the greatness of His woes,
to proclaim His dear thirst of souls, to teach us
what to say when we too come to die. Oh what
love I For our sake He keeps it, not for His
own.

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PART 11.

III. His thirst—the bloody sweat the night before­
jaws dry—tongue swells—no drop of water—
Mary cannot reach—see a dying man, when his
tongue is dried up ! Ah I what suffering was
the drink they gave Jesus.
IV. Our tongues—how are they employed ? they are
Mary’s lap on which Jesus lies at Holy Com­
munion— Oh awful sins of the tongues of men !
V. What is the tongue of Jesus doing now? what
will it say to us when the last day conies ?

5·
THE FACE.

I. The appearance of It. (i) The forehead, (2) the
eyebrows, (3) the eyes and eyelids, (4) the
cheeks, (5) the lips, (6) the nostrils, (7) the
chin, (8) the beard, (9) the long flowing hair : the
horror of this to the angels, who knew that Face
to be the beauty, joy, and brightness of eternity.
II. How Mary looked upon that Face when it was
small and infantine. Will she forgive me who
have now covered that Face with such a fearful
veil of shame and of confusion ?
III. Implore the Eternal Father to look upon the dis­
figured Face of His only begotten Son. Jesus
offers it for our sins, offers it to obtain pardon
and grace for us.
IV. But see ! the Face moves, the eyes close, it is no
longer uplifted heavenwards, it droops, it sinks
upon the breast, oh awfullest of all awful things

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

»37

that ever were on earth I Jesus breathes His last
—God is dead !
V. Now I will think of my deathbed—Oh may I see
that Face then, shining, beaming, smiling on me!
Say for ejaculation—Blessed be the beautiful
Face of my Jesus to all eternity I

b.
THE EARS.

I. The delicacy and tenderness of them. The misery
of noise to the sick and dying. The roar of
the blaspheming multitude, like a pack of cruel
howling wolves in the ears of Jesus. Noise,
cruelty, hatred, sin, all so many causes of pain.
II. The names they called Him :
1. Malefactor—He who had done all things well.
2. Impostor—He who was eternal truth, and kind
teacher of truth to all.
3. Guilty of death—He was life, and gives life to
us, and was that hour giving His dear life
for us.
So the streets, the judgment-hall, and Calvary
resounded—and how do we bear one word of just
reproof ? Think too of the sins committed with our
ears.
III. There is a heart breaking at the foot of the Cross !
Oh the deep sighs, the stifled sobs that come from
it ; they are darts of fire entering in at the ears
Think
of Jesus, and piercing His Sacred Heart. ""
of the sighs of the poor in our ears.

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IV.

PART II.
Where are the ears of Jesus now ? (1) in heaven,
hearing what we ask, and what Mary is asking
for us, (2) in the tabernacle, drinking in the acts
of love that we may make.

7
ΓΠΕ ARMS.

I. What they suffered in the garden with the
thick ropes—tied in front of Him, then at the
scourging behind Him—swollen—torn—bleeding
—weakened.
II. He opens them to embrace the Cross, while He
kisses it most tenderly, and then takes it on His
shoulders.
III. Those arms bound in swaddling clothes—twined
round Mary’s neck, as the ivy twines round a
tree.
IV. Dislocated on the Cross—the whole weary weight
of His Body hanging upon them with agony
unspeakable.
V. Look well at those arms, omnipotence is in them :
they are the arms of Him who made the world,
and could move it from its place at this moment
—they could loosen themselves from the Cross
if they pleased.
VI. How those arms embraced Mary at her Assump­
tion ; us too He will perhaps raise up when we
run and fall adoring at His feet at our first entry
into heaven.

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239

8.
THE HANDS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.
VI.

The sweetness and the beauty of those Hands—
little in infancy, working in St. Joseph's shop,
all the beneficent miracles and works of the
thirty-three years, lifted up in prayer for us, laid
on little children’s heads.
Handcuffed, struck with lashes, broken and
wounded with falls, swollen fingers, bleeding : so
they grasp the mock sceptre, and so the cruel
Cross.
The nailing to the Cross, the agony of the re­
doubled blows, the dislodging of the nerves, the
jostling of the Cross into its place, the burning
wounds.
Those Hands created me ; those Hands elevated
the Host at the first mass ; those Hands are
above me in the confessional, though I see them
not.
Those Hands—how beautiful and bright in
heaven now, angels adore them, they put the
crown on Mary’s head, oh ravishing sight I
To be at the Eight Hand is all our joy, our bliss.
Ah ! may we be allowed to kiss the shining
wound on that Eight Hand, when we are admitted
to the peace and joy of Heaven I

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PART II.

9·
THE BREAST.

The Breast of the infant Jesus, rising and falling
—Mary’s love of it.
St John reclining on it, the heat he felt in it;
St Philip, the beatings of the Sacred Heart
III. How we look at the blue sky, and think of heaven
behind it; so at the white breast of Jesus—the
Eternal God there as in a treasure-house—how
frail a wall ! yet who would dare to break it
through ?
IV. The Breast of Jesus as it was seen upon the Cross
—outrages iu the garden—stamping on it—
lashes of scourging—distension from outstretched
arms.
V. The Breast of Jesus dead on Mary’s lap.
VI. The Breast of Jesus now in glory— the Sacred
Heart beats there once more—rises and falls
with love of Mary and love of us.

I.

II.

IO.

THE FEET.

I. Feet of the Infant Jesus—return from Egypt—
three day’s loss in Jerusalem.
II. Feet of the Boy in Joseph’s shop, or fetching
water from the well.
III. Feet of the Man—weary, sore, throbbing, cold,
hot.

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241

Feet of Jesus with Magdalen kissing them, &c.
Feet of Jesus on the Cross—dragged down with
ropes,—broken, wounded, nailed, the weight of
the Body resting on them.
VI. Feet of Jesus ascending, leaving prints behind.
VII. Feet of Jesus in glory—shall we one day print
a kiss of burning love upon them ?
IV.
V.

IV.
OUR LORD’S INNOCENCE.

Do we not feel how the love of Jesus is growing
into us with our meditations on His Passion ? If our
hearts do not burn, there is something like burning
beginning in them. That woe-worn Face is getting so
worn into our hearts that we shall hardly love His
Easter beauty.
I.
Manifold views of the Passion—enough to distract
the contemplations of an angel.
1. The awful profane wickedness and diabolical in­
spiration of it.
2. Its crowded and multiform cruelty.
3. The venerable glory of His everlasting Divinity.
4. The extreme human sweetness of His demeanour.
5. But there is another point, which I venture to
think was exceedingly foremost in our Lady’s
mind, almost jealously prominent—His inno­
cence. Rightly considered, it is the most heart­
breaking thing about the Passion.
VOL. I.

0

24a

PART II.

Π. Innocence on earth.
1. Its look of strangeness and of wonderfulness.
We never saw any one who was quite innocent
except the Blessed Sacrament.
2. Its look of exile—there is something heavenly
in slavery detained on earth.
3. Its look of peril, yet of helplessness.
4. Its look of exquisite reproachfully unreproachful
pleading. There is some hidden sympathy
between innocence and silence. It aught to be
eloquent as an angel, but it is silent as God.
And yet there is a look of guilt about its silence
which is in reality the artlessness of its simpli­
city—or the holy trouble of its humility.
5. The way in which Jesus and Mary loved it in
each other, because it was their exclusive wealth
on earth.
III.
Innocence suffering.
1. Horror of innocence suffering at all : e.g. a child,
a baby in its agony.
2. Innocence treated as guilt, yet it was the very
artifice of love in His Passion to clothe the
innocent with guilt.
3. Innocence enveloped in rudest, maddest violence.
4. Innocence tortured with cruelty.
5. The peculiar agony of injustice to the delicate
sense of innocence. Innocence is so gentle, so
un-selfdefending.
IV. Quid mali fecit i Pilate certainly was not blinded
by hatred as the Jews were : but yet what
spiritual discernment had he ?—imagine it__
dream it—and yet he discerned His innocence.
l. His face was piteous then yet not wholly dis-

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

U3

figured. Yea truly : what evil haa He done ?
name it.
2. The miserable Pilate saw all His spotlessness in
the silent face. Pilate forsooth falls in love
with innocence, and says, Innocens ego sum.—
St. Matt. xxvii. Oh, if we could hut see that
face in vision for one moment, could we ever
sin again, or ever cease to love ?
3. They chose Barabbas : I was going to say thia
was a wickedness without name—but we had
best say little about it : alas ! our choices have
been the worst features of our life. Dear
Jesus I how many Barabbases have we pre­
ferred to Thee I
4. Why does He not speak ! One word, a tone, a
sound, would have made that beauty irresistible:
it would have calmed that raging sea of hatred,
it would have cowed the multitude into adoring
love. There were mothers in the crowd, yet
no one saw what to Mary was so infinitely
beautiful.
5. Yet, oh ! do not speak, lest Thou shouldst clear
Thyself—and then what should we do ? oh, it
is almost a relief to us, a joyous deliverance
from our suspense, to hear that discordant
crucifige ! As in the agony m the garden, our
salvation seemed for a moment to tremble in
the balance—for they might have let Him off:
but if His Father would not hear Him then,
will He hear the Jews now ?
V. Nullam causam invenio. A third time Pilate said,
Quid mali fecit I Then, I find no cause. A
third time—he could not believe the Jews would

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PART IL
still persist—to him the face was such conviction.
Yes, the beauty of that face gave a kind of ob­
stinacy even to that weak and vacillating judge.
1. Are we getting frightened at the innocence of
Jesus ? at least we are eager to tell Pilate that
he is wrong with his nullam, causam. 0 Pilate,
thou art blinded by His beauty 1
2. All the sins of the world are on Him—is not
that guilt ?
3. He alone can expiate them—is not that cause f
and cause of death also, for so only can He
expiate them. Now again we are uncertain :
will Pilate give way against his own conviction
of His innocence ? But they were instant with
loud voices requiring that He might be crucified.
And their voices prevailed, and Pilate gave
sentence that it should be as they required
(St. Luke xxiii. 23, 4),—and as we require,
oh, yes ! and as we require. Ah ! if there is
a necessity on earth, it is salvation.
4. Dearest Jesus ! Yet His innocence so works in
us, that in hot times of prayer, we feel as if we
could almost sacrifice ourselves to save Him.
But.no! 0 Mother Mary I be content. Jesus
has made it a greater love in us to let ourselves
be saved by Him than that we should save
Him from the cross.

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245

V.
THE FACE OF JESUS.

Passiontide veils the face of the crucifix, only that
it may be more vivid in our hearts.
I. The face of Jesus in the Thirty-three Years.
I. The most beautiful of all the beauties earth has
ever seen.
2. As predestined by God, and the model of all
beauty.
3. The devotion of Mary and Joseph to it.
4. The devotion of Peter and the apostles.
5. In Infancy, Boyhood, and Manhood.
II. His face during the Passion.
1. In the agony in the garden.
2. Before His various judges.
3. When He met His Mother.
4. On the cross.
5. In death, on Mary’s lap.
III. What thoughts this gives us.
1. Hatred of our own sins which caused it.
2. A truer idea of the Father's anger with sin.
3. Intense love of our Blessed Lord.
4. Deepest compassion with His Mother.
5. A yearning to be more holy.
IV. His face now.
1. It is being seen in numerous particular judgments
momentarily.
2. The saints have sometimes seen it as it is, and
nearly died of ravishment.
3. It is the bliss and ecstasy of heaven.

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PART II.

4. It is the most beautiful sight God sees outside
Himself, and yet in so strange and wonderful a
sense hardly outside Himself.
5. It is there in the Blessed Sacrament, with the
eyes, the mouth, the brow : most thrilling, most
hushing mystery.
Oh, to look upon that face eternally, how sweet a
destiny ! A humble, reverent, familiar, affectionate
devotion to the Passion is one chief sign of our pre­
destination to see the face of Jesus for evermore I

VI.
THE DESERTION OF THE APOSTLES.

It is Passion Sunday ; we must take our lesson from
the Passion.
We have a great deal to do to be saved : and God
does not save us without ourselves, i.e. we must do onr
part, we must correspond to grace. Now here comes
a most important question : to what amount can we
trust ourselves, and what can we trust ourselves for ?
1. Our salvation looks safer the longer we persevere
in the spiritual life. Does this come from any
change in ourselves ; any change which we may
safely trust ? Grounds of trust are—
1. Strength of character, which may be partly
natural and partly acquired.
2. Habits of virtue, which certainly make the exer­
cise of virtue easier.
3. Great graces, which are not only signs of pie­
destination, but inward revolutions.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

J47

4. Perseverance in good, up to the silencing of
temptations.
5. Amount of actual sincere love of God, which
even humility must admit.
All this is true ; but what I want to bring out is
that it is not our own but God’s, and more than this,
that it is not a gift of God which we hold in our own
dominion—it is not so much something done and over,
as a present grace, depending upon grace—and there­
fore, while it is an immense reason for infinitely trust­
ing God, it is no just reason at all for trusting ourselves.
II. I infer this from that most painful mystery of the
Passion, the desertion of Jesus by His own
Apostles.
1. It is probable, from what we know of the usual
customs of divine grace, that they had beautiful
natural characters to start with, and had led
pure lives.
2. The grandeur of their vocations, next to the
Divine Maternity.
3. Their novitiate with Jesus, its inexhaustible
benedictiona
4. The bewildering amount of love He had lavished
on them.
5. The immense enthusiastic love they had for Him
—no saints have attained it.
III. Yet—the most melancholy incredibility we have
ever been called upon to believe—they fell—
1. Fell after all those repeated miracles, after two
in the garden itself, namely, the falling back,
and the healing of Mal chus’ ear.
2. Fell at a small danger—for they were not aimed
at—and at the first danger.

24$

PART Π.

3. Fell just when common love and loyalty would
have called them forward, especially as it was
all done through the treachery of one of their
own body.
4. Fell after solemn reiterated warnings and solemn
reiterated protestations of all. And in like
manner said all the disciples (Matt. xxvi. 35).
5. Fell just after first Communion—and that the
first Communion in the world, just as the first
man fell, and the first among the angels fell.
Merciful God ! what then have we to trust to
but His mercy ?
Hence 1 infer that we can trust ourselves for nothing.
0 dear Brethren ! that I could write this single truth
so deep in your hearts that no length of years nor
adventurousness of life should ever efface it, that in
order to secure our salvation, life must be one long,
unsuspended, unforgetting dependence upon grace 1

VII.
JUDAS.

I. Jesus had a secret sorrow—Judas—He never
alluded to the cross but often said, one of you
shall betray Me.
II. Judas in childhood.
1. Winning ways.
2. A mother’s love.
3. A promise dear to his mother.
4. Little faults may have preluded his great ones.
5. Unsuspectiugness of his future doom.

/

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

249

III. Jesus with Judas.
1. His first love of Judas.
2. The fall of Judas began with taking scandal, i.e.
at St. Mary Magdalen.
3. How Jesus spares him at the supper, not naming
him openly. Dear Jesus!
4. Washes his feet.
5. Communicates him.
6. That which thou dost do quickly
7. Then in the garden—horror of the words of Judas
—tenete Eum.
IV. Judas’ despair—ah, where is Jesus ? He takes
the money back, and they jeer him—how
unlike Jesus, who would have so soothed him
—where is Jesus ? (No soul so needed Him—
because of the thought of Him no soul was so
despairing as Judas was then.) Gone to death
by treachery.
Does not all this give me comfort ? Will He bear
with me? I don’t know: I am worse than Judas,
1 fear.
Jesus was troubled in spirit, and the disciples looked
one upon another. (St. John xiii. 21, 22.)
V. If we love Jesus we hate Judas. We should like
to know what his character was like, whether
it was like ours. At least we have resemblances
to him.
j. He had a sweet and potent call from Jesus—
so we.
2. He once loved Jesus perhaps—so we.
3. He got to know Him on familiar terms—so we.
4. He began with venial sins and self-seeking—so
we.

PART II

J 50

5.
VI.

He did not know how hard his heart was getting
—so we.
See life of St. Joseph of Cupertino, which says
that the loss of Judas was the worst pain of the
Passion.

VIII.
HIS BLOOD BE UPON US AND UPON OUR
CHILDREN.

Night over the valley of the Nile—destroying angel
—doorposts stained with blood—so now it is night—
this life is a night—incessant flight of the destroying
angel in company with the angel of death—souls
stained with blood. If the Blood of Jesus is not on us
then, we are lost to all eternity. But how was this
mystery of the Precious Blood proclaimed in the
Passion ?
I. The mystery.
I. Pilate washing his hands with water: the Jews
were wiser who took blood. An act of the
greatest human childishness done by the side of
and in the face of Divine Wisdom—Jesus look­
ing on, listening, silent as usual ; His eyes look
on the crowd, not with the piercing dignity of a
judge, nor even the meek reproachfulness of a
sufferer, but with the clear beaming of un­
mingled, unaccusing love.
2. They saw Blood on Him, and thirsted for it like
beasts, yet did not know what It really was.
3. They had reached now the height of the sin of

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

2$i

putting the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
to death—universes populus—yes'. uniwrsus !
what a sweet prophecy.
4. They were ready to be victims themselves, if only
they can make Him a victim : oh, what wise
theology, what Christian science in all this mad
blind sin. They threw their hearts wide open,
turned God’s grandest blessing into a curse, and
took it in, and made it from that time forth
their life, a chained life, a life of most horrible
chaining and enchantment.
5. The cry—so wild, so thrilling, so enormous, so
unanimous ! like the cry from a ship going down,
or the cries at the deluge till Noe heard them
no more.
6. The silence after the cry, like the silence which
Noe felt, nay, heard above the turbid waters, for
there are silences which are so silent that they
can be heard more—the city so silent, their own
hearts so hushed by the panic of their own cry,
Pilate so astounded—it was a wonder that an
angel did not speak, if only to break the intoler­
able silence. Perhaps the angels thought God
would speak, as over the Jordan, and when the
multitude said it thundered.
7. Jesus in that silence—and the Holy Trinity.
God even then was silent: Oh that inveterate
silence of God ! what an endless revelation it is !
II. The Saviour 1 We look on that furious crowd—
on the blue vault of sky filled with the noiseless
shining of the sun—on the silent buildings—how
dumb they look in their brightness,—on the cower­
ing Pilate, on the blue mantle of Mary—then on

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252

Saviour of the world with the morning
sun shining whitely on Him.
1. His look—how could anguish be so beautiful
when it was visibly so bitter ? lips goldened as
it were by the heavenly words He had for
years been uttering.
2. His silence—He had not sentenced them, it was
themselves. He had thought of this hour, when
He was weeping over Jerusalem !
3. His thoughts—angels adored His wisdom, could
come nearer to fathoming that than to fathoming
the bitterness and yet the sweetness of His
thoughts.
4. His Heart—its love, its exultation, its faintness,
its pang, its augmentation of love for them. It
rushed out upon this crowd in augmentations of
love which were like new creations for im­
petuosity and magnificence.
5. It was a wonder they did not sec He was God.
Aye, see with the very eyes in their heads that
He was God !
III. The pain of that cry.
1. As an immense sin—and to Him a gigantic in­
gratitude. How ingratitude crushes tender and
affectionate natures.
2. As coming from those He so specially loved—
and the love of whom was communicated to
His Human Nature by His Divinity.
3. As a true prophecy of their future misery—
another wandering than that glorious one in
the wilderness, and with quite another sort of
melancholy miracle about it. Homeless, unsanctuaried people 1
the

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3fj

4. The foreseen sacrilegious use of His Precious
Blood—nay, was it not a torture to Him that
the first use of His Precious Blood should be a
sacrilege ?—of His Precious Blood which He
loved so amazingly, just as He was turbatus
spiritu (St. John xiii. 21), from foresight of
Judas’ Communion ?
5. As an intense sorrow to His Mother, because she
loved her people, and because it was always an
incredible surprise to her to see Him not loved.
Dear Mother! she had been used to it from
early days, and yet could not get used to it.
IV. The joy of that cry.
1. Because the last obstacle to His Passion was
now removed.
2. Because all allusion to the shedding of His
Blood was a delight to Him, just as a generous
man rejoices in the abundance he has to give
away. The cry roused Him as the trumpet
rouses the warhorse.
3. Because of the conversion of the Jews at last—
and of many now, e.g., three thousand by the
sermon of St Peter, who is now hiding away
for fear and shame.
4. Because of the fulness of the Gentiles < He saw
the crowd of all men ; He saw us with His
Blood upon us ; the thrones of same of us in
heaven : nay, why should I say some, why not
all ? it is my want of faith.
5. Exultation at the immensity, continuity, com­
pleteness, and magnificence of His redemption.
There are two prayers which never cease from off
the earth ; one the Lord’s prayer, taught on a grassy

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PART IT.

hill of Galilee notable for the thick tuftings of its
grass, overlooking the quiet lake, the other by a whole
people in the frenzy of their sin in the streets of the
Holy City ; the blasphemy and curse have turned into
a blessing and a worship, and a wild, wild prayer for
the Precious Blood I All the day and all the night
throughout the whole earth the silent eloquence of
Christian faith, and the speechless song of Christian
hope, and the endless wistful sigh of Christian humi­
lity are for ever rising to the throne of our Heavenly
Father, beautifully and adoringly prolonging the cry of
that dark day of poor Jerusalem : His Blood be upon
us and upon our children.

IX.

HE SAVED OTHERS : HIMSELF HE CANNOT
SAVE.

Is it not strange that such wicked works can be so
beautiful ? Yet are they not beautiful ? Oh, beauti­
ful as some fragment of an angel’s song I He saved
others : Himself He cannot save.
I. What He looked like to those who saw Him on
the cross.
1. Description of Him all disfigured.
2. So changed from what they had seen Him in the
temple, or on Palm Sunday. He was not an
object of horror. Suffering can beautify with
a pitiable beauty.
It can make reverend.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

’55

even be a more graceful thing than the supple
grace of life.
3. At the least He was an object of pity : horror of
gibing the pitiable, and in the hearing of His
Mother! What a dreadful thing hatred is!
and such a hatred !
II. What He looks like to us.
1. The Godhead shining through the disfigurement.
2. His love of men beautifying the very disfigure­
ment itself.
3. Oh to us such an object of love, of pity also,
yet much more of love and of adoration.
III. He saved others.
1. What ! did they hate Him for saving men ?
2. But the fact, how true it is! He did indeed
save others, He saved us, perhaps them ; some
who jeered, e.g. the good thief, are now with
Him in heaven.
3. He did not care to save Himself, so long as He
saved us. He never thought of Himself : this
was His human character, He pleased not Him­
self : it was this which so touched St. Paul.
IV. Himself He cannot save.
1. Can this be true ? He is the omnipotent God ;
angels are waiting His sign.
2. Yet it is true. He is helpless ; He cannot save
Himself ; He cannot come down from the Cross.
3. But what hinders ? Oh such a might of love, of
love only, of love for us.
V. Jfe.
1. Did we then seem so beautiful ? oh no ! how
far from that !
2. But we did seem so pitiable ! He lost all pity

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PART II.

for Himself and for His Mother, because we
did look so infinitely pitiable.
3. And yet, even after it all, we can scarcely force
ourselves to pity Him ; we can hardly strain a
tear, or force a sigh, because of the pains of our
dear crucified Love !
How much the Passion has saved us from I Out of
what a depth it has rescued us ! Truly we can now
use those merciless words of the Jews in quite another
sense. We can take up our crucifix, and kiss the Five
Wounds with at least so much love as to grieve we
have not more love, and then looking at our Saviour’s
Face we can say, Yes, my Jesus, my Lord and my God :
Thou savest others, Thyself Thou canst not save 1

X.
OUR LORD’S COMPLAINTS IN HIS PASSION.
If one you loved lay dying, would you rather he
were silent or complained ? Sorrow has many in­
genious questions to settle, but hardly any more
interesting than this.
I. The Doubt.
1. How much from one point of view silence on
their part enables us to bear the sufferings of
those we love ! Our heart is less wounded,
and our mind, estimates the suffering less.
2. One of the ends of the silence of Jesus was to
spare us. Had He complained we should have
sickened with sorrow over His Passion, with
wo much sorrow to have left room for love.

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257

3. Yet somehow we love the pain complaint gives
us ; if not a solace, it is a pain such as sorrow
covets.
4. There is something graceful in the complaining
of those who suffer : something which discloses
the inward beauty of their souls : to me it seems
of all human sounds not only the most beautiful
but the most dignified and the most religious.
5. It is often an index of great conformity to God’s
Will ; complaint is the voice of patience.
6. We cannot bear for long the silence of those we
love : looks speak, and sighs speak, nay the
silence speaks, but love craves words.
7. In memory how precious, like far off music, are
the complaints of those we have lost.
II. Jesus complaining.
1. The mystery of God complaining: how thia
would strike a heathen in the Old Testament ;
it reveals God so marvellously as a God of love,
ns the God who out of love made us free, that
He might want our love the more, and then
is endlessly, pathetically, almost humbly com­
plaining that He does not get our love.
2. The special mystery of the complaints of the
uncomplaining Jesus ; His whole life was so
uncomplaining.
The taciturnity of the Word makes His words
so precious, especially in the silent Passion.
4. The inexhaustible beauty of His complaints, so
like Him and yet so unlike ; somehow they
increase our devotion to His silence by making
us feel it to be so Godlike.
5 The extreme unexpected simplicity of His comVOL I.

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PART Π.

plaints; unexpected because of their plain,
artless, spontaneous humanness. The Human
Naturo united to the Divine must have
had a singularly simple, translucent, guileless
character.
III. The Five complaints ; all of personal things and
to persons. Simon, sleepest thou ? Couldst thou
not watch one how ?
I. What ! Could you not watch one how with Me 1
(1) Said to Peter by name as the next was to
Judas by name.
(2) As if Peter had only just finished his pro­
testations.
(3) Surprise. What !—as if He bad believed
the protestations.
(4) Disappointment.
(5) Pain, but un-upbraiding. One hour ! it was
such a small thing to do—to keep awake
for an hour !
2. Judas! Dost thou betray the Son of Man with
a kiss ?
(1) Judas by name.
(2) The tone of the voice.
(3) Its sweet gentleness, as if not angry but
lovingly incredulous.
(4) The word betray,
(5) With a kiss—had the apostles ever kissed
Him before, and on the mouth i if so, how
terrible were Judas’ memories, if not, how
terrible was the familiarity !
3. Are you come out as against a thief with swords
and clubs ?
(1) Said to His dear Jews.

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259

(2) A thief— iis if the disgrace affected Him, and
the sense of dishonour.
(3) Still more that His people should not have
recognised His Godhead, Who thought it not
robbery to be equal with God.
(4) With swords and clubs, when He had always
been so gentle, and said, Look at Me, I am
gentle and meek.
(5) As if it was pain to think that they imagined
He was not ready to die for them without
any violence; this last was the worst
wound.
4. If well, why smitest thou Me ? these words are
naturally in St. John’s Gospel, because of His
devotion to the Word, who for words is now
smitten.
(1) Said in the house of Annas.
(2) His sense of injustice.
(3) He remembers all His kind and beautiful
words ; now it is for His words that He is
struck.
(4) Sense of inhumanity, the first out of the way
violence.
(5) His sense of innocence—if evil, give testi­
mony of the evil. He was being judged, and
He thought of the justice and the indulgence
of His own court of justice.
5. My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ?
(1) Speaking no longer to creatures, but to His
Father.
(2) In a loud voice, as if His Father was so far
off, or was getting deaf to Him, as creatures
were.

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PART II.

(3) Amazement. Forsake!
(4) Sense of intolerableness.
(5) Yet somehow this is the most uncomplaining
of the complaints, though the most heartrend­
ing, because there is such adoration in it.
Note that all the complaints are questions—not
upbraidings but pleadings, unwillingnesses to believe
evil, the surprises of love at being wronged—their
unrhetorical simplicity quite divine.
0 dearest Lord ! how sweet to us are Thy beautiful
complaints, the five wounds of Thy feelings! for we
seem to get nearer to thee, or Thou to come nearer to
us, when Thou condescendest to complain !

XL
OUR BLESSED LORD BOWING HIS HEAD
UPON THE CROSS.
*

Passage from mere Lent to Passion tide—from
examining self to contemplating Him. Look at Him
on the cross, feature by feature. The drooping of a
man’s head, when he dies sitting up; it is as if He
were pondering some difficult question, yet untroubled
and unperplexed.
The bowing of His head, His head crowned with
that cruel crown of thorns.
I. As if He was weary and would fain rest—and did
He not grievously want rest ? and what a
• The last sermon which Father Faber preached, Passion Sunday,
1863·

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261

comfortless deathbed we had given ? Compared
with this, there was luxury in the ashes on which
saints have died. The Passion was more fatigue
than creation. How His head must have ached '
How the angels longed to hold it up I
if. As if He yearned to lean it on His Mother’s lap.
1. How sweetly it had rested there at Bethlehem
and in the wilderness I What she felt when
she saw it move and droop.
2. How it said to her (Cant, v.), Open to me, my
love, my dove, my undefiled ; for my head
is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of
the night.
3. How afterwards she touched, and pressed, and
kissed the dead Head beneath the cross.
II.
In token of respect to His Father.
1. As if Qis Father had spoken, and accepted the
cross just then.
2. As if now all was consummated—what an All !
what a consummation !
3. To give death leave to touch Him, Who was
eternal Life.
IV. As though to welcome us and give us leave to
kiss Him.
1. The love He had for each of us at that moment.
2. What is our love for Him ? What our delighted
worship of His Passion ?
Dearest Lord I Why do we ever think of any one
but Him 7 How can we manage to love any one but
Him ? Oh, may we come to feel and to know that we
have but one faith, one hope, one love, one consolation
in weary, painful time, and one reward in the grand,
jubilant eternity—Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.

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PART Π.

XII.
THE PASSION OUR DEVOTION THE WHOLE
YEAR ROUND.

Seeming strangeness of speaking of the Passion at
Eastertide.
I.
The Passion is an abiding devotion.
1. Because in it redemption was accomplished.
2. Because the Sacraments come out of it.
3. Because Mass is a continuation of it.
4. Because it most safely suits our condition on
earth.
5. Because it is a special antidote to hardness of
heart. Examine this.
II.
All holiness depends upon our hearts not being
hardened ; yet this is the great difficulty of life.
1. Because all that is seen (world so bright, people
so kind and good), hardens the heart, while
what softens it is unseen and supernatural.
2. Sin breeds sin, and so habits are formed which
obscure the mind and harden the heart.
3. Low views of sin from the world’s favourite
notion that all duty to God is fulfilled in duty
to our neighbour.
4. The very easiness of forgiveness helps to harden
a wilful heart.
5. Natural corruption inclines that way, just as water
gets cold if taken from the fire.
6. Because we pay so little attention to sins of
thought
7. Because we are so careless about venial sius
especially those of the tongue and untruths.

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263

8. We have so little striving after perfection, and
consequently little knowledge of our own vile­
ness.
9. Because even good people act commonly from
the sole motive of duty, without that of love.
HI. Reasons why the Passion is so touching and
heart-softening.
1. Because of the atrocity of the sufferings both
mental and bodily.
2. The unparalleled heartlessness of the inflicters—
there was every reason against their doing it.
3. The enchanting sweetness and patience of the
Sufferer.
4. The thought that He was God.
5. That all these sufferings were for our sake.
6. That we have felt this a hundred times, and yet
have so ill requited Him.
7. The fear that we might have acted as His
executioners did, had we been there.
8. All the other circumstances of the Passion are
so exquisitely pathetic. (1.) The betrayal.
(2.) The Blessed Virgin Mary. (3.) The Last
Words. (4.) The Centurion. (5.) Pilate’s
admission of His innocence.
9. Because from His Passion, as from a treasure­
house of Divine Love, come
(1) All our hopes for the future.
(2) All our security about the forgiveness of
the past.
(3) All the grace of our present life.
(4) The Presence of the Blessed Sacrament
Hence the Passion is the daily bread of Christian
souls.

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PART II.

XIII.

THE LEGACIES OF JESUS.

If eons, heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with
Christ (Rom. viii. 17.)
Jesus, the poorest of earth’s poor, leaves His legacies
to His lovers : come to Calvary, come to the foot of
the Cross : they are dicing for His seamless garment :
we too must be there at that deathbed, to catch, if
nothing else, the Seven last Words of wise and burning
love that fall from His ever-blessed lips.
I. His peace :
1. Interior mastery over self.
2. Satisfyingness of our love for Him.
3. Quiet certainty of our holy faith.
4. Sweet inclination to judge well of and do
good to all men.
II. His Cross :
1. To make us carpenters for ourselves.
2. To carry for Him, like Simon of Cyrene.
3. To be nailed to, like Peter and Himself: and
this
1. In heart.
2. In soul.
3. In body.
Ah 1 who that has a loving heart will be cast down
at such a legacy as this ?
111. His Mother: as to St. John.
1. Talk to her.
2. Listen to what she shall tell us of Jesus:
devotion to her opens mysteries.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

265

3. Defend her honour.
4. Beg her blessing as if she was in our house
as she was in St. John’s.
IV. Himself :
1. As the sweet Burden of Joseph’s arms.
2. As on Mary’s lap to make our hearts tender.
3. As in spices for sepulture in Communion.
Oh now with riches like to these that we would take
heart and give ourselves utterly up to God. If life be
bright and smiling, Jesus is the brightness and the
smile—and how will He enhance that brightness. If
our road lie through sorrow and through clouds, what
a light ever shining is He. If our measure of life be
well nigh spent, ah what reparation have we not to
make, and love alone can catch up lost time. If we
be young, just leaving port in the gallant trim of
youth with the bright flags of a hundred hopes flying
at our masts, then with Jesus on board we shall be
secure against wreck, and reach at once the haven
where we would be. Oh that the mighty and Eternal
Wisdom, the Eloquence of the Father, and yet the
humblest of loving friends to poor venturesome sinners
—Oh that He for the sake of these sorrowful mysteries
and deep humiliations which we are all thinking of at
this sacred season of Lent—Oh that He would speak
one of His never-failing words in the hearts of each of
us, and make us by a real conversion and a heavenly
love His own, His Heritage for ever I

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PART II.

X1N.

SETTING UP THE STATIONS.
We are about to engage in an act to which the
Church attaches great importance—is strict about—
and enriches with quite unusual indulgences.
I. Devotions of the Jews to holy places—Jacob at
Bethel, &c.—Also the heathen.
1. It implies that we are in a state of exile, and
that heaven is our real country.
2. It is a means of reverence and adoration of God.
3. It is an act of love and softens the heart.
4. It is a touching and eloquent witness to the
world.
5. Unusual grace and supernatural gifts often go
with sanctity of place.
II. Devotion of the Stations.
1. Beauty and naturalness of it considered in itself.
2. Our Lady began it herself on Good Friday.
3. How she continued it in after years in Jerusalem.
4. Pilgrimages in the early and middle ages.
5. The ardent love of Christians as it were invoked
the holy places to their own homes, as St. Paula
(so St. Jerome says), Blessed Columba of Rieti,
and St. Lidwine of Schiedam visited the Holy
Land bodily in ecstasy.
III. Fruits and benedictions of this devotion.
1. It is an act of faith, of hope, and of charity.
2. A thanksgiving to the Most Holy Trinity.
3. An exercise most fruitful to contrition, penance,
and humility.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OP JESUS.

2&f

4. Most acceptable to Jesus and Mary.
5. Most supernatural in its effects on Purgatory.
The best way of making the Stations is to unite
ourselves to the interior dispositions of Mary.

XV.

THE PAIN OF JESUS FROM OUR LITTLE
DEVOTION TO HIS PASSION.
I. Have you ever been in great sorrow ? Then you
know how much harder to bear is want of sympathy
than want of kindness. Kindness is a want with­
out, sympathy a want within. Now with that
thought come up Calvary.
1. Did you ever see any beauty like the beauty of
that dying Face ?
2. But is there not a look of surprise upon it ? not
that death is so hard ; no ! not that !
3. And a look of being pained—not by physical
pain, not by nails or crown ; oh no !
4. We each see that expression for ourselves—others
do not see quite what we see.
5. It is our Lord’s pain at our want of devotion to
the Passion : it is a pain we each of us have
caused, apart from our causing the Passion
altogether.
II. His pain at our want of devotion to His Passion.
1. It was a separate pain for each one of us ; for
wounded love never repeats itself or its pangs.
2. It was a very great pain, for love was just what

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PART II.

He was craving, and it was just the one possible
consolation. We are too coarse to do justice
to the mystery of the Passion ; our lives are not
sufficiently purified by penance
3. It was a peculiar pain ; and all peculiarity in
pain is especially sensible.
4. It was a heightening of each and all of His other
pains—want, ache, absence, feeling of wasted,
unappreciated tenderness.
5. It was a separate thing for Him to forgive—yet
not a sin exactly, and somehow this made it
more intolerable to bear.
III.
What we may reverently conceive to have been
His dispositions about it.
1. Almost surprise—or what in any other human
heart would have been surprise; we are surprised,
indeed we cannot explain our own insensibility.
2. Intense sorrow—I had almost dared to say
disappointment. The more intense because
His own exceeding love made it altogether
unreproachful.
3. An increased yearning for our devotion, as if its
absence made Him hunger.
4. An increased passion to suffer, as if that might
move us, and so get Him what He craves.
5. The pitiful pleading of His silence: in the garden
He complained, what ! could ye not watch ?
Yet on the Cross not one of His seven words
was about it. But oh 1 how He intended that
silence to speak, to speak in the hearts of His
servants !
IV. What He thought, or rather what His silence said.
I. He had made His Passion so various in order to

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269

wound all hearts : I believe He meant some
one touchingness of it for each heart.
2. He had run into all manner of excesses and
enthusiasms, what could He do more ?
3. Then He gave it all to each of us : He made
what belonged to the whole world personal to
each one of us.
4. His behaviour and manner had all been so
beautiful and gentle : angels even felt the
sweet piteousness of His courteous love.
5. Then He had plunged His Mother in it, to break
our hard hearts, because He knew with what
intensity we should love her. Who can resist
the piteousness of innocence suffering? and such
dear innocence as hers ?
I cannot go on multiplying thoughts : it is getting
more than we can bear. 0 my Saviour ! my Saviour !
how I wish I could think He had had some consolation
from knowing that 1 should be devoted to His Passion
before I died !

XVI.
THE SEVEN JOURNEYS.
I. From the supper-room to Gethsemane.
1. The departure of Judas on his accursed work.
2. The presentiments of the disciples.
3. The unspeakable calmness of Jesus.
II. From Gethsemane to the house of Annas.
1. The violence of those who drag Him.
2. The plunging Him in the brook Cedron.

PART Π.

370

His entry amid shame and abjection into the
house of Annas.
III. From the house of Annas to the house of Caiphas
1. The insults of His enraged enemies.
2. The disturbance in the dark streets.
3. The interior occupations of Jesus.
IV. From the house of Caiphas to the hall of Pilate.
1. The weariness and faintness of Jesus.
2. His confusion at being made over to the heathen
governor.
3. The mingled feelings of those who see Him pass
V. From the hall of Pilate to the court of Herod.
1. Increase faintness of Jesus.
2. His sweetness in suffering.
3. His patient charity.
VI. From the court of Herod to the hall of Pilate.
1. His submission to rude hands.
2. His acceptance of the humiliation.
3. His generous facing of death.
VII. From the hall of Pilate to Calvary.
1. His meeting His Blessed Mother.
2. His three falls.
3. His arrival at Calvary.
3.

XVII.

THE FIVE TRIALS OF JESUS.

I. Before Annas.
1. Jesus justifies Himself.
2. He receives a blow.
3. His sweet patience and defence of Himself.

THE SACRED HUMANITY OF JESUS.

2

II. Before Caiphas,
1. The silence of Jesus.
2. The false witnesses.
3. The adjuration.
III. Before Pilate and acquitted.
1. The reluctance of Pilate.
2. The modest defence of Jesus.
3. Pilate’s acquittal of Him and unlawful cruelty
IV. Before Herod.
1. Solemnity and severity of the silence of Jueus
2. His refusal to work a miracle.
3. His being derided as a fool.
V.
Before Pilate and found guilty.
1. Pilate’s human respect.
2. The proposal of Barabbas.
3. Jesus receives sentence.

Ipart îlbirô.
OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS

SECTION I.
OUR BLESSED LADY.

VOL. 1.

L

DEVOTION TO MARY THE GREAT GIFT
OF JESUS.
There is much in the world to make us sad, the
present sorrows of the Church, and our own little love
of God. Yet can we help a certain jubilee of heart in
thinking that the Month of God’s Mother has now
begun, that each day of it is bringing more and more
glory to God, and more and more help to the Church,
because millions upon millions of souls, in every clime
and of every blood, are daily growing in the deep
reverence and the deeper love of the Immaculate
Mother of God ? Oh that the days were longer, and
would pass more slowly, that we might fill them fuller
of that sweet enthusiasm for Jesus, whose natural out­
burst is devotion to His dearest Mother !
I. The gifts of God.
1. The pleasure of receiving gifts—huge pleasure
to the generous—gifts from those we love.
2. What then must be the pleasure of receiving them
from God ? yet all life is this.
3. But our Lord says it is more blessed to give than
to receive.
4. How immense then the pleasure of God, and so
in proportion His love.
5. The wonderfulness of our receiving gifts from

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PART HI.

God: the way it makes us love Him and
humble ourselves.
II. The gifts of Jesus.
1. A peculiar sweetness in receiving gifts from
Jesus.
2. He has one gift, an immense gift, of huge
importance for time, and still more for eternity.
3. Not only an immense gift, but a choice one, one
that He gives most of to His dearest saints.
4. One that was and is part of His own Heart and
Character—and one which He is not so much
ready to give us, as intensely burning to
give us.
5. This gift is the grace to love His Mother I Oh if
we did but prize and value this grace as we
ought to prize it, as He Himself prizes it, we
should be already halfway to heaven, because we
should have half ensured our final perseverance.
III. It is the characteristic grace of Jesus : because
He would give us such a gift.
1. As would make us love Himself most.
2. As would make us most like Him.
3. As would most honour His Mother.
4. As would be most advantageous to ourselves.
5. As would make Him love us most.
All these things are combined in the love of Mary.
What an intense joy it is in any way to resemble
Jesus I How then ought we to cultivate and multiply
this queenly grace of loving Mary I Oh, happy you
who have it, happier you who greatly prize it, happiest
you who are all on fire with it, for it is a fire which
Jesus Himself has kindled in your hearts ! The fair
light of eternity, the sensible touch of God, the golden

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277

prophecies of a happy death, the cheerful securities of
a joyous judgment are upon you. Happy, happy you !
God be praised for your abounding happiness.
But oh unhappy souls, most unfortunate of men,
most unfortunate at least of all men who are not yet
the victims of the eternal prison, you who have not
this devotion ! There is much on earth, which bears,
and rightly, the title of misfortune, but of all God’s
creatures upon earth, they are the most unfortunate
who have no devotion to God’s Mother !
Dearest brethren, there can be no repentance in
heaven—else when we see Mary we shall wish we
had known her better, prayed to her oftener, and loved
her more ; for we shall see brighter places than our
own, further forward in the glory of heaven, where we
might have been had we loved her more 1

IT.
MARY THE MOTHER OF SINNERS.
I. The dreadful condition of a man not in a state of
grace.
1. Cut off from God.
2. Having no part in the redemption of Jesus.
3. The sport of demons.
4. Having already hell begun in himself.
5. Chance of sudden death, and then eternal fire
6. Horror of the angels, and hatred of God, exem­
plified in the brand of Cain.
II. One thing is still left to him—the motherly

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PART 111.

solicitude of Mary. This is his hope—his trea­
sure—his last resource. He goes about the
world linked to Heaven by this one thing.
1. Because she is the Mother of Mercy, not of
J ustice.
2. Because God has willed it so, in love to her and
love to us.
3. Because experience shows that many who through
a sinful life have hung on to her by some little
devotion get grace at last.
111. How it is that, when she so approaches God in
His hatred of sin, she so perseveringly loves
sinners.
1. Because of the glory of God.
2. From a thirst to extend the harvest of Christ’s
Passion.
3. Because all souls are the brothers of Jesus.
4. Because of her vehement enmity with the devil.
5. Because of her very hatred of sin.
6. Because she knows that Jesus saw each of us in
His sufferings, and specially suffered for each.
7. Because of her intense joy in beholding the
triumph of grace.
8. Because of her desire to exercise that peculiar
empire of mercy which God has entrusted to
her.
9. Because of the unspeakable tenderness of her
Maternal heart.
Address the hardhearted or the despairing, to have
unbounded confidence in Mary. You cannot better
magnify the love of God or show more welcome trust
in His mercy than by unlimited confidence in the
Heart of Mury !

DUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

279

III.
MARY THE SAFETY OF SOULS.

The opposite views which God and the world take
of men.
1. The world’s view according to science, or politics,
oi’ intellect, or wealth, or friendship.
2. God’s view, simply and exclusively as souls with
one work to do.
3. The difficulty of learning God’s view and keeping
to it : yet this is the very science of a Chris­
tian.
II. God’s love of souls.
1. The only treasure of His own creation H
vouchsafes to set value on.
2. The immense love of Jesus for souls.
3. The whole Church simply a contrivance for souls.
4. The way all heaven is engrossed day and night
on behalf of souls.
5. The characteristic of the saints is unforgetting
enthusiastic zeal for souls.
6. The value of the soul itself—death being better
than sin—its unutterable penalties, its incon­
ceivable rewards. Nay, God Himself is its only
sufficient reward.
7. The interests of the soul eminently unite the
glory of God and the honour of Jesus.
III. What Mary does for souls.
1. By what she suffered.
2. By her example ; the model of all ages, and
simply a creature, simply imitable.
I.

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PART III.

3. By the conversion of sinners by missions;
scapulars, medals, &c.
4. By the perfection of the saints.
5. By the religious orders she has founded either
by vision or by love : and all they are doing at
all hours all the world over, whether in the
active or contemplative life.
6. By her peculiar winningness and familiarity as
Mother of Mercy.
7. All she does for the Church and the Faith by her
prayers is so much work for souls, as the peace
of the Church is the salvation of the souls of
the masses and multitudes.
8. The way she uses her angels on behalf of souls,
and pursues them into Purgatory.
9. As the neck of the mystical body of Christ all
graces pass through her.
IV. Conclusions to be drawn.
1. The little we can do for souls.
2. The immense privilege of being allowed to do
that little.
3. The joy at the immensity which Mary does;
this is another reason for loving her.
4. Also by our devotion we may continually get
her to do more.
Thus devotion to our Blessed Lady is an essential
part of true zeal for souls.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

381

IV.
DEPENDENCE ON MARY.

I. Our Lord is our example as well as our Redeemer.
1. Hence the necessity of studying the four Gospels
as our rule of life.
2. In these things which seem the least fitted to
His Divinity, He would seem also to be most
our example ;
3. And these things are chiefly under the beads
either of humiliation or submission.
4. Instances : The Forty Days’ Fast—His remaining
in the Temple at twelve years old. I select
these instances as on the surface least likely to
be imitable.
5. But above all, so much of the thirty-three years
given to Mary, thirty out of thirty-three wholly,
the other three very much.
II. Ilis dependence on Mary.
1. He waited her consent for His Incarnation, and
fixed the time because of her.
2. His infancy with use of reason, yet dependent
on her.
3. He seems to leave His Father’s business and
returns from the temple to Nazareth.
4. The eighteen years—He was simply subject to
her.
5. The tradition that He asked her leave to go on
His Ministry, and again to His Passion.
6. At her word He anticipated His time for working
miracles.

PART III.

282

He perpetuated this dependence in the Church
by transferring her to us through St. John.
HI. Our dependence on Mary.
1. Her position to us is thus simply what it was
to Him.
2. All true devotion to her is nothing but dependence
upon her.
3. This dependence is based on—
(1) Belief in her power.
(2) Confidence in her love.
4. All good things which fail, fail because they
have not enough of Mary in them.
5. We must put things in her hands, and look to
her for results.
6. She must be imbedded in our lives, as she is
imbedded in the office of the Church.
7. Holiness is impossible for us without Mary—for
God has made it one consistent system, and she
is part of it ordained by Him.
Oh if we would but throw ourselves more upon Mary
than we do, with the whole weight of our love, with
the whole weight of our necessities. She is loving
each one of us at this moment with a surpassing love.
No friend, no parent, no saint, no angel has ever been
to us what she has been. It is wonderful what she
has done for us without our asking, more wonderful
still what she has done for our little asking, but most
wonderful of all is what she can do and will do, if we
will ask more, believe more, and trust more. Oh we
who call earth our exile, and heaven our home, and
Mary the Queen of Heaven, how is it we do not see
that there can be no heavenly-mindedness which is
not full of loyalty to heaven’s great Queen ?
7.

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281

V.

MORE LOVE OF MARY.

Time goes differently with different people ; and
differently in different years even with the same
person. Sometimes we live slowly ; sometimes we
live quickly. But the years are always speeding, a
quiet speed, but an incessant ona Are we speeding
on the way to heaven ? Speeding ! yes ! are we
speeding on the way to heaven ? It is a road on
which nothing is safe but speed ; nothing is prudent
but impetuosity ; nothing is cautious but bravery.
What is age to the Christian eye ? only this—more
work, and less time to do it in. O Christians, how
we dream ! It was thus that I reproached myself the
other day, and I awoke with a start, as if from sleep
or from forgetfulness. More work and less time to do
it in. This must be looked to ; life must be put in
order ; I must be converted again, and at once, not
to-morrow, but to-day, this very hour. Here is another
year running round, the days are beginning to shorten
again, we must quicken our speed both onward and
upward. I thought I was getting hourly into God’s
debt ; I sat down to teach myself a lesson, to preach
myself a sermon, to reason with my own laziness and
cowardice; and somehow it all went the other way,
all my thoughts went into love. This was how it
was ; let us think the train of thought over again
together.
I. The weight of our obligations to Jesus : what a
delightfully hopeless debt it is.

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PART 111.

1. All that He has suffered and done; let Him
stand before us and show us His Wounds.
2. All His sweet patience lately, and at the pre­
sent hour.
3. All the secret Love He has shown each of us,
and which we alone know.
4. The intolerable misery of the little love we have
for Him, and which we feel most when we love
Him most.
5. We get hot; we rouse ourselves; we are deter­
mined to love Him more, and to go and do
some great thing for Him immediately. Worldly
things are best done coolly, things for God are
best done in a heat.
II. What is our great thing to be ? We must do Him
some immense service—but how ?
1. He is God : we must adore His Divine person ;
our adoration must grow more prostrate and
more exulting every day.
2. But we want something special ; just as His
Incarnation was specially for us.
3. We must worship and love His created Nature,
which He so intensely loves Himself, and which
makes Him Jesus.
4. Prayer, austerities, work for Him : how little we
can do in this way ! No ! He wants imitation :
we must copy Him : we must copy His Sacred
Heart. This, if I mistake not, is the work of all
Christian life, and of Christians’ lives, to widen
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to give it more room,
to multiply its powers and faculties, its worships
and its lives, and as it were add to it and broaden
it by giving Him our own hearts to add to His

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

5.

III.
i.

2.

3.
4.
5.

6.

IV.

285

own and make it larger. Now what représente
His Sacred Heart most both as God and man ?
Then it dawns upon us like a revelation, like
one of those almost frightening sunrises at sea,
when the whole round sun leaps all at once out
of the waters with a silvery suddenness. We
must immediately love Mary with an entirely
new love—with such a love as we never loved
her with before, with such a love as nobody
ever loved her with before—this is what we
will do for Jesus. Dearest Saviour ! Dearest
God, how He will delight in this. Oh this is a
sweet discovery—a most happy inspiration !
Measures of the love of Mary.
Our own greatest love, or all our love together ?
No!
All the Saints’ love of her,—e.g. Joseph, Peter,
John, and her particular friendship with St.
James ? No !
Her own beauty, goodness, and manifold dear
offices ? No.
Her own love of me ? No ! not even that.
The love of Jesus for her. Yes that, precisely
that, only that.
Alas ! it is not enough ; for we have more
grounds for loving her than Jesus had: but we
must be content with this measure.
But I said to myself, it is impossible. Impossible.’
what does impossible mean ? Does grace know
of any such word ? Impossible ! Then I said,
I will spend my life, and oh what a happy life
it will be, in trying to accomplish this dear
impossibility !

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PART III.

VI.
MARY MAGNIFYING GOD.

Is heaven far off, or near ? We do not know : its
songs are not heard, unless it be by the dying, or by
saints as they are rapt in ecstasy. But then the soul’s
ear can hear far off. Still upon the whole we incline
to think that Heaven is near.
I. What is Heaven ? It is the beautifulness of the
outspread God.
1. What angels think of this, and our own dear
dead ; it is all in all to them.
2. Our want of appreciation intellectually, and the
unmovedness of our affections.
3. God is to us one of many things ; hence our
intolerably low views of God.
4. Yet how stupid any low views of God must be :
our own vexation with ourselves.
5. To raise ourselves higher in this matter should
be the one end of life.
IL Loving contemplation of Mary is the way to learn
better adoration of God.
Blessed art thou by thy God in every tabernacle of
Jacob: for in every nation which shall hear thy name,
the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of
*
thee.
I. This is her office. My soul doth magnify the
Lord.
2 She is the highest person in all God’s creation,
and nearest to the Divine Three.
* Judith xiii. SI.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

»87

3. God has most incredibly communicated to her
the splendours of His Perfections.
4. She has led the most wonderful life, and fulfils
the most wonderful office, among creatures.
5. She has been more mixed up with God than all
creation besides.
III. What she has been and is to God.
1. In His Eternity before Creation.
(1) Of all created persons, dearest and first
(2) His unutterable immense complacence in her,
and endless desire of her.
(3) He designed her as seemingly necessary to
Him in creation, as the Mother of the Word.
2. In the Kingdom of Nature.
(1) Her perfections as a person the greatest in
all creation.
(2) Creation created subordinate^ to Jesus and
herself.
(3) The natural gifts of her body and her soul.
3. In the Kingdom of Grace.
(1) The highest sanctity of created persons is
hers.
(2) The Divine Maternity.
(3) The Queenship of the Church on earth.
4. In the Kingdom of Glory.
(1) Her incomparable throne and exaltation.
(2) The Queenship of the angels.
(3) She beautifies even the unspeakable life of
God by her exceeding glorious loveliness.
Oh Majesty of God, most dear, most mysterious,
and yet so infinitely desirable ! How shall we learn
it more worthily, and worship it with more delighted
awe, than by the contemplation of Mary ? It will

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PART III.

be well for us in time and in eternity to spend this
month in intensest efforts to worship Mary with a
more noble, more tender, more reverent worship. It
is a matter in which there can be no excess ; we
cannot do too much : our most must be sorrowfully
too little. God will leave us far behind in His love
and admiration and complacency in her. Oh then,
my brethren, let us worship the grand Mother of God
with every faculty of our minds : let us worship her
with every affection of our hearts : let us worship her
with a magnificent worship—and so shall there grow
in our hearts the grand, broad, invigorating, exclusive,
exulting, impassioned love of God 1

VII.
MARY THE LIKENESS OF GOD.
How it would sweeten death, if when we came to
die, we could feel that God had allowed us to increase
in one single heart the love of our dearest Lady. I
believe it would be a special joy for all eternity. Let
us try now again to-day to inflame each other’s hearts
with this sweet love.
I. Astonishment is one of the chief joys of heaven.
ï. Caused by the immense incomprehensible beauty
of God ;
2. And also by the inconceivable jubilee of all there.
3. Always new, always as it were increasing.
4. In saints on earth touches and glimpses of heaven
bring ecstasy and rapture ; but this is because

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

289

of their mortal weakness: it is not so in
heaven.
5. The exquisite joy of astonishment, in mind, in
heart, in glorified senses.
II. The likeness of God.
1. It is difficult for us on earth to conceive what it
is to have God all in all.
2. He is so completely the one Object that all
blessedness tends to become more and more one
with Him, with an amazing oneness which will
not be put into words.
3. Our joy is that we remain separate selves, yet
one with Him, and so can feel and enjoy our
unity with Him.
4. This union with Him is by becoming transformed
into His likeness.
5. All beauty therefore in creatures, and all joy, is
in their likeness to God.
III. All creation is the likeness of God.
1. Inanimate nature—in beauty of form—pro­
perties, &c.
2. Animalcules — in life—fecundity—beauty—
strangeness.
3. Men like God.
4. Angels like God.
5. But Mary most of all.
(1) Like the Father—in being the Mother of the
Son, truly and naturally. What unimagin­
able likenesses to that dear and Blessed
First Person does not this suggest ?
(2) Like the Son.
I. In form and features, and human disposi­
tion.
VOL. I.

T

I

PART HI.

200

2.
3.
(3)
1.
2.
3.

In the character of her Immaculate Heart.
In mortal sufferings.
Like the Holy Ghost.
In being His Spouse.
In her love of Jesus.
Through the action of her repeated sanctifi­
cations.
There are cold, shallow controversies on earth about
our Lady’s greatness, while at this hour the great St.
Michael is gazing on her throne with a rapture of
astonishment, a delighted rapture which will grow to
all eternity 1

VIII.
THE DELIGHT OF GOD IN THE PER­
FECTIONS OF MARY.
*
There has been only one thing from eternity—there
is only one thing now—there will never to all eternity
be but one thing—the glory of God.
I. The Glory of God.
1. What it is, and His delight in it.
2. Its universal empire, and our own concern
with it.
3. The glorious sovereignty of God.
4. The glorious sweetness of God.
5. The glorious exclusiveness of God.
II. Mary an immense glory of God ; and God’s delight
1. In her Predestination.
• Octave of the Immaculate Conception, 1859.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

291

In her Office as Mother of God.
In her Graces.
In her Prerogatives.
In the work she does in creation.
The reasons of His delight.
Because He sees Himself reflected in her.
Because He is enabled for her sake to love His
creation more.
3. Because through her a greater number of souls
are saved.
4. Because all in her is His own gift.
5. Because the distance from her to Himself is
simply infinite.
This night in heaven : Mary is on her throne,
clothed with the sun, twelve stars around her head,
sighs of earth coming up to her, and the joys of earth
as well. Baptized children, saints, angels, the Sacred
Humanity, the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, are
all drinking joy and jubilee out of that one fountain,
that dearest of all God’s dear glories, the Immaculate
Heart of Mary.
We too have, we trust, a place kept there, in what
part of all that boundless realm of grandeur and ecstasy
we cannot know, but it is very beautiful, strangely
suited to us, and full of unimaginable delights. Though
it is a land of immense distances every one is near to
God, every one is near to Mary. Let us think of that
dear unseen home, and let us hold on in virtue ; let
us pray hard ; let us love hotly ; let us sorrow holily ;
let us delight in God ; and so, dearest children of Mary,
shall our whole lives become one long and beautiful
Procession of the Immaculate Conception I

2.
3.
4.
5.
III.
1.
2.

»9«

PART 111.
IX
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.
I.
THE MOTHER AND THE SON

The history of the Predestination of Jesus and
Mary—hence their unity and inseparability. The
Immaculate Conception is a mystery belonging to
both, and the first mystery of both.
I. The peculiar force and majesty of the mystery of
the Immaculate Conception.
1. It is the first dawn of the world’s redemption.
2. The fountain of all the other mysteries of Jesus
and Mary, and of the seven sacraments, and of
the Church.
3. It interprets as nothing else does the character
of God, and illuminates His eternal decrees.
4. It illustrates and unriddles the wonderfulness of
creation.
5. It beautifies the Church, her doctrines, and her
ceremonial, and crowns the desires of holy
hearts through many generations.
II. Chiefly, it is the primary revelation of Mary’s
similitude to Jesus. Points of likeness.
1. She was exempt from original sin, which none
ever were before in their conception.
2. The gift of actual sinlessness.
3. She could not be tempted inwardly—the devil
had no such power because of her innocence.
4. Her hiddenness and marvellous infancy.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

293

Λ prodigy of suffering, yet not for her own sake.
The resurrection of lier body.
Her Assumption answers to His Ascension.
She is treated in the world now as the Blessed
Sacrament is, unknown, unrealised, shorn of
glory.
9. Her interior—possessing the spirit of Jesus
in unknown measure, far beyond her outward
resemblance.
10. Her share in the victories the saints have won
before and after Christ.
11. In her degree she is the light of the Church—
He the Sun, she the Moon.
12. As God communicates Himself through Jesus, so
Jesus communicates His gifts through her.
13. Her Queendom, like His Headship, is over angels
as well as men.
14. The similarity of her features to His—how won­
derful this resemblance must he to the angels,
who know God, and gaze on Him Incarnate, a
living copy of His creature.
HI. It was the grand work of the Most Holy Trinity
in power, in wisdom, and in joy; and so love
of Mary is, as it were, the signet of the Most
Holy Trinity set upon our souls.
1. Love of Mary a power with God, with her, with
others, over devils, and over self.
2. Love of Mary a wisdom beyond art and science,
literature and philosophy, giving a knowledge
of God, grace, sin, creation, Jesus, eternal and
invisible things.
3. Love of Mary a joy not temporal, but eternal,
and so a shadow of our predestination.
5.
6.
7.
8.

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PART III.

To know Mary is to love her. How we should
bless God for this enchanting knowledge I The ills of
life are many, achings of body, pangs of heart, remorse
of conscience, peril of salvation, yet it is worth while
to have risked all this, and a thousand times more
than this, to have gazed on her sweet life, lisped in
prayer her most beautiful of names, to have known
her, to have loved her, and to be her child ; yes, to be
as Jesus was, the spotless Mother’s Child.

2.

THE MOTHER AND HER MANY SONS.

I.

The beauty of Mary is shown by the fact that the
Word elected her out of His infinite ideals.
She was His mother by choice : she is ours by
the appointment of her Son, who shares her
with us.
1. She was no choice of ours, but the merciful
ordinance of God: just as He made the priviledge of our loving Him into a precept.
2. We cannot do without her, as the Gospel now
stands.
3. She was given to us from the Cross, to Him
at Nazareth : to both of us in the Immaculate
Conception.
4. She has been the ruling power of all the good
of our past lives.
5. That she is our Mother is the great fact of
our lives : else we are not of our Brother’s
family.

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295

II. The Immaculate Conception as it regards ns is
a mystery of grace.
1. It is the second greatest mercy human nature
could have ; the Hypostatic Union being the first.
2. It is the diadem of graces overtopping all that
angels and men have ever received.
3. A grace more for the glory of God and the
honour of Jesus than any other.
4. A source of perpetual joy in heaven, and bound­
less confidence on earth.
The five graces involved in the Immaculate Con­
ception. (1) Immunity from all venial sins collec­
tively; (2) Extinction of fomes; (3) Ceaseless light
of grace ; (4) Endless love of God in act.
I know not whether very great saints or very great
sinners should most love this mystery : extremes meet :
it truly can be no devotion of the commonplace or
lukewarm.
III. The exercise of our Lady’s Maternal office shadows
forth the Holy Trinity.
1. Her immense participation in the power of the
Father, the wisdom of the Son, and the love of
the Holy Ghost.
2. It is carried on even when we neglect or offend
her.
3. Capable of almost numberless degrees, as grace
itself is.
4. Desirous of being more and more exactingly
called on, just as God loves prayer.
5. On the whole her maternal solicitude is propor­
tioned to our devotion, just as God is gentle
with the gentle, liberal with the liberal, and
perverse with the perverse.

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PART ΙΠ.

More confidence ! Ask more ! Ask greater things I
It is no dream : the hour is to come when we shall
see her. We shall hear her voice and be delighted
by her beauty, and kiss those hands which have sent
us so many graces ; and then, and not till then, shall
we know to the full the abounding joy and exultation
with which all heaven and its angels are overflowing
because the Queen of paradise, the dear Empress of
angels and of men, your Mother and mine, was through
the omnipotence of unutterable love, conceived without
stain of sin 1

3·
THE MOTHER OF THE IMMACULATE QUEEN.

God vouchsafes to make preparations for His great
works, as men do, and for our sake : they are full of
beauty, wisdom, and winningness. Thus predestination
preluded creation.
I. Preparations for the Immaculate Conception.
1. On earth.
(1) The yearnings of Eve and of all generations
for the Mother of the Deliverer.
(2) The burden of this desire upon the hearts of
the good and holy.
(3) The weary sighs and tears of the patriarchs
and prophets. Elias and Carmel.
(4) The needs of the sin-desolated world coming
to a head.
(5) The tremulous supernatural expectation dif­
fused over the earth.
2. In Heaven.

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297

(1) Her predestination.
(2) Her not being included in the decree which
regarded sin.
(3) The Divine Persons concur in electing her to
be the Mother of the Incarnate Word.
(4) The Eternal Son in His wisdom conceives
the idea of her glorious soul.
(5) The angels behold the idea of their Queen
in Him. Where their sanctity ends, hers
begins.
[I. The theatre of the actual mystery.
1. Again God chooses, as He chose Mary; His
choice must be a great saint, full of the peculiar
spirit of Jesus.
2. She must be an image of the suffering and
abasement of Jesus and Mary.
3. St. Anne—her life, and that of St. Joachim.
4. The mystery accomplished: announced by an­
gels, hidden like Incarnation, the crown of
humility.
5. From that moment, St. Anne was the queen of
earth ; God’s gifts to her, retinue of angels
inward holiness and joy.
6. St. Anne begins the devotion to the Immaculate
Conception, which the Church now grounds
upon an article of faith.
III. The mysteries of St. Anne.
1. To her God’s beautiful eternal secret is con­
fided.
2. Her joy in Mary’s infancy, and her wonder at
her childish actions.
3. Her heroic sacrifice of her in the temple, like
Mary’s at the Presentation.

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PART ΙΠ.

4. Her death—she receives from the Soul of Jesus
the beatific vision—she is with Mary during
the forty days—ascends with Jesus.
5. Her joy at Mary’s Assumption and Coronation.
IV. The prerogatives of St. Anne.
1. Prerogatives of the saints of the Hypostatic
Union.
2. Power with Joseph, as Mary’s husband.
3. Power with Mary, as her mother, like Mary’s
power with Jesus.
4. Power with Jesus, because of the Immaculate
Conception.
5. Power with the angels, as a sort of queen-mother.
6. Power with the apostles, on the same ground.
7. Power with the Holy Trinity, as the elect vessel
and theatre of their greatest grace.
Let all who have a devotion to the Immaculate
Conception put themselves in a special way under
St. Anne. It was St. Anne, who opened in the secret
solemnities of that ever-blessed mystery the everlasting
jubilee of Jesus, and it was within her womb that God
granted the first and the completest plenary indulgence
iu the world !

4·
THE IMMACULATE QUEEN.

1.

Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament.
1. We have to speak of the Mother in the Presence
of the Son.
2. He is present as God, with a peculiar presence
of the Most Holy Trinity.

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299

3. As man. (1) Prophet of the world. (2) Priest.
(3) King. (4) Owner of all temporal things.
(5) Jud80·
4. To Mary He is in addition—(i) Her God.
(2) Her Creator. (3) Her Redeemer. (4) Her
Son.
5. He is come, we have dared to bring Him to
keep the feast, just as we call her to come
and worship Him for us in the Litany at
Benediction.
II. The three kingdoms of Jesus the King: Mary’s
place in them all.
1. Nature.
(1) Below the angels. I. Joy of this to us.
2. Her gifts greater than theirs. 3. Her
exaltation greater.
(2) The same as that of saints, and sinners.
(3) The same as the nature, by which Jesus is
Blessed Sacrament, prophet, priest, king and
judge.
(4) Both the spiritual and material world were
created because of Jesus and herself.
2. Grace.
(1) All creation, angelic and human, resulted in
a state of grace.
(2) Grace in baptism, of release from original sin.
(3) Preservation from actual mortal sin.
(4) Exemption from venial sin.
(5) Sanctifying in the womb.
(6) Solitary grace of Immaculate Conception.
I. From decree—2. From momentary touch
—3. From root of sin—4. Highest act of
redeeming grace—5. So she needed redemp
*

300

PART 111.

tion most, and Jesus was more truly and
highly a glorious Redeemer by this mystery
than by the redemption of all the world
beside.
3. Glory.
(1) Baptized infants.
(2) Multitudes of unplaced saints.
(3) Angels.
(4) Hierarchy of the Incarnation.
(5) Herself.
(6) The Sacred Humanity, then the blaze of the
Unspeakable and Incomprehensible glory.
III. Her great unlikencss to Jesus was her growth
in grace. Hence her growth in the Church.
Scripture authority.
1. Growth in heaven.
(1) Empty throne filled. (2) Accumulated inter­
cession. (3) Love of the angels. (4) Mul­
titude of the daily saved.
2. Growth on earth.
(1) By doctrines. (2) By feasts. (3) Byreli­
giousorders. (4) By saints. (5) By coun­
cils. (6) By popes. (7) By devout people.
3. Growth in our hearts.
(1) Love. (2) Faith.
(3) Reverence.
(4)
Confidence. (5) Thanksgiving to the Most
Holy Trinity.
Oh how the spirit of the coming Christmas leaps
forward into our hearts to teach us to keep this feast.
Angels rejoice and triumph ! Oh men, rejoice and
bless the abundance of redeeming grace. To-day a
Queen is created for you of the House of David, good
tidings of great joy that shall be to all the people—a

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301

Mother is given to us, and the government is on her
shoulder, and her name shall he called Wonderful,
Counsellor, the most high Lady, the Mother of the
Lord to come, the Princess of Peace. Her empire
shall be multiplied, of her peace there shall be no end.
Blessed be the Most High God, above all things blessed
for the Immaculate Soul of Mary which He this day
so gloriously created, and in the same moment so
gloriously redeemed.
Oh Blessed Sacrament, my Lord and my God, my
Saviour and my Judge, true Man and Son of Mary, I
a sinner have dared to speak of Thy sinless Mother ;
forgive me ami be indulgent to me for every word
which has fallen short of her immense dignity and
incomparable majesty, and for the sake of her Im­
maculate Conception grant to every soul here to-night
the grace to love Thy Mother according to Thy com­
mandment, and after the measure of Thy Sacred Heart,
so that not one among us shall be lost 1

X.

PRAYING FOR SINNERS.
The world has a great many wants, and good
Christians have a great many wants also; but it so
happens that the world’s great want is the same as a
good Christian’s great want—a right appreciation of
spiritual things. This want is the source of all mischief.
I. One of the spiritual things in question is the
favour of Mary.

y>2

PART III.

1. Intellectually—what is there you would not
sacrifice for it ?
2. Except the grace and love of God, what can
come near it ?
3. Yet we do not appreciate it as we ought.
4. And this from want of faith in her power, and
want of experience of her goodness.
5. This month we are going to offer devotions to her,
the likeliest to secure her favour : and to-day I
will speak of praying for those who are in sin.
I. The world of sinners.
1. The dreadfulness of their state in the sight of
the angels.
2. Their multitude, and daily increase.
3. Their secrecy—such unlikely persons.
4. The grace they have resisted.
5. Their immense power against God.
Yet on the other side—
1. The good and sweetness there is amongst them.
2. How much also to pity, and often to extenuate.
3. How much struggle also, although inefficacious.
4. What immense capabilities many of them have
for glorifying God.
How much work one real conversion does, and
how many miracles it involves.
ill This is Mary’s world.
i. It is given over to her in a special and official
manner.
2 She knows how Jesus yearns over it.
3, Hence those have almost a claim upon her mercy,
who are so sadly in need of it.
4 How much love of her there is even in that
dark multitude.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

J03

Yet in a great measure she has to work through
us: just as God vouchsafes to depend on us
Himself.
IV. The devotion of praying for sinners.
1. Almost the favourite devotion of the saints.
2. How it cultivates union with Jesus, and fosters
love of Mary.
3. Praying for particular sinners, or classes of
sinners, or places.
4. Praying, as in the case of the Holy Souls, for
those God wills, and leaving all to Him.
Might I speak of the shape of this devotion, which
is sweetest to myself ? Pool of Bethsaida *—the man
who was there for thirty-eight years—so let us pray
for the soul which is close to conversion, has been
waiting longest, and has none near to put him in. I
do not think it would be out of the way to expect to
convert one soul a day, and give it to Mary to offer.
We should not see our work—it might be by the burning
rivers of Africa, or on the icy shores near the Pole, or
in the great city, or in the quiet country—it might be
one of our own kith and kin, or a stranger and a
foreigner—it might be a king or a labourer, a child at
school who has just committed his first mortal sin, or
an old man in his agony with thousands of them. But
these would be among the delightful secrets which we
should learn in heaven, and perhaps from Mary’s lips.
We should know that we were working for God—
we should be sure we were working with success—it
would almost be sweeter because it is all in the dark,
in that darkness of faith which will one day change so
sweetly into light.
5.

1 St. John v.

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PART ΙΠ.
XI.

THE ASSUMPTION.
To-day is the feast of the beautiful mystery—the
first function of the Church triumphant in heaven, the
end for which God created the world coming into view ;
let us see in what light it puts the character of God
before us.
I. Humility. The Assumption is God’s coming to
crown His own creation.
1. It is the proper virtue of a creature.
2. It was so of the angels, and saved them.
3. It is so of the Church, and is marked in all her
worship.
4. The want of humility in the world is just the
evidence of its having fallen from God.
II. God cannot be humble; yet there is a characteristic
of the Divine operations answering to that
virtue : we cannot name it ; it is shewn—
1. In the unostentatiousness of creation.
2. In the renewal and conservation of creation.
3. In His omnipresence.
4. In the delay of judgment, and in silence under
outrage.
5. In his quiet hidden way of imparting grace.
III. God came to practise humility by the Incarnation.
1. In His choice of poverty and suffering.
2. In what followed from the Incarnation—the
obedence of the Omnipotent, the poverty of the
Lord of All, the hiddenness of the Omnipresent,
the toil of the Creator.
3. In the Blessed Sacrament daily.

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305

In the humiliations of His dear Spouse the
Church.
IV. Mary the humblest of creatures.
I. With the angel. 2. With St. Elizabeth. 3.
With St. Joseph. 4. Her Purification and
obedience to other laws. 5. The silence of
the Evangelists.
Thus the Assumption was a consistent manifestation
of the Creator’s character, a revelation of His taste, a
merciful disclosure of His genius.
Oh let us fall in love with sweet humility, let us
keep ourselves low, and nestle in the thought of our
own unworthiness ; let us wonder God should bear
with us at all, and so learn sweet manners to bear
with the waywardness of others, and this night from
the depths of the fallen earth let us look at this grand
action of our Creator, and worshipping His ways, use
our mother’s words unto Him : Magnificat anima mea
Dominum, et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari
meo : and why ? Quia respexit humilitatem ancillœ
suœ. Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles:
He cast Lucifer from his throne, and set Mary nigh
unto Himself.
4.

XII.

THE ASSUMPTION.

World-wearied, sin-stained, earth-bound ! What
have we to do with this great glory ? Yet it has
lessons for all, besides the wonder and the beauty and
the joy of our mother’s glory, and the vision of a
mighty work of God.
vol.

I.

π

3o6

PART HI.

I. How great nature can be with grace.
1. She lias not outstepped or outstripped her nature.
2. It would be hard to put a limit to what nature
can be.
3. Yet we are always fancying we have got to our
own limit.
II. How little without grace.
1. For what is Mary’s nature in itself ?
2. What has she from nature independent of grace ?
3. Her nature is only visible in the fires of grace
as the three children were in the furnace.
III. The abundance of grace.
1. See what she had in number and in kind.
2. Yet she has not nearly exhausted the possibilities
of grace.
3. Nay, what abundance have we not had ourselves ?
IV. Correspondence to grace is of itself the whole work.
1. Her correspondence is the nearest interpretation
of the mystery of her greatness.
2. What correspondence is in detail, and how it
multiplies grace.
3. Oh, the room our graces leave us, and our lost
opportunities.
Mary is the manifestation of the kingdom of grace,
and the type of God’s way with all our souls ; singular,
yet not singular ; admirable, yet imitable also ; standing
alone, yet in the midst of us ; moved up to God as His
sinless mother, yet removed from us no further than a
mother from her children !

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

W

XIII.
ROSARY SUNDAY.

I. The position which the Rosary occupies in the
Church.
1. It is not a special devotion, but unites all
devotions.
2. It distinguishes no order, but all orders.
3. It is to the laity almost what office is to the clergy.
4. A true Catholic mind can hardly now be formed
without it.
5. It is distinguished above all other devotions by
the approbations of the Church.
II. The Rosary viewed as an instrument of power in
itself.
1. Its peculiar power on earth in forming character,
so that it is a Catholic touchstone.
2. Its influence in heaven shewn from its being
revealed.
3. Its influence in Purgatory from the immensity
of its indulgences.
4. As a profession of faith also.
5. As a shield against many temptations.
III. It is also an instrument of power as a teacher.
1. It illustrates the position of our Lady to our
Lord, and is another way of looking at their
Mysteries.
2. It teaches also how she is a way to Him.
3. Also it is what she did all her life herself: she
rose to great heights by incessant meditation of
Jesus.

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PART HI.

4. Therefore it shows us what she wishes us to do ;
it is her testament, as the Holy Eucharist is
the testament of Jesus.
5. Hence it is the truest means of loving her ; for
love consists, (1) in obedience; and (2) in
imitation.
In consequence of all these blessings the devil makes
the Rosary a special subject of temptations, weariness,
contempt, and the like. Persevere in it, and it will
itself be the chain of your own final perseverance.

xiv.
THE LETTER KILLETH, BUT THE SPIRIT
GIVETH LIFE
*

People who aim at doing their duty, are divisionable
into two classes, (1) they who follow the letter, and
(2) they who take the spirit.
I. Our Blessed Lady an exemplification of the spirit,
not the letter.
1. She got from the Scriptures a true notion of the
Messias and His kingdom.
2. Her conduct to St. Joseph, secrecy, marriage, &c.
3. With our Lord, especially in the marriage at
Cana.
4. Her receiving St. John, and us with him.
5. Thus the letter of our Lord’s words hurt her not
II. Conduct of those who take the spirit with re­
gard to—
• Preached to the Enfants de Marie at Roehampton.

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309

1. Genius, and spirit, and movement of the Church
as well as her doctrines.
2. Waj of holding doctrines.
3. View of the spiritual life.
4. Promptness of obedience.
5. Intercourse with the world.
6. Supernatural tendency.
7. The Child of Mary ever divining the high and
right path.
III.
What happens to the mere disciples of the letter.
They
1. Often miss real duty, and get gradually entangled
in a positively wrong course of conduct.
2. Do no great works for God or the Church.
3. Are less winning and attractive.
The power of high principle and noble purpose and
lofty aim, wherein lies the sphere and mission of the
Enfants de Marie.

XV.

MEMORIALS OF MARY AND HER SIXTYTHREE YEARS.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Her eternal predestination.
Her Immaculate Conception.
Her first use of reason.
Her first act of Divine love.
Her pure nativity.
Her obedience to SS. Joachim and Anne.
Her receiving her beautiful name.

Jio

PART HI.

8. Hcr presentation in the temple when three years
old.
9. Her holy sojourn and retreat there.
10. Her preservation from all actual sin.
11. Her pure nuptials.
12. The Annunciation.
13. Her humble answer to St. Gabriel.
14. The Incarnation.
15. The perplexity of St. Joseph.
16. The visitation and sanctification of St. John the
Baptist.
17. Her innocence declared by the angel and honoured
by St. Joseph.
18. Her expectation of her delivery.
19. The rebuff from the people of Bethlehem.
20. The entry into the stable.
21. Her ecstatic contemplation of the Incarnation.
22. The birth of her Jesus.
23. The joy of her first services to Him.
24. Her first suckling of Him.
25 The devotion of the shepherds.
26. The adoration of the Kings.
27. The circumcision and naming of Jesus
28. Her purification, and presentation of Jesus.
29. The joy of Simeon and his prophecies.
30. The flight into Egypt.
31. The return to Nazareth.
32. The loss of Jesus for three days.
33. The finding Him in the temple.
34. Her maternal authority over Him at Nazareth.
3 5. Her sorrow at the death of St. Joseph and St. Anne.
36.
Her joy in following Jesus and hearing His
sermons.

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311

37. Her success in obtaining the first miracle at Cana.
38. Her farewell to Jesus when He went to His
Passion.
39. Her meeting Him on the road to Calvary.
40. The nailing to the cross and the elevation of it
in her presence.
41. Her receiving St. John as her legacy.
42. The death of Jesus.
43. The piercing of His side.
44. The descent from the cross.
45. Her receiving His body on her lap.
46. Her helping to bury Him.
47. Her tears during Saturday’s solitude.
48. Her first visit from Jesus risen.
49. Her witnessing the Ascension.
50. Her receiving the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.
51. Her first Communion from the hands of St. John
52. Her solicitude for the infant Church.
53. Her desire for death.
54. Her dying of love.
5 5. Her burial by the Apostles.
56. The resurrection of her body.
57. Her rising through the air.
58. Her entry into Heaven.
59. Her reception by the Eternal Father.
60. Her Coronation.
61. Her sweet empire over the Angels.
62. Her diligent love of the Souls in Purgatory.
63. Her protection of us poor sinners upon earth.

PA KT Ill.

XVI.
THE JOYS OF OUR DEAR LADY.
Her seven earthly Joys.
The Annunciation.
The Nativity.
The adoration of the Three Kings.
The Resurrection.
The Ascension.
The coming of the Holy Ghost.
The Assumption.
II. Her Seven heavenly joys, revealed by her to St.
Thomas of Canterbury.
1. Her exaltation above the angels.
2. Her seat at the right hand of Jesus.
3. The obedience of the Blessed to her.
4. Her being the new Ornament of Paradise.
5. Her conformity to the Will of God.
6. Her being the channel of all grace.
7. The increase of her joys up to the day of
Judgment, and then their eternity.

I.

1.
2.
3.
•j.
5.
6.
7.

Ipart XTbirO.
OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

SECTION II.
THE SAINTS.

I.
MEDITATIONS ON THE HOLY ANGELS.
The silence of God before the creation of the
Holy Angels.
1. His infinite happiness without creatures.
2. His independence of all relation to them.
3. The immensity and variety of possible worlds
and creatures.
II. The Creation.
1. God’s choice of this world out of all possible
worlds.
2. The utter dependence of creatures on Him.
3. The eternal silence broken by the beautiful
creation of Angels.
III. The existence of the Angels.
1. Spiritual substances possible.
2. Suitable for God’s glory and the good of the
world.
3. Belief of all ages in the existence of Angels.
IV. The spirituality of the Angels.
1. The substance of the Angels the most subtle in
the world.
2. They are more spiritual than the soul of man.
3. Yet gross, and as it were material, compared
with God.

I.

3ΐό

PART HI.

V. The great number of the Angels.
1. The ninth choir contains, according to a common
opinion, as many guardians as there are, have
been, or will be souls of men.
2. Eight choirs remain unnumbered.
3. The great glory of God from the multitude of
His courtiers.
VI. The distinction of the Angels.
1. They might have been all of one species.
2. Probably they are of twenty-seven species, three
in each choir.
3. Glory of the Creator in this distinction.
VII. The order of the Angels.
1. St. Paul, ravished to the third heaven, classes
them in three hierarchies.
2. These subdivided into three choirs.
3. The choirs into three ranks of different species.
VIII. The understanding of the Angels (1).
1. Their substance the most noble after that of God,
and so their understanding the most subtle.
2. Their knowledge of the secrets of nature.
3. Their knowledge of theology and the attributes
of God.
IX. The understanding of the Angels (2).
1. They receive their ideas and images immediately
from God.
2. Their knowledge is intuitive.
3. Their understanding is always in action.
X.
Tire things which the Angels do not know by their
natural science.
1. Things future.
2. The secrets of hearts.
3. The Incarnation and its mysteries.

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317

XL The will of the Angels.
1. The freedom of it.
2. The marvellous power of it as regards God.
3. Their love of each other.
XII. The movement of the Angels.
1. The perfection of it.
2. They move all at once, as being indivisible
substances.
3. Their great power in moving other substances,
whether spiritual or material.
XIII. The time, place, and end of their creation.
1. The time—when God said, let there be light, or
when He created the heavens.
2. The place—in the heavens.
3. The end—to adorn and beautify the heavens
for the greater glory of God.
XIV. The supernatural gifts received by the Angels
at the moment of their creation.
1. Sanctifying grace, with faith, hope, charity, and
other infused virtues.
2. Revelations, as of the Most Holy Trinity, In­
carnation, guardianship of men, future events,
fires of hell, &c.
3. Actual grace to elicit supernatural acts and merit.
XV. The different orders of Angels.
1. They have received different graces and ex­
cellences.
2. They have each distinguishing and special virtues.
3. All other virtues are, however, included in the
case of each, in their own special eminence.
XVI. The first hierarchy.
1. The Seraphim, inflamed with love.
2. The Cherubim, glorious for supernatural science.

3ï8

PART III.

The Thrones, eminent for especial submission
to the Divine Will.
XVII. The second hierarchy.
1. The Dominations, filled with zeal for the king­
dom of God.
2. The Virtues, replete with invincible force in the
service of God.
3. The Powers, possessed of marvellous benignity.
XVIII. The third hierarchy.
1. The Principalities, eminent for purity of in­
tention.
2. The Archangels, lovely for their peculiar parti­
cipation in the virtues both of their superiors
and inferiors.
3. The Angels, delightful to God from the humility
with which they govern the world.
XIX. The probation of the Angels.
1. The time of their temptation was very short.
2. Two-thirds persevered in their peculiar graces.
3. The battle in heaven.
XX. The sinning Angels.
1. There were some of all the orders.
2. Their sin was pride.
3. Especially, St. Thomas thinks, complacency in
their own exceeding beauty.
XXI. The judgment of the Angels.
1. They had a particular judgment, though they
will have to appear again at the general judg­
ment.
2. God gave those who had persevered a third
beatitude, in addition to their natural and super­
natural beauty ; it consisted in the Beatific
Vision oi Himself.

3.

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519

The awfulness of His justice upon the evil
Angels, though He foresaw all their hatred of
Him, and the misery they would cause.
XXII. The principal pains of the fallen Angels.
1. The pain of loss.
2. The pain of sense, although they are spirits.
3. The knowledge that it is all irrevocable.
XXIII. The occupations of the fallen Angels against
the souls of men.
1. They tempt man, because they envy him and
hate God.
2. They cannot hurt man against his will by these
temptations.
3. The means of resisting evil angels are prayer,
humility, and the flight of occasions.
XXIV. The possession of men’s bodies by the fallen
angels.
r. It is through envy of man, and a blasphemous
desire of imitating the Incarnation.
2. This possession is subject to the exorcisms of the
Church, though, as it grows more infrequent, it
seems more difficult to cure.
3. The misery of possession far less than that of
wilful sin.
XXV. The language and light of Angels.
1. They speak to each other by their wills.
2. They ask light of those above them and com­
municate it to those below them.
3. The words of the superior Angels purify, enlighten,
and make perfect those below them.
XXVI. The commissions of the Angels in the world.
I. To move and rule the earth and heavenly
bodies.
3.

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2. To undertake the protection of kingdoms and
empires.
3. To guard each particular soul.
XXVII. The Guardian Angels ; of what order they are.
1. Some say they are from the ninth choir only.
2. St. Thomas thinks that the angels of the first
four choirs never go from the presence of God ;
and that the Guardian Angels are from the
other five choirs.
3. Others, taking St. *
Paul literally, think that some
of all the choirs are deputed to guard the souls
of men.
XXVIII. The Guardian Angels ; at what time they
guard us.
1. They begin as soon as the body is joined by the
soul in the womb.
2. They do so till death, and at the general judgment.
3. The Guardian Angel of Judas did not desert him
so long as breath was in him.
XXIX. The Guardian Angels; how they guard us.
1. With most affectionate condescendence.
2. With inexpressible zeal.
3. With perpetual joy.
XXX. Comparison of men and Angels (1).
1. Men are inferior to the Angels in natural gifts.
2. The Angels are a simpler image of the divine
perfections.
3. Yet the souls of Jesus and Mary surpassed them
in dignity and grace.
XXXI. Comparison of men and Angels (2). They
are equal—
I. In having God for their Creator.
• Heb. i. 14.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

331

2. In sharing eternal life.
3. In inhabiting the same blessed city.
XXXII. Comparison of men and Angels. (3) Men
are superior to Angels—
1. In the Elevation of the Sacred Humanity of
Jesus.
2. In that they undergo a ruder probation.
3. In that they rise by repentance when they have
fallen.
XXXIII. The worship of the Angels.
1. Because of their eminent sanctity, power, and
beauty.
2. By frequent meditation on them, acts of love,
prayers, imitations of their perfections, and
sweet modesty.
3. Of those Angels particularly of the churches we
pass by, of our friends, of our enemies, of our superiors,
our own Guardian, the seven that stand before the
throne, and especially SS. Michael, Gabriel, and .Raphael,
whom the Church honours by name with special
offices.
XXXIV. The worship of St. Michael.
1. As Guardian Angel of the Sacred Humanity.
2. As Guardian Angel of the Catholic Church.
3. As the slayer of Antichrist.
4. As the sounder of the trumpet at the Resur­
rection.
5. As the bearer of the cross at the last judgment.
XXXV. The worship of St. Gabriel.
1. As promising the Messias to Daniel.
2. As appearing to Zacharias.
3. As Guardian Angel to our Blessed Lady.
4. As bringing the Hail Mary to earth.
VOL. L

x

PART III
XXXVI. The worship of St. Raphael.
1. As the physician of the soul.
2. As restoring sight to the blind.
3. As knowing the secret powers of nature.
4. As troubling the waters of Bethsaida.
5. As binding Satan in the desert.
6. As guide to man in the pilgrimage of life.
7. As one of the great and chief seven of the
Angela

II.
MOTIVES FOR A PECULIAR AFFECTION
TOWARDS OUR OWN DEAR
GUARDIAN ANGEL.
I. Because although he is a most noble and pure spirit,
and filled with the love of God, the Almighty
has deputed him to assist continually a creature
30 vile and abject as man, and takes pleasure in
communicating to us all manner of good through
him.
II.
Because from the first moment of our life our
Angel has taken charge of us with a most tender
love, beyond that of brother, father, or mother,
and that without any end or advantage of his
own ; and he employs his entire energies simply
for our greater good.
III. Because he never abandons us for so much as a
single moment, although we may totally forget
him, be ungrateful for his kindnesses, reject his
lights and inspirations, and live in habits of sin.

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323

IV. Because he has taken a most particular care of us
when we were children, protecting us and defend­
ing us from many dangers to which we were
exposed at that age.
V. Because he acts continually as our master.
illuminating our understanding with the know­
ledge of God, and of eternal truths ; from him
come all good thoughts, inspirations, lights and
hints which help us on the way of salvation.
VI. Because he is always endeavouring to incline our
will to good works, instilling into our hearts holy
affections, kindling heavenly desires in us, and
inflaming our love towards God and our neigh­
bour.
VII. Because by his power he is always removing
the obstacles which stand in the way of per­
fection, and dexterously setting aside occasions
of sin from before us.
VIII. Because in those occasions of sin, which meet
us without any fault of our own, he assists us,
gives us interior warnings, or sometimes exterior
signs, and animates us to overcome the sin.
IX. Because he bridles the force of the devils, that
they may not tempt us beyond our powers,
and gives us fortitude in dealing with tempta­
tions.
X. Because in troubles of spirit and sufferings of
body, he comforts us to suffer patiently, animates
our hope, and keeps before us the thought of
merit and reward.
XI. Because, when we invoke him in our doubts, he
always gives us counsel, and lets us know which
are the safest resolutions.

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PART III.

XII. Because he prays continually for us, and offers
our prayers to God, and obtains graces for us,
and other favours which are not contrary to the
Divine Will and to the good of our souls : he
also presents all our good works to God, and
keeps an affectionately strict remembrance of
them himself, against the judgment day.
XIII. Because he advances and promotes our temporal
affairs, our fortunes, and the health of our bodies,
and is God’s secondary cause in all these things.
XIV. Because he is never disturbed, neither does he
abandon us when we fall into sin ; but he com­
passionates us with tender love, and stimulates
us to penance, and is skilful in devising methods
of winning us back to God.
XV. Because when we resist his sweet goads of love,
he corrects us, frightens us, punishes us with
accidents and sicknesses, persecutions and dis­
appointments.
XVI. Because he sometimes assumes an aerial body
and appears in various forms, either for the
good of the person he guards, or for the
instruction and utility of others.
XVLI. Because in our sicknesses he vouchsafes to
humble himself to the most abject ministries for
our consolation and repose.
XVIII. Because he assists us at our death with a
most diligent solicitude, procures for our souls
all external spiritual aids, invisibly defends us
from Satan, and comforts us in that tremendous
passage.
XIX. Because he does not abandon us in the parti­
cular judgment, but conducts the soul to pur-

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335

gatory, consoles it there, and takes solicitous
pains to procure our deliverance.
XX. Because when the soul has been cleansed, he
introduces it into the glory of heaven, and
places it in the place prepared for it among the
angelic choirs.

in.

DEVOTIONAL PRACTICES IN HONOUR OF
OUR GUARDIAN ANGEL.
I. To keep his continual presence in a lively
manner before our minds.
II. To preserve careful modesty of external de­
meanour, so as not to offend the purity of his
eye.
III. To get a habit, either in the house or walking
out, of spending part of each day in company
with our Guardian Angel alone.
IV. To make an act of loving thanksgiving to him
morning and evening.
V. To recite nine Paters, Aves, and Glorias in honour
of the nine choirs.
VI. To say the little office or chaplet of the
Guardian Angel.
VII. To have near our bed, or in our room, a
picture of him, and to salute it when we go
out or come in.
VIII. On some fixed day in the week to pay him
some special tribute of devotion.
jX, To enrol ourselves in some confraternity in
honour of the Holy Angels.

ρ6

PART III.

X. To propagate devotion to the Guardian Angele
among our friends.
XI. To practice custody of the eyes in honour of
our Guardian Angel.
XII. To forgive injuries promptly and to restrain
the sallies of anger in honour of him.
XIII. To have an especial love of chastity, the
virtue most dear to the Holy Angels.
XIV. To practice some particular devotion to the
Queen of Angels in the name of our Guardian
Angel.
XV. To select some one of our Guardian Angel’s
virtues for imitation for a definite time.
XVI. To keep the feast of the Guardian Angels, and
also our own birthday, as a feast of our own
Angel, who then began his ministry.
XVII. To give alms in honour of the Guardian Angel
of the beggar.
XVIII. To salute the Guardian Angels of those whom
we meet in the streets, of villages, &c., all which
is most acceptable to our own Guardian Angel.
XIX. In entering a church to unite our intention
with that of our Guardian Angel to adore the
Blessed Sacrament, and then to honour the
Angels of the different altars, and the other
Angels worshipping there.
XX. To invoke our Guardian Angel at the beginning
of all our separate works and duties.

Those who from the circumstances of the times and
the self-will of the world, or from a strong interior

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS

yrj

attrait of the Holy Ghost, are drawn to a special
devotion to the adorable Will of God, may obtain
astonishing graces and favours by showing special
reverence and particular love to the third choir of the
first hierarchy the Blessed Thrones, on whom the Will
of God rests in its might, reposing with inexplicable
complacency in the perfectness of their submission.

IV
ST. JOSEPH.
God blessing the world after Creation—how much
more was there for Him to love when Mary
was born—yet she was a weak damsel whom
any one might insult—whom does He choose
to protect her ? St. Joseph.
11. There was a Babe in the world, and that Babe
was the world’s God—any one may slay Him,
wound Him, trample on Him. God’s treasures
are now rather on earth than in Heaven—who
shall protect them ? St. Joseph.
III. There can be no humility in God, but this great
mystery was to be in God made Man, obedient
to His own creature—who was born to be the
lawful superior of God, and to sanctify himself
by thus awfully commanding ? St. Joseph.
IV. How the Eternal Father seems withdrawn from
gaze ! the elect are Sons of God, and 30 repre­
sent Jesus: the Spirit acts in us;—St. Joseph
has imparted to him a shadow, nay a reality, of
the Eternal Father’s ever-blessed Fatherhood.

I.

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PART HI.

Brief sketch of his life—suspicion—grief—
charity — Bethlehem—Flight into Egypt —
Nazareth—Three Days’ Loss—rules Jesus and
Mary—dies between them.
VI. The love of Jesus and Mary meet in him : he
was spared the Passion : his office is daily re­
presented in mass, procession, and benediction:
devotion to him is a short road to the Sacred
Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
VII. His death.—How sweet was the happy solitude
of the House of Nazareth—no secret bower in
the shades of Eden was more sweet than that
sinless house, that heaven upon earth—Would
death dare to come where the Lord of life was
living ? It durst not come nigh His Cross until
He bowed His Head in sign that it might come.
Yes I death dared to cross the threshold of the
House of Nazareth. Joseph was now seventy
years of age, Mary forty-five and Jesus twentynine. He was not ill, but his love of God shook
him in his old age, as it did St. Philip, that
second St. Joseph, after him. The hour came :
he laid himself down to die ; and what a death !
VIII. Jesus is on one side of his bed, Mary on the
other : he holds the right hand of Mary in his
left hand in token of his fidelity, and in his
right hand the left hand of Jesus, that with
His right Jesus may give him benediction.
Mary thought of Bethlehem, and of the desert
as they fled to Egypt. She loved him wonder­
fully : deep thoughts were in her sinless soul
as she watched the coming on of death ; she
looked with love on Joseph, and then she

V

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329

looked over him at Jesus her obedient Son, aud
she remembered how He was the Lord of life—
He had created and sanctified St. Joseph’s
beautiful soul—He it was Who was now bid­
ding death come and fetch it. Oh mystery of
wonder and of love I Joseph need not die, if
Jesus would but will that he should not. Mary
pressed Joseph’s hand—she did not pray that
he might live—but looked at Jesus and adored
Him, adored her own Son, who was her God as
well. 0 death ! thou hast travelled the world
over, yet never surely didst thou come on such
a scene as this. God in flesh and blood has
fast hold of the hand of him whom thou hast
come to seek and to strike. Wilt thou dare?
Jesus held the right hand of Joseph—He
whispered in his ear sweet words of thanks­
giving for all his care of Him. St. Joseph
looked up into the face of Jesus—his weak
eyes went all over it—the hair, the brow, the
eyes, the moving lips : yes, bold man, thou wilt
see that face once more, Oh how bright and
beautiful ! And thou wilt be spared the sight
of it as Mary will see it, covered with blood and
wounds, and mud and filthy spittle. Oh what
a strait to choose in I To die for us is to go to
Jesus ; for Joseph it was to leave Jesus for
awhile. He looked up into the face of Jesus—
he thought how he had dressed Him, washed
Him, kissed Him as a little one, protected Him,
commanded Him in his poor shop, and he
pressed His Sacred Hand and smiled with love ;
and God Almighty, the obedient Son, stooped

33°

PART III.

down and reverently kissed St. Joseph’s hand·
St. Joseph looked to Mary—then to Jesus—
then back to Mary—then to Jesus again. He
looked up into His face;—the smile passed
away—there came a look, most awful, most
heavenly, most wonderful—he saw the Godhead
shine out in the face of Jesus—the most pro­
found and abashed humility passed into his look
—he made an act of fear, because he was a
creature, and an act of love because he was the
foster father—both shook his dying frame.
He adored Jesus his Creator and his Judge—
the dying Saint’s guardian angel prostrated
himself adoringly—St. Joseph needed no guar­
dian—God was there. Jesus raised His Right
Hand as Judge and blessed him; thus He
judged His dying servant even before His death
—that raised Right Hand of Jesus had blessed
St. Joseph—the dying creature whispered softly,
Jesus, Mary, the Creator’s ear was close and
caught the words—He stooped and kissed the
lips as they pronounced the name of Mary—in
that kiss of peace the mystery was done—the
soul of Joseph fled away to rest in Abraham’s
bosom, to wait till Jesus should have ended four
more years, and be ready to carry it with Him
through the blue skies on Ascension Day into
the everlasting joys of heaven.
Oh greatest ! Oh dearest of all the saints of God !
may we die the death of the just, and may our last end
be like to thine !

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

33«

V.
MEDITATIONS ON ST. JOSEPH.
Cuetoe Amabilia, or· pro nobia.

HIS SEVEN DOLOURS.

I. Hie grief in thinking he must put away our Blessed
Lady.
1. His horror of impurity, and zeal for the love of
God.
2. His refraining from judging her.
3. His discreet and charitable deliberation and delay.
II. His seeing the Infant Jesus in poverty and distress.
1. Seeing Him shiver with cold.
2. Hearing Him cry.
3. The hardness of the manger and poverty of the
cave.
III. His seeing His Blood flow at the circumcision.
1. His hatred of sin.
2. He adores the love of Jesus in shedding It.
3. He adores His obedience to the law.
IV. St. Simeon’s prophecy.
1. His sympathy with our Blessed Lady.
2. His sorrowful meditation on St. Simeon’s words.
3. His continual remembrance of them.
V. The flight into Egypt.
1. The fears, perils, and fatigues of the journey.
2. His watching the sufferings of Jesus.
3. His inability to protect our Blessed Lady.
VI. His hearing that Archelaus was reigning.
I. It dashed the joy of His return from Egypt

jja
2.
3.
VII.
1.
2.
3.

PART III.
His new fears for Jesus and our Lady.
His having to live so far from the temple.
His loss of Jesus for three days.
The anxiety of the weary search.
His self-reproach as being the cause.
His misery at seeing our Blessed Lady suffer.
HIS SEVEN JOYS.

I. The angel telling him to take Mary for his wife.
1. His delight at her innocence.
2. The honour he pays to her virtue.
3. Joyous expectations of Jesus.
II. The Ave Maria and Nativity.
1. His hearing the Ave Maria.
2. Seeing the adoration of the shepherds.
3. The homage of the three kings.
III. The holy name of Jesus.
1. His having to give it to the Child.
2. His first pronouncing of it.
3. His pondering with Mary over the mystery of it.
IV. St. Simeon’s words about our Lord : that He
should be—
1. A light to the Gentiles.
2. The glory of Israel.
3. The resurrection of many.
V. The falling down of the idols of Egypt before
J esus.
1. His adoration of the power of the Son of God.
2. His sympathy with Mary’s exceeding joy.
3. His delight at the glory thus accruing to God.
VI. The command of the angel to return home.
I.
His joy at returning to the land of the true
Church.

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.
2.
3.
VII.
1.
2.
3.

333

To better accommodations for Jesus and Mary.
At carrying their Messias to the Jews.
Finding Jesus in the temple.
Delight at finding Him.
Joy at Mary’s joy.
Adoration of the wisdom of Jesus.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT HIM.

The love of God the Father for St. Joseph.
1. In imparting to him His paternal character.
2. In trusting his elect daughter Mary to him.
3. In predestinating him to these two offices.
The love of God the Son for him.
1. As His father.
2. As the careful and kind protector of Mary.
3. In allowing him to kiss, wash, dress, carry
Him, &c.
The love of God the Holy Ghost for him.
1. As a singular vessel of most fragrant continence.
2. As guardian of the Sacred Humanity.
3. As earthly husband of his own Spouse.
The love of our Blessed Lady for Him.
1. As chosen for her by God.
2. As guardian of her purity.
3. As guardian of Jesus.
The love of the angels for him.
1. As so humbly commanding their Lord.
2. As protecting their Queen.
3. In their embassies to him.
St. Joseph model of the Interior Life and Patron of
Mental Prayer.
I. Silence.

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PART III,

2. Recollection.
3. Shunning publicity.
St. Joseph model for priests.
1. In chastity.
2. Devotion to our Blessed Lady.
3. In handling the Blessed Sacrament
St. Joseph model for the dying.
1. Quiet resignation.
2. On the lap of Jesus.
3. Mary at his side.
St. Joseph model for all the faithful.
1. In ministering to Jesus.
2. In protecting Mary’s honour.
3. As a pilgrim with Jesus and Mary in the
wilderness.
What our Lady told St. Bridget of him.
1. He was affable, not rude.
2. Defended the absent.
3. Took notice of God’s wonderful works.
Also,
1. He constantly prayed for the accomplishment
of God’s promises.
2. Avoided publicity.
3. Longed for death.
Also,
1. He was very contented in poverty.
2. Very patient.
3. Continued devotion to the will of God.
Devotion to him.
1. Late gift to the Church.
2. Acceptableness of it to Jesus and Mary.
3. Specially extolled by St Teresa.
Besides these meditations, many more may be made of

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335

the events of St. Joseph’s life, especially the eighteen
years at Nazareth, when he saw Jesus working, eating,
sleeping, praying, &c.; also of the sojourn in Egypt, the
two journeys, his accompanying our Blessed Lady at
the Visitation, and many more.

VI.
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST.
State of the Jews.
Voluptuousness of higher orders.
Spirit of disputation and doubt amid the learned.
Unsettlement among the people.
Appearance of St. John.
His wild appearance.
His ignorance of human learning.
His preaching unfashionable penance.
His rude rebuking of the noble.
His making no distinction between high and
low, simple and learned.
6. His marvellous power and attractiveness
III. The causes of his power.
1. His truckling to no human respects.
2. His preaching to the heart.
3. His supernatural austerities.
4. His interior union with God.
IV. Similarity between England now, and Judea then.
St. John a model for us.
j. In high principles.
2. In cultivating purity of heart.
I.

I.
2.
3.
II.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

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PART III.

3. In supernatural faith and perfection, realising
the invisible world.
4. In leading lives of prayer and union with God.
The day of controversy is well-nigh past. The calm­
ness of Catholics in the late troubles excites wonder—
now for power with God, and the day is ours; the
time will be when men will talk of Protestantism as
they do of the old heresies, as a curse which once
was and is now no more !

VII.
THE THREE KINGS ; OR, ALL GRACES
COME OF FAITH.
If the Bible discloses melancholy possibilities of the
sinfulness of man, it also discloses magnificences, which
perhaps the kingdom of angels can hardly surpass—
eg. the Three Kings.
I. The Three Kings. What immense saints they
were—shown
1. From the singularity of their election.
2. From the special graces they received.
3. From the mystery for which they were used—
God opening His Church to the Gentiles.
4. From the virtues they practised.
5. From the huge devotion of the Church to them.
II. Their characteristics.
1. They are instances of men who reveal their
whole selves in one action : such men are
mostly very divine characters; their simplicity
is a great power.

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337

2. Moreover they are saints whose characters are so
mastered by their one grace as to lose almost
their individuality—yet their offerings bespeak
variety of character.
3. They belong to that little class of God’s own
private saints, the unknown vastness of whose
sanctity He irradiates by only one or two gleams,
such as St. Joseph, the Baptist, some of the
apostles, and SS. Joachim and Anne. These
are the Mary-like saints ; for this is also her
characteristic.
4. Their virtues were—(1) alacrity, (2) courage,
especially against human respect, (3) generosity,
(4) entireness of heart with God, (5) singular
docility, (6) exceeding great joy, as the un­
exaggerating Bible calls it.
5. But all these six graces came out of one as out
of a fountain, namely, out of faith.
III. Lessons to learn.
1. Faith is God’s greatest gift on earth, and is neces­
sary for charity.
2. Of all graces it is the one most capable of increase.
3. It is the most prolific of all graces: and gives us
most momentum.
4. It is the source of all spiritual sweetness, and of
all joy and consolation in religion.
5. How we can best increase it.
(l.) By cherishing the thought of God, and culti­
vating His fear.
(2.) By a filial and reverential devotion to the
Church.
The hidden magnificence of the Babe of Bethlehem
compared with the hidden magnificence of the Church.
vol.

I.

y

338

PART III.

As we lose ourselves, our own likings and dislikings,
our own judgments and criticisms and all the follies of
our littleness, in the thought and presence of God, so
must we lose them also in the thought and presence
of His Church. The grand lesson which He sent the
Three Kings to teach the Gentiles was devotion to the
Church I

VIII,

ST. THOMAS OF CANTERBURY.·
What a strange providence it is, my dear Brethren
in Jesus Christ, that we in this poor faithless land of
ours, this poor uncatholic England, should be gathered
together quietly this day beneath the shadow of our
own blessed and glorious martyr St. Thomas of Canter­
bury, while the Holy City of Catholics, the home of
our affections, the threshold of the apostles, the pilgrim­
age place of Christendom, is lying waste and desolate
and in darkness ! How strange, passing strange, it
seems that we in this fallen land should be met
together to-day to do honour to a name which has
been a byword of scorn and a proverb of reproach in
the mouths of generations of our deluded countrymen,
while the Holy City is lying waste, because the visible
Presence of God passed from it, when His dear and
blessed Vicar fled a fugitive along those Pontine
Marches through which St. Paul journeyed in his
bonds to preach Christ Crucified in the streets of
• Preached in the Church of St. Thomas of Canterbury at Fulham
Dec 29, 1848

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339

beautiful Home! How much is there in this con­
sideration which leads us, almost in spite of ourselves,
to meditate with trembling awe upon the fortunes of
God’s Church and her most holy faith, and to watch
with fearful interest the ebb and flow of that empire
of our faith, which, while it loses ground or seems to
lose it in one place, gains it in another, until its wearied
and baffled foes throw down their arms, cease their
calculations, and become stupefied at these repeated
signs of its hopeless and undecayed vitality. But,
my dear Brethren, because things look dark abroad,
because there seems to have come down this night
upon the Church, a night of storm and of eclipse, the
shadow of God’s wrath and judgment on the sons of
men, even in the most Holy Place, even where the
bodies of countless saints and nameless martyrs lie,
ought we therefore to lose heart or slacken our endeav­
ours in the cause of God’s Church, in other lands or in
our own ? God forbid ! God forbid that we should
have so little faith in God, or that we should so distrust
the power and heavenly virtue of our blessed faith !
No ! we lose not heart, our purposes are not unnerved,
our spirits do not faint or flag, because we know
Whose faith it is, and Whom we have on board while
we are in Peter’s bark : and though that bark be now
storm-tossed and in apparent peril, yet when the hour
comes, when our faith has been sufficiently tried and
our sins sufficiently chastised, He will rise from out
His seeming slumber, aud with one word will bid the
winds and waves be still.
But while we regard with awe, not unintermingled
with hope, and without one shadow of distrust, the
scenes that are enacting in the Holy Place, how

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beautiful, how cheering, how elating is the prospect
around us in this our own dear native land ! If the
faith seems faint and feeble and overcast, it is after all
but seemingly so ; if it appear to be losing ground, and
to be ebbing from foreign shores, how fast and freely
the tide is flowing in upon our own, and flowing where
it ought to flow, not so much upon the palace steps of
the noble and the rich, upon the change of the busy
trafficker or the hall of the self-wise scholar, as upon
the dense untended multitudes of Christ’s predestined
poor, upon the friendless, the fallen, the ignorant,
the grief-smitten ! How fast is the faith encroaching !
How is it sapping the very citadels of prejudice and
bigotry : how are the hearts of sinners coming into
the fold by scores and hundreds, like the miraculous
draught of old into Peter’s net, which at his Master’s
word he cast forth into the dark unpromising deep!
Surely we cannot but feel that God has in these days
granted to every one of us, in our own appointed place
and fitting way, without distinction of age or sex, a
kind of universal commission, whereby every English
Catholic is constituted, in his and her place and sphere,
a sort of missionary apostolic to spread the faith ; and
the question, the practical question, for all of us to
consider is the manner in which we are to do our work.
It is impossible to look forth on the face of the land,
and not to see that the fields are white for the harvest.
It is impossible to love Almighty God, and not pour
out our souls in secret prayer to the great Master of
the harvest, that He will send forth labourers there­
unto, men of apostolic zeal and apostolic boldness and
apostolic mortification, which alone is the source of
prayer and priestly charity. It is impossible to avoid

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341

seeing that wheresoever the adorable Sacrifice and the
rightful priest are to be found in this land of oura,
there is the Gospel prophecy fulfilled, that where the
body is the eagles will be gathered together.
Yes I the practical question for all of us is how we
are to do our work ; and surely this feast should be
suggestive to every one of us in what way we are to
fight the fight :—we are to fight it as St. Thomas did
of old. Adverse as the times may seem in outward
appearance, there never was an age of the Church
when circumstances, both within and without, both at
home and abroad, more loudly called upon us to take
the blessed St. Thomas of Canterbury for our pattern,
our model, nay our living, powerful, and helpful guide,
and fight the good fight as he fought it in bygone times,
even to the shedding of his blood, or to what men find
harder to give than blood, the shedding of their good
name by pouring it out to waste upon the earth. Let
me then ask you this morning to meditate awhile
upon the life of St. Thomas of Canterbury, to put him
before yourselves as the great exemplar of those grand
characteristics of which he is the special Saint, the
special Apostle. He is the Apostle of high principle,
the Saint whose every word and work was a con­
demnation of cowardice, of time-serving, of timidity,
of pusillanimity, of all unworthy concession, of all
trembling in the face of power, of all bartering of
principle for peace or gain, of all circuitous roads to a
rightful and a godly end ; in a word, of every profane
weakness that ever afflicted the Church from within
or without, from her children or her foes, he was the
unflinching enemy and the pertinacious opponent from
first to last. It is on this account that I call upon

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PART ΙΠ.

you to study his life, to ponder on every word, to
meditato on every action of this most dear and blessed
martyr, whom England gave to the Church of God,
and to put him before us, each of course discreetly, in
his own appointed sphere, and under the obedience of
his spiritual guide, as our model and our patron in the
terrible scandal-breeding strife which seems too pro­
bably at hand. If ever there was a time or place
when and where high, obstinate, clear-sighted, and
unflinching principle was the sheet-anchor of the
Church, that time is now, and that place the land in
which it is our lot to live and work.
Let us then look at St. Thomas in three different
states in which his romantic life, so full of wisest
teaching in its minutest details, presents him to us—
St. Thomas in the court, St. Thomas in strife, and St.
Thomas in exile.
First of all, let us look at St. Thomas in the court ;
let us look at him after he became archbishop, but, for
his Church’s sake, still mingled with the king and the
rude barons and fawning courtiers round him. What
above all things strikes us in the conduct of this
magnificence-loving man, is the evidence of calm
austerity and of repulsive penance which, amid all the
glory and the brilliance that distinguished the court of
Henry, broke from time to time through that conceal­
ment with which Catholic sanctity is wont to shroud
itself. It was said of him, even during his lifetime,
that he degraded and sullied the splendour that was
round him by the dreadful and unsightly austerities
he practised. And is not St. Thomas an example to
us even in this very respect, if at least we desire in
our heart of hearta U> see our beloved country brought

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

back again to God, brought as a modest yet rejoicing
wanderer into the one only fold of the One True
Shepherd ? Oh ! it is not a work that is nigh at
hand, at least the accomplishment thereof; it is not
a work that is light and easy, neither is it a light or
a little thing to ask of God. But if we do yearn after
this great ennobling end, then must we imitate St.
Thomas in the very matter now before us, Do you
believe that we shall ever convert England, if we are
simply common Catholics, common, good, practical
Catholics, with no aim beyond a state of grace or an
absence of permitted venial sin, moving in the routine
of the far off feasts and distant indulgences as though
it was a grove out of which our spiritual life would
run to nought and perish ? Do you in good faith
believe that this is the material God will use to upraise
a fallen land ? Is there here a power of expiation to
thrust aside those tremendous arrears of wrath and
judgment which have accumulated against the land
for three hundred years of augmenting impurity, pro­
faneness, and unbelief ? Is this a furnace of love
strong enough to burn away all that needs consuming
among us ? Oh how weak and wild would it be to
suppose that we can do great things, that we have the
faith which can remove mountains, and the love which
can cast out fear, and the austerity which can exorcise
the spirits of evil, it we aim not at far higher things
than these. No, my Brethren, it must be something
more than the tameness of a common virtue, something
higher than the level of ordinary attainments, which
will do so great a work for God. We must aim at
perfection ; we must strive after the arduous heights
of Christian holiness ■ we must endeavour to imitate

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the sainte of God ; we must put before ourselves as
possible, aye, aud as hopeful aims, their devoted and
heroic deeds. We must break down all false and
puny standards of virtue which would stunt our
spiritual growth, and abjuring whatever may seem to
have caught by contagion the dominant evil spirit
which surrounds us in this heretic land, we must
throw ourselves heart and soul into the models which
come to us from times which had not lost the faith,
or from lands where amid many hindrances it still
reigns supreme. Depend upon it there is a host of
sin, a host of God’s wrath in arrear, through which
we must press our way before we can come to our
glorious end ; and it is not by coldness, by luke-warm­
ness, by indifference, or even by mediocre virtue that
we shall accomplish our purpose, still less by a paltry,
bargaining spirit, that would go to market as it were
with God, and grant Him little more than the precepts
of the Church lay upon the conduct and the conscience.
Oh no ! it must be a nobler inclination, a more generous
spirit, a spirit that must throw itself fervently and
confidingly into the arms of God Himself, and must
lead us to dedicate ourselves body and soul and spirit
to the trampling the world under our feet as the
canonised saints of God have done, not only in times
of yore, but up to the threshold of these times of ours.
We must be more, ten thousand times more, than
common easy-going practical Catholics, if we would
convert for God this deluded and benighted land.
This surely is the very first thing we must look to,
each one of us to his own practice, each one of us to
his own progress in holiness, and to his own advance­
ment along the road of Christian perfection. And

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34$

why is this ? Why is it that I put the austerity of
St. Thomas, not only among the examples which that
blessed Saint sets us, but the very first and foremost
of them all ? For these reasons amongst others :
because austerity and perfection give us power with
God. Oh how useless is it for man or woman to go
forth into the world, into the social or domestic circle,
and hope to influence their fellow-men for good, if they
have not influence first of all in the great court and
before the great throne which are on high, if they are
not known there as persons of constant prayer, of self­
denying lives, of generous sacrifice for the Church and
faith of God ; and how weak, how powerless, how
utterly imbecile will all their most arduous efforts
prove to be. Yes ! my dear Brethren, we may toil
till health of body gives way beneath the burden ; but
if we have not influence with God, if we are not
habitually with Him in the implorings and wrestlings
of prayer, in meditation aud in secret penance, how
powerless, how unprevailing will all our labours be !
Our hands will be unnerved, our arms will drop from
them, when the hour of victory seems nighest, because
we seek to have commanding influence over men, before
self-humiliation has earned for us influence with God.
Further, we must strive after these heights of
Christian perfection, not only because austerity has
power with God, but because it seems on that very
account to give a mysterious and disproportionate
power to all our actions, even those which are trivial
themselves. Common words and common things,
when they come from one whose soul is in union with
God,—oh! they are like miracles, compared with the self­
same words and the selfsame deeds, when they come

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PART III.

from one who is living an ordinary life. There seems
to be a power in them which emanates from on high,
an abiding presence and unction of the Blessed Spirit
in them. The missionary of hidden austerity may
look outwardly like any other man ; he may not
perhaps have human talent, human eloquence, or
human influence ; and yet there is something in him,
something that goes from him, which bows the hearts
of men, as the wind bows the reeds when it blows,
and they feel the sovereign influence, acknowledge its
sovereignty, and bend before the words and deeds
which are, as it were, the vessels wherein it is
contained.
There is still another truth to be remarked ; austerity,
like other Christian things, is blamed even by those
who are themselves at the moment beneath its in­
fluence. While the men of St. Thomas’s day found
fault with his want of discretion, and blamed him
because he allowed his rude, uncouth, grotesque
austerities to appear amid the splendours of Henry’s
court ; yet all the while they were allured and attracted
by it. There is a marvellous power in a holy life ;
there is a marvellous influence in austerity, a super­
natural power to attract and allure the most alien things
towards itself. Look at the great preacher of penance
in the days of old ; look at that unearthly apparition,
that came up from the wilderness after years of in­
human solitude, and the companionship of wild beasts,
and stood before the eyes of men upon the banks of
Jordan. He appeared, in the aspect of his outward
seeming, to have been made only to offend, to disgust,
and to repel. Yet to the Baptist’s preaching there
came, wiled as though by an influence they could neither

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347

resist nor divine, the pleasure-loving and sensual officers
of the legions from the gay and sinful city ; while the
cold and sceptic scholars, with their sparkling wit,
sarcastic sophistry, and unearnest investigation, were
attracted in spite of themselves by this sight of St.
John coming up from the wilderness to Jordan’s bank,
and their eyes were riveted upon him with inquiring
awe, although he had no human influence, no show of
intellect, nought but the preaching of the most abject
penance and undignified humiliation. If there was at
that time one object on which their eyes were more
anxiously and intensely fixed than another, it was
upon this rude forerunner of our Lord, and they stopped
to question him, who he was, and what the proofs of
his mission were. So will it always be : men will
talk to you, criticise you, condemn you, seem to destroy
your influence by affixing the slur of indiscretion to
your name ; but after all, things work round, because
there is in an austere life, in one whose soul is in union
with God, a secret power of attraction which no other
power on earth can give, and which imparts to him
who lives that life an empire over the consciences of
men beyond the reach of all human calculation.
Let this then, Brethren, be the first lesson that we
learn from St. Thomas—the necessity of girding our
selves up to a more holy life, to a more severe penance,
and to a closer union with God.
Let us now turn from St. Thomas in the court, with
his uncouth austerities, to St. Thomas in his strife If
we look at the accounts given of him even by his own
contemporaries, how he was misunderstood, how he was
misjudged, how he was described as of a foreign race
whose language worldly men could not understand I

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PART III.

No, it requires some hundreds of years to intervene
before we are far enough off from the glory of St.
Thomas to cast our eyes up to the altitude that was in
his noble and sacred character. And what was it, my
Brethren, what was it in the manner of his strife,
whether with the crowned king upon the throne, or the
rude barons, or even, which was harder still, with his
courtly brother bishops, what was it that so offended
men ?
It was the seeming hypocrisy, it was the
apparent double-facedness of all that he did, it was
that holy double spirit which the Church has in her,
and which all the saints of God possessed ; that he
was humble, with what the world called an affectedly
servile humility, to the poor and lonely and fallen and
little ones of Jesus ; but in the face of the rude king,
and in the face of human power and intellect, he seemed
proud and arrogant and presumptuous, drawing him­
self up within himself, and not stooping to make the
slightest concession. And here it is that the lesson is
for us. We too must be humble—ten thousand times
more humble now than St. Thomas was then ; our
humility must be manly, at the same time that it is
meek, to the little ones of Jesus; but in the face of
power, in the face of pride, in the face of unbelieving
science, in the face of distasteful and conspiring politics,
we must be what St Thomas was, we must be appa­
rently proud, presumptuous, and arrogant.
It may seem that there is no practical lesson for us
in this particular matter ; but indeed, if we look closer
into it, there is a lesson for us every way. For instance,
how many of us, in the private, social, and domestic
circle, long with our heart’s best affection for conversion
t<> the faith of God of those who are near and dear to

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349

us both by blood and by love. Yea, Brethren, how
many of us are there who must entertain such a feeling
even in our own hearts, and what a temptation is there
here to play false to the faith of God—what a tempta­
tion is there here to do the very opposite of what St.
Thomas did of old. Beware, in your conversation with
others, how you represent the Church of God to those
whom you desire to allure within her pale ; beware of
representing her for one moment as though she were
different from what she was in days of old ; beware
of representing her as abating one jot or tittle of the
greatest of those pretensions which seemed most arro­
gant and most preposterous even in the Middle Ages ;
beware of representing her as changed one atom in this
her temper and her spirit ; no, we must adhere strictly
and zealously to high principle, disregarding everything
that present or temporary advantage may appear to
put within our reach. Truth, remember—and this is
one great distinction between Catholics and heretics—
truth ia not ours, but God’a Truth is not ours to bate
and pare down. Truth is God’s ; it has God’s majesty
inherent within it, and it will convert the souls of men,
even when it seems rudest and most repelling ; and it
will do so for this one reason—because it is God’s truth,
and because we through the grace of God have bold­
ness and faith to put our trust in it. And again, be­
ware of another evil, that of trying to throw aside or
to pare down what seems most faithful and warm in
the devotions of foreign lands; do not tell that cruel
falsehood, do not tell it to those whom you love, and
are longing and yearning to have within the Church, do
not tell them that the faith is other here than what it
is elsewhere ; do not throw aside devotion and sweet­

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PART ΙΠ.

ness, and worship and affection, as though they were
not fit for us, as though God’s Church were not oue;
for this is nothing less in reality than to deny the
unity of God’s Church. Tell them not this. Take not
the bread from between their teeth, to bring them within
the pale of God’s Church, to find that they themselves
have been deceived, and that you, while you wished to
attract and allure, have only so much the more effec­
tually repelled them, and have taken from them that
which, in a moment of faith and love, they would have
most generously embraced. This is, indeed, doing a
cruel work, and it is in this very respect that St. Thomas
is to us so bright an example. Believe me, dear
Brethren, if there be a land—if there be a people—in
which high principle is acceptable from its own in­
trinsic value, or alluring from the national character of
those around us, it is this dear land of ours. Let us
have faith, firm, vigorous, unfaltering faith ; and, trust
me, there is in high principle something which humbles
those who hold it. They are never humble who have
not high principle. They may be courtly, they may
be pusillanimous, but humble they cannot be ; for
there is in high principles, and high principles alone,
that which humbles those who hold them, that which
wins those to whom those high principles are put
forward ; and above all there is in these high principles,
and in none other, the plenitude of that heavenly bless­
ing which Jesus has lodged in the bosom of His people.
Let this then be the second lesson that we learn
from the life of St. Thomas of Canterbury.
And now let us turn to one more scene in his life ;
let us turn to the blessed martyr in his exile ; let us
turn to his bedabbling the floor of his cell at the

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351

monastery of Pontigny with hie own blood, from the
strife of his own chastisement ; let us turn to him in
his Cistercian Abbey, and let us imitate him in his
exile. Yes, Brethren, and let us remember that we
are exiles here in the holy faith ; that we are pilgrims,
exiles and strangers in this very land of ours ; and we
have a lesson to learn—a lesson of cheerfulness and
of hard-working diligence, to learn from St. Thomas in
his exile. We have to learn and to lay to heart what
we know already :—that weakness is the strength of
Christians.
Look at the Church of God at this
moment Look how dark, how dismal in many ways
the prospect seems ; how much evil there seems to be
at work, how much conspiring to overthrow her : and
then again, look at home, and see what arduous toil is
there, and what disadvantages must daily be encoun­
tered. Yes, we are weak, but not so weak as some
may think we are. They see but the outward seeming
and hear but the outward voice, and they think as
weaker than we are : but our weakness is our strength ;
and the weakness which is strength is humility and
love ; love, suffering love, is the Christian’s only victory.
Brethren, be not cast down by all that you see and
hear around you. Be not troubled by the rumours
that come floating across the sea to us, day after day ;
be not troubled, or cast down, or have your faith
fluttered within you. No, but remember that there
was a time when Jesus was scorned by His enemies,
when He seemed weakest, in the Garden of Gethsemane,
when the pale Easter moon was shining down upon the
olive-trees, and a band of traitors was round about Him.
See how spent He is with His bloody sweat ; see how
His three hours of agony seem to have exhausted the

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PART HI.

very strength of His Divine Nature ; and there pale,
pale exceedingly, with these enemies around Him, He
stands as it were betrayed, detected, and surprised.
His disciples have fled from Him, and it seems as
though He did but remain there that they might lay their
rude hands upon their God, and the victory of sin and
evil is complete ; and one gentle word from the lips
of Jesus—one sound of those sweet accents, mild, and
gentle, and passionate, and overpowering, caused the
rude Roman, and the ruder Jews, to fall backwards in
wonder and amazement. And wherefore was this,
dear Brethren, but to teach us that in our weakness
is our strength, and that meekness, gentleness, and love
are mightier weapons than all else that the world can
know beside ?
But you may ask me what suffering, what trials,
what meekness we shall be called upon to practise or
endure in our warfare in the private or domestic circle ?
We shall have to meet with unkindness and cold looks
where we ought to find bright and warm ones ; we
shall have to come in contact with cold and freezing
hearts that ought to be beating with the pure fervour
of affection ; we shall have to be exiled from the love
of those who are bound most of all to love us. We
shall be misunderstood if we act on high principles,
and scandals must come ; remember this is the law of
God’s Church ; it is the law which distinguished the
life of St. Thomas, and not his life alone, but the whole
history of the Church, from the day when St. Ambrose
humbled Theodosius at his feet, from the day when the
blessed Gregory the Seventh humbled his enemies ;
and as in St. Thomas’s day, and even now, they who
act from high principle, must not perhaps give scandal,

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353

but be prepared to find that others will take scandal
from them : but this must not divert you from the
clear path of duty that lies before you. It is the very
character of high principles, that the very men who
hold them see their way right to the end, they see
that their way lies athwart hills and dales, stony
places and dreadful deserts, but they turn not either
to the right or to the left,—they travel steadfastly
throughout. Yes, Brethren, and this is the very thing
we must do, even if we be exposed to the condemna­
tion of the good, even if those who are in the bosom
of our families, and whom we love and treasure most,
think it too arrogant, too enthusiastic, unreal or indis­
creet; still we have the good cause entrusted to us,
and we cling to it with a holy obedience under the
advice and guidance of our spiritual guides. Let us
beware how we betray it What was the charac­
teristic of St. Thomas ? It was that he set at nought
the judgment of men ; it was that God grew upon him
in his contemplation ; that God grew upon his soul
more and more, until God filled his soul, and there was
no room for man, no room for human respect, no room
for love for the creature. Wherever he turned, there
was God in the great and in the small, and therefore he
set at nought the judgment of men and exhibited to
the world that special characteristic of greatness, that
he fought for little things as diligently as he had
fought for great ones ; and why ? Because he was a
saint of the Most High ; and as in the eye of God
there is neither great nor small, so in the eye of God’s
saints nothing is small that contains one tittle or
fraction of high principle; and so it was with St
Thomas. There were little things, there were scruples
vol.

I.

*

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PART HT.

that might seem matters of etiquette or indifference,
that might be waived, especially when a king and his
nobles demanded it ; but St. Thomas believed that in
these little things there was a portion of the same
mighty principle, and he clung to them with as much
blessed obstinacy, with as much holy pertinacity, as
though the very tiara of the Sovereign Pontiff had
been at stake. It is this very thing that is the special
note of greatness ; and in it lies the power which God
has of not dividing things great and small. This must
be our example. If we doubt for a moment, that our
weakness is strength ; if we doubt whether or not this
lesson could be read to us in these days,—look not
alone to the picture of St. Thomas in his exile ; but
look to another dear and blessed exile now ; look to
our Holy Father the Pope, exiled from his sacred city,
driven to the frontiers of another land, or seeking the
refuge of a foreign shelter in a seaport of his own
rightful states. Look at him, and in your heart of
hearts do you not believe that there is strength in our
weakness. Was there ever a time when the throne of
Peter was more firmly rooted in the affections of the
faithful throughout the world ? was there ever a time
when thoughtful men, even outside the Church, looked
on the Vicar of God, and trembled with more intelli­
gent awe than they do at the present moment ? aye,
when the rebels gathered round him,—even as the
rebels of Nazareth gathered round our blessed Lord,
and pursued Him to the very cliff on which their town
was built,—behold, God’s Vicar passed through the
midst of them, and their eyes were holden that they
could not see him. They knew not how or where he
went, because God was with him : and in his exile

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355

there went with him all hie strength, and all his
holiness. And at the present moment, who, among the
enlightened and intelligent of our holy faith, does not
see that the sword of Peter is keener and sharper in
the ever-blessed exile’s hands than when he reigned
within the walls of the vast Vatican at Rome ? This
is the same lesson that St. Thomas’s exile of old gives
to us. Wait, Brethren, but a few weeks, or months,—
or, if God wills it, it may be years,—and then see how
woe will come to them ; how bitter and dark their end
will be ; how shameful and ignominious the life of
those, whether of us, or not of us, who dare to raise
the whispered voice, or the stealthy hand, against the
majesty of Rome in this her hour of eclipse. Wait
and see if this comes true. His word is law now
more than ever it was before ; and the whisper of his
exiled voice speaks now more powerfully to every
loving and loyal heart, than all the bulls, and briefs,
and rescripts, that he issued in the days of his glory
and his power. And should there, as amid the apostles,
be a Judas, who could raise the whispered voice or the
stealthy hand, how dark and bitter will be his end,—
how dark and ignominious his fate!
No, Brethren, in this way weakness is strength.
Be not cast down because ye see many things against
us.
Look, for instance, at that twin-spirit—that
brother-saint of St. Thomas, the sainted Hildebrand.
Look at Gregory the Seventh passing down the sunny
shore where the Vicar of God, in his exile, has now
passed down—visit the city of Salerno where the blue
waves beat so gently against the shore, and where all
the beauties of nature are gathered together to make a
very paradise of peace, a very Eden of delights; and

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go and see that lowly tomb, the tomb of Gregory, who
fell trampled under foot in exile, but whose enemies
died in the very hour of victory, in the flush of
triumph, so broken and discomfited, that the empire of
sin and darkness never rose again.
Yes, my Brethren, so it ever is ; weakness is strength.
The strength of Christians is in the cross, and the cross
was a weakness and a shame to Him who hung thereon ;
and yet the great apostle of the Gentiles cried, “ God
forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our
Lord Jesus Christ.” Oh, it was not when St. Thomas
was in his magnificence—it was not when he was in
his glory and his power—it was not when he rode
through France as the chancellor and ambassador of
England, and astonished men with his unheard-ofsplendour—it was not then that he had power—that
power which lasts to this moment—that power which,
to this very day, is thrilling and trembling through
every nerve and vein of God’s universal Church
throughout the world : it was not then that that
power was the mightiest ; but rather when he sank
down as his blood flowed on the hallowed pavement
of Canterbury, and when in gentle words he com­
mended his blessed soul to God, our Lady, and St.
Denis.
Yes, my Brethren, all these lessons are for us. We
ought to work hard, and yet not to look for results.
It is not God’s way ; it is not the fashion of God’s
doing. Think how many times the trumpets of God
were sounded round the walls of Jericho ere they fell.
We ought to work as though the conversion of our
native land was at our very doors, and yet as expecting
nothing. It is said that they that sow shall reap ; but

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357

blessed, aye, blessed we, even if we never live to see
that day of splendour and majesty in God’s Church.
The conversion of the people is as the wind blowing
where it will ; it comes and goes wheresoever it
will. In the days of spring, it woos out the green
leaves here and there in wanton ways, and seems to
have no ruling operation : so is the working of God’s
Spirit. The two things that we have to lay to heart
are gentleness and kindness. Forbearance and for­
givingness, gentle and loving words and affectionate
treatment, and above all, a secret aiming at perfection
in our own lives : these are our missionary weapons,
and for conversion we may be content to wait.
If we bear this in mind we shall not lose heart. If
to look out upon this empire in its unbelief, its sin, its
poor deserted priestless multitude, make the heart sink
within us, surely it is not a scene one half so dark as
tliat which the Queen of the apostles saw when she
looked from her window over Jerusalem, and over the
whole expanse of heathenism that Jesus bad given her
to convert unto Him. When she and the apostles
looked forth on that scene, it was as Noe looked forth
from the windows of the ark on the wild and angry
waste of waters, and on a tempest-tossed world ; on its
green things, on its brightness, on its sunshine.
So will it be with us, if we only try, from this day
forth, to cultivate a spirit of love and devotion to that
blessed Saint whose feast we this day celebrate. It is
said, and it is to me a matter of love and interest, that
my own blessed father St. Philip Neri, whenever he met
in the streets of Rome the English students who were
fathered together beneath the shadow of St. Thomas
of England, always saluted them in his own playful

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PART 111.

"ay, with the words of the Church’s hymn—" Salvctc,
flores martyrum." And think you that lie, whose every
word was pregnant with meaning, did not intend to
commend to them the imitation of that blessed martyr,
under whose shadow they were gathered together ?
Yes, Brethren, we must have devotion to St.
Thomas, because he is the apostle of high principle.
Devotion to St. Thomas must be an instinct with us,
even as hatred of him was an instinct with the wicked
men in the wild and evil days of English apostasy.
Why did they hate the name of St. Thomas ? Why
did they tear down his blessed relics ? Why did they
erase his name from the calendar ? Why did they
trample his sacred memory underfoot, and leave the
other saints of God to go free ? Why but because he
was the apostle of high principle ? because the devil
inspired them with a hatred of him as with an instinct,
because he knew that the Church was built on a rock,
and that all the power of evil should not prevail
against it. And even as the ashes that Moses threw
upon the banks of the river Nile, brought down the
hateful and degrading plague of blains and boils on
the children of men in the land of Egypt, so have the
ashes of St. Thomas, scattered to the winds far and
wide, brought down God’s curse upon the land. They
have brought down the curse of littleness, of pusil­
lanimity,—a curse, the very characteristic of which is
lowering and degrading, even as the curse that came
down on the Egyptians’ land. We must cultivate a
special devotion to this mighty saint of God. We
must strive as he strove, in all gentleness, in all love.
We must grasp his principles, and grasp them firmly,
even as the soldier grasps the weapons with which he

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charges in the fight. We must take St. Thomas as
our model ami our pattern ; and if it be that, in the
intervals of his weariness and strife he beheld visions
of a fair land of peace, beaming with tranquillity and
with all those beauteous and gentle things spoken of in
the pages of the Gospel ; if there be a time when
Heaven seems opened, and we behold a land where all
is love and peace—no warfare, no bickering, no chilling
separation—a land where all are crowned kings around
the throne of God, singing sweet songs of everlasting
praise ; while we remember that there is such a land of
peace, we must also remember it is not here, that it is
not now. Think you that St. Thomas loved not peace ?
Think you that he sighed not for repose as much as
we can do ? Think you that, in the recesses of his
sacred cell, he did not many times see Heaven opened,
and behold, more clearly than we can do, bright visions
of this land of peace ? But he knew it was not here ;
he knew it was not now ; and so he fought his way.
Let us fight our way as he fought his. Let us fight
our way, and we shall be one day where he is now.
Oh, it is sweet, it is passing sweet to the spirit to think
of all St. Thomas passed through; it is sweet to think
upon the change that came upon his fortunes; the
change between the great archbishop striving with the
powers of darkness, and tho saint at this hour, prostrate
in ineffable transports of contemplation, before the
majesty of the most High, Holy, and Adorable Trinity.
Yes, my Brethren, so it is. His peace-loving spirit is
now at rest. The haughty, imperious, and indignant
word has been subdued into a song of Heaven. The
saint needed it no more ; God needed it no more.
Strife has passed away from him, even as a thing that

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never was, and he is now canonized throughout the
land. Strife has passed away from him like a dream
of Calvary, and the scorn of misjudging men like a
little shadow of Gethsemane.

IX.
ST. CHARLES.

Men’s spirituality depends on the view they take
of God. Now the saints seem all of them to have
concurred in taking one and the same view of him as
the God of the Church. We find this in St. Paul’s
epistles, and even in the writings of cloistered mystics.
There were others whose life was part of the life of
the Church.
I. So St. Charles.
1. He was part of the life of the Church.
(1) He was a saint of fewer peculiarities than
most saints.
(2) His personality was almost merged in the
Church : he had nothing new to teach, no
peculiar spirit to communicate.
(3) He left fewer things said than most saints
of whom so much is known.
2. He was a reformer : one of God’s reformers, and
so his example is full of lessons to all men
in different times.
II. In these two things we find his fitness for our
times and for our present troubles.
I. The state of the Church makes it needful for

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361

the lives of all of us to be in their measure
part of the Church’s life. The state of the
Church must give us the character of our piety :
it must be in us the cause of most that is
spiritual about us. It is not a question of
politics, of historical sympathies, or of interest­
ing opinion. It is part of our relation towards
God, of our duties to Him, and of our worship
of Him.
2. When God punishes us, He is calling upon us
to reform.
3. Now let St. Charles teach us what manner of
reform we must aim at.
(1) It must be one of personal holiness, and St.
Charles would have it turn especially upon
our ordinary actions.
(2) It must be a growth in profound, universal
humility, a constant wonder that God
should bear with us—for what good have
we done, and what goud have we not
spoiled ? Our own want of inward purity
and of generous holiness—how may it not
explain many of the misfortunes of the
Church ?
(3) It must be a special cultivation of simplicity,
the only gift which God seems to be bless­
ing now, from the Sovereign Pontiff down­
wards. This simplicity will lead to childlike
obedience of the intellect, for that alone
is the possible or practical obedience of
most men—and to self-denial, and so will
set us against expensiveness and enable us
to give more alms to the poor—which is a

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special thing to do in dark and difficult
times.
III. The spirit of St. Charles should be our spirit.
1. Eminently a spirit of faith, believing nothing
impossible, with hatred of heresy, and with
kindness to heretics, which is mostly in pro­
portion to a man’s hatred of heresy.
2. From this spirit of faith came his two char­
acteristic graces, fortitude and calmness. His
fortitude seemed to go beyond prudence, yet
was the real prudence of the Gospel, because ol
his faith.
3. Calmness—a wonderful feature of this was that
he seemed hardly even to deliberate. He was
so master of his principles, that all the excite­
ment of plans was gone from him : how like in
this to our Lord in the Gospels, how like to
God in the adorable simplicity of His action.
What is the end of it all ? intense filial love of the
Church, and more and more hungry pining after God,
and yet a most patient cheerfulness, a most serene
confidence, nay, even a modest elation of heart and
soul, as if Jesus was for ever saying in our ears, with
the piteous sweetness His Blessed Voice must have
had that last Thursday night—In mundo pressuram
habebitis: sed confidite, ego vici mundum.—In the world
you shall have distress ; but be confident, I have over­
come the world. (St. John xvi. 33.)

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X.
NOVENA OF ST. PHILIP.

I.
SKETCH OF THE SAINT’S LIFE.

All lives of men are beautiful in their changes and
vicissitudes, all full of romance and poetry : or like
various music, a quiet pastoral, a stirring march, a
pathetic drama, a touching elegy, or strains of mutable,
fitful sweetness. Such is man’s life as outward Pro­
vidence ordains it : sin mars it. We are concerned
now with a life lived in the sixteenth century in the
great city of Rome, which with manifold vibrations is
working still on earth.
I. St. Philip’s Picture.
1. The aged priest for the most part ashy pale, not
foreign-looking to us.
2. With a soft mellow sweetness as of one to be
familiar with, yet with a sternness underneath
as of one not to take liberties with.
3. Very simple and childlike, yet with a depth as
of one who knew secrets and had seen visions.
We do not exactly know why, but as we look
on him we think of St Joseph.
II. The Boyhood.
1. He was born in beautiful Florence, on the eve
of St. Mary Magdalen. The gravity and sweet­
ness of his childhood, which yet was not with­
out traits of humour and fun and geniality.
2. Gaeta—the cleft mountain—the inheritance re­
nounced.

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PART III.

111. The beginnings at Rome.
1. He was drawn there by instinct, and lived there
at first as a tutor in poverty and silence.
2. In catacombs, and studying in moonlit porticoes.
3. Receiving pilgrims and visiting hospitals.
4. Priesthood—St. Girolamo—the Seven Churches
—beginnings of the Oratory—his penitents.
5. The Vallicella—and the Congregation founded.
IV. The sort of life.
1. Absence of all singularity.
2. Miracles daily, and ecstasies almost continually.
3. Apostolate of conversation and supernatural
outbreaks of devotion.
4. He silently took possession of all Rome as a
perfume fills a room.
5. After eighty years he dies. And this life so
beautiful on earth was quietly translated to
heaven, to be continued still more beautifully
—and on earth houses rose up all ovex- the
world to catch the image of that life, and to
try to live it over again, and everywhere loving
hearts gather round these houses and feel
instinctively a joy and a security in belonging
to St. Philip.
2.
THE LOOK OF COMMONPLACENESS WITH SUCH A
SUPERNATURAL LIFE.

Let us go as foreigners to Rome in the sixteenth
century ; it is full enough of associations, and of relics,
and of shrines, and of the Sovereign Pontiff, to hide in
the beauty of its spiritual brightness a thousand living

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saints as completely as if they were shrouded in the
earthly gloom of the catacombs. We hear talk of
Father Philip, and listen, and go to see him. We
write home what we have seen and heard. We see
him in his room—the vineyard—the street.
I. The look of his life.
1. A kindhearted priest with much zeal, yet some­
what irregular and eccentric in his zeal—
otherwise commonplace enough.
2. He has joined no religious order, and seems to
have formed no extensive plans.
3. He is shy and has rather to be sought than
comes forward.
4. There is no look of austerity about him—he
is rather free and easy and jocund.
5. Surely it is an exaggeration to speak of him as
a saint; for there are no secrets about him;
we see the whole of him, perhaps a man to
love rather than revere. Yet we left him
with our hearts softened and heated and gently
filled with God—undoubtedly a good man, a
very good man.
ΙΓ. The reality of his life.
1. His heart miraculously filled with the Holy
Ghost: his ribs broken.
2. His Mass of five hours daily.
3. His constant reading of the secrets of hearts.
4. Surrounded with light, and distilling strange
perfumes of some aromatic heaven.
5. Miracles going out from him almost like ordinary
actions, and his living without food.
1Π. This contrast is the type of his holiness : the
there hidden lives of Jesus, divine eclipsed by

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366

human, glorious by passible, holy by unaffected­
ness—such was St. Joseph’s holiness, and such
St. Philip’s.
1. St. Philip’s studious pursuit of secrecy— he risked
scandal rather than be found out.
2. His looking only to ends and not to means, to
God, not to devotions, &c.
3. His finding God equally or even preferably in
very little things.
4. His meekness, though he knew he was going to
be canonized.
5. Yet it was the very wonderfulness of his sanctity
which caused him to look so commonplace.
Should we know a saint if we met one ? I doubt
it. This is sad to think, but very profitable. How
we might have left St. Philip, and turned down
the Banchi towards St. Peter’s, and thought how
commonplace he was, how he talked on ordinary
subjects, how careless about giving edification, what
light odd things he said for a grave old priest, and
what a sly look of mischief there was in his eye when
we parted. And while we walked and thus criticised,
behold! he in the secret of his room is floating in the
air, waving to and fro like a branch in the summer
wind, girdled with a golden light, hearing unutterable
words and seeing unutterable things deep down in
God !
3·
HIS SPIRIT OF LIBERTY AND ABSENCE OF METHOD.

I.

All saints seem to have given scandal in their day,
St. Philip is no exception.

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367

1. This taking scandal at saints is an evidence of
corruption.
2. It was the same with our Blessed Lord. And
the world never learns ; it would take the same
amount of scandal, both in amount and kind, if
He came again.
3. That in which each saint gives scandal, is his
characteristic peculiarity; and in that will be
found to consist the eminence of his holiness
and sanctity in its earlier stages, not very easily
distinguishable from eccentricity.
II. What people took and take exception to in St.
Philip is his liberty of spirit and absence of
method.
1. As a saint in his own life.
(1) He was long years in Rome and yet joined
no religious order.
(2) He took all his steps as direction and obedience
suggested, but even then formed no great or
definite plans.
(3) He was ready to give up his works at any
moment.
(4) His own spirituality was singularly free, and
left to God’s action on him day by day.
2. As a founder and superior.
(1) The way his Congregation grew up piecemeal.
(2) He would not let his subjects have their time
to themselves.
(3) He would not have vows in it
(4) Hemade the separation of each houseessential,
that they might not band together for any
common end, or to forward any definite
views.

PART ΠΙ.

,l68

His dislike of attachment to their work in his
subjects.
3. As a master of the spiritual life.
(1) Absence of set rules and methods; each day
was to supply its own materials.
(2) His penitents were to keep in their own
spheres and at their social duties.
(3) His little interference with their external
things.
(4) His spirit of prayer so full of liberty as to
method.
(5) His variety of direction without any recog­
nisable technical peculiarity of his own.
III. Two schools of holiness in the Church, the school
of captivity and the school of liberty. St. Philip,
like St. Francis of Sales, singularly of the latter.
1. It came from his immense devotion to the Person
of the Holy Ghost. Docility to inspirations
was to him instead of rule.
2. This made him immensely interior. God was
his one demand in himself and in others.
3. His horror of mere formality and habit, or
woodenness, or anything cut and dry. This
made him negligent, sometimes startlingly so,
of externals.
Both systems are holy ; I do not say that one is in
itself better than the other ; both are from God. But
I bless God that He has given to His Church the
system of liberty as well as that of holy captivity ;
because I feel for myself that I never could be
spiritual on the captivity system, whereas I hope that
I may some day or other attain to spirituality on the
other system.
(5)

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369

IV. Living with St. Philip daily.
1. Meeting his clear quiet eye every morning,
feeling that we were seen through, that nothing
was unnoticed, nothing unremembered.
2. Feeling how easily and also how deeply pained
he could be, how he revolted from all insincerity
and pretences.
3. Made uncomfortable by feeling that we had
weaknesses, he had not.
4. In good times we should enjoy it, in bad chafe
under it.
5. His sternness would grow on our notice—and
yet his sweetness be ever gaining more empire.
6. Why should such a man attract ? Because we
have all a distrust of self at bottom—we do
not like standing alone—life is a grave thing—
we like to lean on some one of whom we are
sure—and in sorrow and such like times he
was all sweetness and support.

4HIS REALITY.

I do not think that any devout person can look
long on St. Philip’s picture without growing somewhat
afraid of him. He is the Apostle of liberty, and yet
somehow not a man to take liberties with.
I. We meet with men in the world
I. Whom we admire and love—yet are not at
ease with—feel untruthful with. We have an
instinctive fear of their influence, and are rest­
less when we have to do with them.

VOL. L

2A

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PART III.

2. There is something in them which we wish away :
and yet if it was away they would not be the
same men, nor should we ourselves love and
admire them so such.
3. It is their reality—their genuineness—their truth
—not so much their truthfulness as their truth.
II.
Reality.
1. A real man is a man without secrets or diplomacy.
2. His extreme simplicity, and his singleness of
purpose, invest him with a kind of sternness,
so that we feel rebuked in his presence.
3. Yet his heart is always full of gushing sympathies
and kindness.
4. He has a sort of impatience with foolishness,
insincerity, and circuitousness.
5. He sometimes tries us by the way he keeps to
the one point, and slips off disguises, and walks
on such a very straight road.
J11. To live with such a man is an education in itself,
and this is just what St. Philip was. I dare say
. sometimes men thought him even wooden, because
he was so pertinaciously real, never unbending
from his simplicity, never giving his genuineness
a holiday.
j. His common sense in plans, in government, in
direction: his dislike of changes, and of non­
sense talked in the confessional.
2. His sternness which flashed out when any
insincerity came iu his way, or any making of
difficulties.
3. The stress he laid on perseverance, by which ho
prevented liberty of spirit from degenerating
into off-handness and frec-aud-easiness.

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371

4. His crusade against human respect—the queer
things he did himself and made his people do.
All meant nothing more or less than this.
5. His mortification of the judgment also made men
real, while it hindered liberty from becoming
license.
Of all the things which I admire in our Holy Father
I admire none so much as his reality. It is the great
want of the times. It is the grace of all graces which
we every one of us stand most in need of.

5.
ST. PHILIP’S SPHERE.

While all saints do all the good they can find to
do, each has a sphere peculiarly his own, a work which
peculiarly belongs to him, and by which more especially
all after ages will know him in the Church. Now
what was St. Philip’s sphere ?
I. The spheres of saints.
1. There are aggressive saints like St. Ignatius.there are also inventive saints.
2. There are revolutionary saints like St. Francis.
3. Historical saints like St. Athanasius—raised up
to save an epoch.
4. There are reforming saints like St. Charles.
5. There are saints who perfume the Church like
sufferers and contemplatives.
6. How St. Philip had an element of all these
saints in him.
II. His choice of a sphere.
I. He was not allowed a foreign missionary field.

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PART nr.

2. He sent many into religion, but did not enter it
himself.
3. His associations and instincts were all for
primitive times ; not for mediaeval saints, who
would hardly allow salvation out of the cloister ;
nor for modern ideas, which refused perfection
out of convents.
4. St. Philip took the world ; took pity on it, and
taught that men and women might live in the
world, and be as perfect as the highest saints.
III. How he exemplified this.
j. In his dislike of change—home is not the world,
as convent people say it is.
2. In his stress laid on the heart—so like a thorough
Scriptural saint!
3. In founding his Congregation for the help of
those in the world.
4. In his wideness of spirit admitting all varieties
and even opposites of goodness.
5. In his choice of great cities for his sons to
work in.
IV. His peculiar attraction.
I observe that those who have a devotion to him
mostly have an enthusiastic devotion. Yet they can
hardly say on what it rests : it is rather some nameless
attraction than any specific grace or sweetness. Also
it is not to his work, or to his grace, but to himself—
it is not to anything of St. Philip’s but to St. Philip.
This nameless attraction is fitted for a sphere consisting
of such diversified materials. It is justly called an
attraction, an instinct, a spell:—it draws us to him,
quietly moulds us—quietly heats us—quietly changes
us—quietly makes us all for God. I have often

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373

wondered what precisely it is, this nameless charm,
but I do not know. We feel it—and are silent, and
our heart fills with it, and we are happy in being his
children and at his feet:—and somehow all he does
for us, and all he does in us, and all he makes us do,
and all the liberty he gives us, and his loving of us,
and his frightening of us—all somehow brings us
round to God I

XI.

FIRST VESPERS OF ST. PHILIP.
All God’s works come to an end, and for the most
part their end is more beautiful than their beginning ;
and the end is often the beginning of a more heavenly
and eternal beauty. How true this is of the deaths of
the saints.
The feeling in the morning all through the house,
and then all through Rome, when St. Philip’s death
was known. What it must have been to have lived
with a saint !
I. As if the end of the world was come ; what next ?
there is no next ! He had grown into the habits
of men’s lives ; and yet, though warned in every
way, they found themselves unprepared.
II. His ways, his words, his looks, his haunts, all
grow vivid and into a unity to them; they
begin to understand him.
III. Hence they want him most, now that he is gone;
to whom are they to go to confession ? How
are they to do without his room, now become

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PART III.

like a sacrament to them ? He has been so
quietly necessary to them, that it is incredible
he should be gone. They feel as if they also
should have died with him, for how can they
go on ?
IV. Yet, strange to say, a growing joy makes itself
felt in their hearts. The joy comes from within,,
and without any apparent natural cause.
V. They see him on his bier in church, and as he
gave light and perfume in his life, so he gives
light and sheds sweet odours down on the souls
of those who kneel there. It is the light of
God, the sweet odour of Jesus Christ.
VI. Spiritually he will continue to give this light and
to shed this perfume in our souls in an especial
manner on his feast-day year by year until Jesus
comes to Judge the world.
He has many places to look to this evening, many
Oratories to bless with his paternal benediction ; many
hearts to touch with his love, many benefactors of his
Congregations to enrich with especial graces ; many
souls to fill with his light and perfume : but the
Blessed can do all these things quietly in God. I
feel that his light and perfume are coming to us here.
By the light we see God and the shores of the Eternal
Land more plainly. By the perfume we lose more
and more of our relish for earthly things and are
secretly drawn to Jesus. 0 St. Philip, St. Philip!
my Father and my Master ! how fair is that light, and
how peculiar is the fragrance of that perfume ! Sweet
light of St. Philip ! oh that we may always walk by it !
Sweet perfume of St. Philip ! oh that it may always
cling about oui· souls like a sensible presence of our

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Blessed Lord ! Father, be not afraid, do not doubt
we will come to thee in Paradise!

XII.

ST. PHILIP’S DAY.
For two hundred and sixty-six years St. Philip
has been looking upon the Face of God : be has
never wearied. It is ever new ; the years have
sped silently away ; they have not been like
years ; no springs or autumns, no winters or
summers ; there has been the calmness of eternity.
1. How much the world has gone through since,
and his own favourite Rome.
2. His own work, how it has lasted and spread—
aud to how many souls it has gone !
3. Does not the thought of him, and of his calm
looking upon the Face of the Most Holy Trinity
this day, make us long for heaven. The times
are evil—that makes us long for heaven. We
are evil ourselves, we are wearied of our own
foolishness—oh how we long for the security,
the peace, the truth, the charity of heaven ! Oh
yes ! most of all for the charity of heaven.
IJ. But there are lives on earth which have a look, a
feeling, a fragrance of eternity about them. This
was quite a distinguishable characteristic of St.
Philip’s life.
I. How his years were like eternal years—so still,
so swift, so calm, so like each other.

I.

376

PART III.

2. Full of crosses, yet no ripples, no millings, no
sounds at all—it was too deep.
3. He was called an apostle—think of Boman roads
and hurrying toil—he in his room for the most
part, or in quiet churches, or leisurely pacing
the streets of Rome : he stationary, and Rome
flowed by him, touched at him as at a harbour,
and went on all controlled by him.
4. Yet he was like an apostle in his love of the
primitive times, and early Christian life ; hence
his simplicity, his unity—he kept aloof from
the world, yet exercised an almost ubiquitous
influence, through his simplicity and his love.
People told him he might influence it more by
leading a more public life. No ! he knew his
place ; he had ascertained his calling ; he was
stationary, like eternity.
5. His unity was like eternity. He had only one
thought, only one secret, only one way, only
one work : to make God dearer to men, and
that in direct ways, not in indirect, however
excellent. Hence his success, hence that re­
markable, and it would have seemed so unlikely,
oracle of the Church, which authoritatively
conferred upon him the title of Apostle of
Rome. Is it not strange ? An apostle shy and
hidden, keeping out of people’s way, shunning
every kind and shape of notoriety ; a light
whose power was in its being well-nigh in­
visible.
III. How did he work upon his times ? What did
he tell people to do ? His times were bad, as
ours are ; and he was raised up, remember, to

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

377

be the apostle of his times in the centre ami
capital of all Christendom.
1. The things he did not do ; yet other saints had
done them.
(1) He never went the world’s way, nor bor­
rowed its methods, however good or pro­
mising or lawful they might be.
(2) He preached no reforms, but the secret
reforms of single souls.
(3) He founded no intellectual school of phi­
losophy or theology.
(4) He stood aloof from all political movements
or views, as things not to his purpose. In­
deed I cannot fancy St. Philip having any
vinos ; his whole soul was in the Church;
his views were not views, they were faiths,
principles, obediences.
(5) He attacked nothing, unless indeed it were
sin, frivolity, worldliness, and the reluctance
of rich people to give large alms ; not even
did he attack dress or expensiveness, in­
tensely as he hated both the one and the
other.
2. What did he tell people to do ? Oh strange
foolish wisdom of the Gospel I
(1) To keep in their own places, and attend to
their ordinary actions, avoiding change,
avoiding excitement.
(2) To be exceedingly simple, and not to mind
criticisms and talk. If you are devout to
St. Philip, he will give you the grace not to
care what people say of you—and is not
that perfect happiness ?

v8

PART III.

(3) To be always reading the lives of the saints,
because that makes an atmosphere, and
excludes worldliness without trouble.
(4) To pray, frequent the sacraments, and hear a
great many sermons.
(5) To love everybody, to praise everybody, and
to find good in everybody. And all this
because of the one mastering thought and
sovereign love of God.
What was there wonderful in all this ? Was it not
strangely commonplace, for a saint in whose broken
heart the Holy Ghost dwelt supernaturally, and who
was the recognised Apostle of great Home ? Yes ! this
was wonderful,—that he kept to it, that he mixed
nothing else with it, that he added nothing else to it,
that he persevered in this bare singleness of purpose.
Tliis is in my eyes a greater miracle than we read in
any of the lives of the saints.
See then, brethren, to what a conclusion we have
come ! The saint, who had the Holy Ghost in his
miraculously dilated heart, is the most commonplace
of saints; yet he is also the most peculiar and in­
dividual of saints, because of the persevering simplicity
of his commonplaceness. Oh how much there is to
learn, how much to learn of God and Jesus Christ in
this one fact, that St. Philip became the Apostle of
Rome, a second Peter and a second Paul in his one
self, through the mere perseverance of his enthusiastic,
unadventurous simplicity !

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

379

XIII.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER
*
Work your work before the time, and He will give
your reward in His time. (Ecclus. li. 38.)
No scene in history is more significant than the few
apostles with the world before them.
I. Character of our own age.
1. It is an age of enthusiasms; partly material, and
partly intellectual : concerning science, com­
merce, discovery.
2. The impossible seems almost fading out of view,
what a lesson the world is reading to us.
3. Why not an enthusiasm all for God? a sober,
steady, business-like enthusiasm, like the
material oue we see around us.
II. Lesson of St. Francis Xavier’s life.
1. What one man can do, who is all for God,
2. Who has begun with sanctifying himself,
3. And who then keeps within his own appointed
sphere.
4. The sobriety of his enthusiasm kindling, not
stifling, his fervour is the wonder.
5. It is a characteristic of true enthusiasm to neglect
no means of grace.
6. Now living in an unbelieving country is a means
of grace both to ourselves and others.
III. We are all missioners, and England is our Japan.
Let us convert it.
I. By example.
• Pteached at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm
Street

38o

part

™·

By sweetness, yet by gravity in our sweetness.
By incessant prayer.
4. By works of mercy to others.
5. By union and absence of jealousy among our­
selves ; for what the world envies is our
union.
6. By holiness, which is a power and an attraction
beyond all others.
When we look at the map of the world, and see the
countries which St. Francis overran, when we think
of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of those
whom he baptized, when we weigh up his difficulties,
count up his failures, follow him in his toils and learn
sympathetically to estimate his disappointments, we
are amazed, and humbled and gladdened also while we
are amazed, to think how much one man can do, to
whom nature gives an enthusiastic loving heart, and
grace the magnificent gift of being simply, always, and
only—All for God !

2.

XIV.
THE FEAR OF THE SAINTS.
Meddle not with the names of saints. (Ecclus.
xxiii. 10.)
The reason of unanswered prayer and of inefficacious
devotions is the want of more fear. This applies very
much to our devotion to the saints.
Our view too often is that they lived holy lives,
worked miracles, have gone to God, are crowned kings
in heaven, and are now conveniences to us as additional

OUR BLESSED LADY AND THE SAINTS.

381

means of grace, and doubtless are fresh ornaments of
heaven. We do not fear them.
But there are motives for other devotion than
this.
I. How majestic a saint is in himself. Great holiness
is a thing to fear.
IT. The greatness of his power and glory in heaven.
III. The honour of God, which is deeply implicated
in the worship paid to the saint.
IV. In some sense He is more jealous of it than of
His own ; less patient of levity with them
than with Himself, and frequently punishes
persons for this.
V. The saints themselves have also entered into
the dispositions of God, and, with a sort of
vindictive holiness, hard for us in our present
state to understand, resent familiarities and
impertinences. We regard them too much
as on our side, to get things from God for us.
Some saints have shown this vindictiveness
more than others.
VI. Faith is the chief ingredient in a true devotion
to the saints ; faith in the reality of their
power, and of their relationship towards us.
It is a great sign of a man being supernatural
when he fears to offend a saint.
VII. The favours of the saints form a great depart­
ment of the Divine mercies, and play an
important part in the sanctification of holy
men. Often the punishments of the saints
do this last also; and this is especially the
case with founders of orders, both to their
children and to the enemies of their orders.

3«2

VIII.

PART III.

Weakness of prayer is one of the feeblenesses
of our times, through want of faith and fear :
this is one way to set them right. We always
fear those in whom we have confidence. We
cannot ever put confidence in those whom we
do not in some way fear.
The Church expresses the old-fashioned devotion to
the saints by threatening disobedience to Bulls, &c., with
the auger of the holy Apostles SS. I’eter and Paul.

INDEX.
Acts in God, 50
Benediction, 146
Adoration, spirit of, 5 — of God’s Benignity of God, 22
mercy, 14
Bernard, B., of Corlione, 230
Age, old, loneliness of, 193.
Bernardine, St., 182
Agony, the, i8r, 351
Bethlehem, 115—star of, 119
All for God, 38
Bethsaida, pool of, 303, 322
Alphonso, St., 332
Billuart, 56
Ambrose, St., 352
Blood, the Precious, a phrase which
Angel Guardinn, affection for our,
St. Peter invented, 17—necessity
322
of remembering the, 23—mystery
Angels, creation of, 315—the Guar­
of, 250
dian, 320
Blosius, 156
Angels, the, 67—eldest of creatures, Bonaventure, St., on the Passion,
71 — trial of, 72 — beholding the
281
Passion, 207
Bosom of God, 29, 43—our home,
Anne, St., 297
Annas, 257
Boyhood of St. Philip, 363
Apostle of Rome, 376
Apostles, the, during the Passion, Calmness, 143—of the Sacred Heart,
208—desert our Lord, 246—voca­
152
tions of, 247
Calvary, 169, 211, 215—shadows of,
Arrears of the wrath of God, 343
211—of St. Peter, 216
Ashes of St. Thomas, 358
Charity, the great want, 102
Assumption, the, 304, 305
Charles, St.. 360, 370 —reform of,
Astonishment, one of the chief joys
361—simplicity or, 361—spirit of,
of heaven, 288
362
Athanasius, St, 371—on the word Christmas day, 114, 116
Paraclete, 79
Church, the, 73—spirit of the, 309—
troubles of, 339—cautions against
Attraction of St. Philip, 372
Attributes of God, 7—have emi­
representing her to be what she is
nences inconceivable, 9—as seen
not, 349
by the blessed, 12—marvellous, 43 Columba, B., of Rieti, 260
Austerity, power of with God, 345, ■ Comforter·, the Holy Ghost the, 79
Coming to God, 39
347
Compassion of Jesus, 181
Complaining, the, of Jesus, 256
Barabbas, 243
Beauty, exterior, of Jesus, 190—in­ Conception, the Immaculate, 292—
devotion to, 295—preparations for,
terior, 191—of the dying Face of
Jesus, 267—all, is the likeness to
296
Concurrence, the divine, 59
God, 289

3*4

INDEX.

Condemnation, none for those in
Christ, 162
Conservation, 60
Contempt of God, 185
Converts, 120
Creator, the, in the power of His
creatures, 200
Creation, 13—might have been eter­
nal, 56—but is temporal, 57—in a
state of grace, 62—sprang out of
the Incarnation, 70—of matter, 71
Creatures, eternally possible, 56—
rebellion of, at the Passion, 200
Crispin, B., of Viterbo, 95
Cross, shame of the, 184, 187—sta­
tions of the, 266—the strength of
Christians, 357
Crucifix, the, meditations on, 232

Epiphany, the, 119 —feast of con­
verts, 120—mystery of, 121
Epochs, the throe of the Holy Trinity,
3, 4—of the natural world, 72
Evil, the circle of, 197
Excess of the Passion, 172
Exile of St. Thomas, 350—of Pius
IX·, 354

Face of Jesus, 163, 245—during the
Passion, 245
Faith believes incredible things, 17,
84—strength of, 339
Fall of the Apostles, 248
Father, God our, 27
Faults in our prayer, 6
Fear of the Saints, 380
Fire, God a God of, 103
Flax, the smoking, 28
Delight, the, of God in the perfec­ Foolishness, the, of God, 132
tions of Mary, 290
Forbearance, the Divine, 20
Descents, seven, of the soul in the Franois, St., 368
Francis Xavier, St., 379
deeps of the Passion, 221
Death, a great change, 41—loneliness Freshness of Jesus, 153
of, 194—of Jesus, 218
Fruits of the Holy Ghost, 82
Dereliction of the Father, 195
Devotion, a, may be grounded on a Gabriel, St., 321
probable opinion, 89—to the Pas­ Gertrude, St., 86
sion the surest sign of predestina­ Ghost, the Holy, 47—dwelling in us,
tion, 223—of the Stations of the
49> f*3 —End of creatures, 68—in
Cross, 266—to St. Thomas of Can­
the Church, 73—sin against, 73—
terbury, 358—to St. Philip, 377
devotion of, to Jesus, 74—Spouse
Devotion to the omnipotence of God,
of, 75—the soul, and, 78—in the
7—makes us more gentle, 8
Sacraments, 80—Inspirations of,
Devotion to the Holy Ghost, 87—of
85i 105—Devotion to, 87—seem­
Jesus, 77 — how attainable, 88—
ing waywardness of, 92—contrasts
effects of, 95
between the, and Jesus, 96—Do­
Devotion to Mary the great gift of
cility to, 105
Jesus, 275
Gifts, of the Holy Ghost, 80—arrange­
Devotions for an interior life, 124
ment of, by Isaias, 81—growth of,
Disappointments of God, 21
82—gratuitous, 84—of God, 275—
Discontent, Christian, 44
of Jesus, 276
Dismas and Gesmas, 217
Glory, order of, 64
Divinity of Jesus in the Passion, Goodness, 83
201
Grace, sanctifying, 61—order of, 61
Docility to the Holy Ghost, 105
Graces, gratis dater, 85
Dolours of the Passion, 182—seven, Gregory, St., the Great, 95
of St. Joseph, 331
Gregory VII., St., 352, 354
Dove, a symbol of the Holy Ghost,
92
Harvest of the Gospel, 340
Hatred, horrible, 255
Easter, 137
Heart, the Sacred, 148, 150, 284
Ecco Homo, 175, x86, 202
Heart, the Immaculate, 291
Eminences of the Holy Ghost, 52
Heaven, what is, 286
Enfants de Marie, 308
Hell, belief in, 23—nil want to es­
England and Judæa, 335
cape, 24

INDEX.

385

Heresy, 66—as a sin against the Holy Joachim, St., 397
Ghost, 94—a protest against the Joseph, St., 116, 327—death of, 328
Cross, 230
—meditations on, 330-joys of, 33a
----- v_ xithe
---------is- —
I —a model, 334
Hierarchy,
angelio,
317, —
318η
Joseph of Cupertino, St., on the loss
History of the Holy Ghost, 68
Holiness, impossible without Mary, I of Judas, 250
282—two schools of, in the Church, Journeys. the seven, of Jeans, 269
Joy in Heaven, wherein it consists
368
Homo, our, in God, 43
Humility, of God, 304—of St. Thomae Joys of Mary, 312—of St. Joseph,
of Canterbury, 347
33»
Judas, 248, 258
Ignatius, St., at Manresa, 86—an John the Baptist, St., 335, 346
aggressive saint, 371
Kingdoms, the three, of Jesus, 299
Imitation of Jesus, 284
Incarnation, the, 62—how affected Kings, the three, 120—characteris­
tics of, 336—virtues of, 337
by sin, 72—eternal plan of, in—
specialty for us, 284
Incomprehensibility of God, 8—what Legacies, the, of Jesus, 264
it is, 10—St. Teresa’s devotion to Lent, 149
Lidwine, St., of Schiedam, 266
the, 10
Life, a service, 28—a Godlike gift,
Indiscretion, slur of, 347
57—always a happiness, 58—of
Indulgence of God, 26
Jesus, a life of love, 155—St
Indwelling of the Holy Ghost, 63, 78
Philip’s, 363
Innocence of our Lord, 241
Inspirations, 85—the waste of, 90— Likeness of God, Mary the, 288
consequence of not listening to, I Limbus, 63, 134
106
Longanimity, 83
Investigations, theological, 47—ef­ Love, so little given to God, 35—is
fects of, 48
work, 36
Instruments of the Passion, 178
Love of God for souls, 30—strange­
ness of the, 31—not easily wearied,
Jacob’s well, 133
32—of Jesus, 155
Jerome, 81., on the Passion, 175
Jesus, predestination of, 70—devo­ Lucifer, 305
tion of, to the Holy Ghost, 73—
life of, in the Bosom of the Father, Madness attributed to God, 132
in—llis choice of poverty, 129— Majesty of God, 20
£rayer of, 130—Mystery of His Martyrdom, what it is, 58
sing thought mad, 131—at the Mary, tranquillity of, 12—full of
well, 133—in Limbus, 134—Easter 1 mercy, 13—bound up with Jesus.
joy of, 137—perpetual freshness 1 75—sanctifications of, 91—Predes­
of, 153—tears of, 159—first sight
tination of, ri2—beauty of, 139—
of the face of, 163—beauty of, 189
during the Passion, 207—the
—before Herod, 191—Death of,
mother of sinners, 277—the safety
218—Innocence of, 242—silence of,
of souls, 279—dependence on, 281
?43> 251—Face of, 245—complain­
—measures of the love of. 285—
ings of, 257—legacies of, 264—
magnifying God, 286—office of,
journeys of, 269—Trials of. 270—
286—God’s delight in the perfec­
Sifts of, 276—dependence of, on
tions of, 290—Immaculate Concep­
[ary, 280—seeming weakness of,
tion of, 292, 295—Assumption of,
351—present in the B. Sacrament,
293—lovo of, 294—humility of, 304
298
—the manifestation of the kingdom
Jews, the, during the Passion, 208,
of grace, 306—an exemplification
251—the cry of Blood, 252—the
of the spirit, not the letter, 308—
state of. 335
joys of, 312
VOL. I.

I

Love of Mary, 293

386

INDEX.

Mary Magdalena, St., 140
*,
Mae
the first, 930—of St. Philip,
3«
Maternity, the Divine, 295
Matter, creation of, 71
Mediocrity, a soul of, 30
Meditation on the Angele, 315
Men, judgment of, despised by St.
Thomas. 353
Mercies of God, 18
Mercy, of God, 12—ways of, 13—
God, rich in, 14—a mystery, 17
Michael, St., worship of, 321
Mind Buffers more than the body,
179
Miracles of St. Philip, 365
Mission, doctrine of, 65, 76
Mocking God, 33—what it is, 34—
everything except a true conver­
sion, 35
Modesty, 84
More for God, 37
Mother, the, and her many sons,
294.
Mysteries of God’s ways, 48—of the
Passion, 225

of, 197—ever living in the Church,
an—an attraction. 212—in the
active and contemplative life, 212,
213 - the grand object of devotion,
224—effects of, in the world, 228
—our devotion through the year,
262
Pator Pauperum, 127
Pater Noster, the, 130
Patience of God, ix, 20
Penance, necessity of, 22—for devo­
tion to the Passion, 268
Pentecost, 76, 101
Person of Jesus Christ, 126
Philip, St., 87—heart of, 105, 125,
378—Novena of, 363
Philip Benizi, St., 232
Pilate, 242, 250
Pilgrimages, 266
Poor, the favourites of God, 127—
consolations of, 128
Pontigny, 351
Pope, infallibility of the, 66
Poverty, the choice of Jesus, 129
Practices, devotional, in honour of
our Guardian Angel, 325
Prayer for sinners, 301
Predestination,of Jesus, 71—of Mary,
292
Principles, the three, of human life,
ix—strength of high, 350
Procession of the Holy Ghost, 47,
51—eternal, 52
Protestantism, 336
Punishment., eternal, 23
Purgatory, 164

Name, the Holy, feast of, 123—our
trust, 160
Nativity, the. 114
Nature, 61—Mary in the kingdom
of, 287—inanimate, 289 —and
grace, 305
Nusareth, the men of, 189
Neutrality impossible for creatures
with regard to God, 60
Nicodemus, 73
Novatus, 85
Quarant’ Ore, the, 149
Novena of St. Philip, 363
Queen, the Immaculate, 298
Obligations, our, to Jesus, 283
Oils, the holy, 73
Omnipotence of God, devotion to, 7
Opinion, probable, a ground for a
devotion, 89
Oratory, spirit of the, 96, 99—be­
ginnings of, 364
Ordinations, 74

Raphael, St., 322
Reed, the bruised, 24
Religion must be taken as God has
revealed it, 24—wbat ours ought
to be, 104
Repentance grows harder by delay,
40
Respect, human, a tyranny, 28
Resurrection, the, 134, 140—victory
Paganism, 72
of, 135—a mystery of calmness, 143
Paraclete, the, 79
Rome, laid waste, 338, 339
Passion, the, 169—mystical charac­ Rosary, the, 307—the testament of
ter of, 171—bodily pains of, 175—
Mary, 308
instrumente of, 178—mental suf­
ferings of, 180—shame of, 184, 187 Sacrament, the Blessed, 147—happi—solitariness of, 193—spectators I uess of Jesus in, 157—is Jesus

INDEX.
Himself, i6r—connection of, with | Thomas, St., of Canterbury, 312the Passion, 170
; his hatred of meanness, 34» —in
Saints, aggressive, 371
th· court, 34a—in strife, M7—
Salerno, 355
humility of, 348—in exile, 350—
Sanctifications of Alary, 75, 91
despised mens judgment, 3$J—
Salvation, 246
devotion to, 358
Salvetefloret martyrum, 358
Tongue, sins of the, 236
Satan, how men become his pro­ Touch of God, 42
perty, 28
j Thief, the impenitent, 198
Scaka, Ven., Paola Maria, 176
1 Thomas, St., 318—on creation, 56
Scandal. 367
Thorns, the Crown of, 260
Scourgings, the, 177
! Transformation of the whole man,
Secrecy, of God, 9—object of St.
the work of the Passion, 214
Philip, 366
! Trinity, the Holy, 3, 50, 76
Serafina de Dio, Ven., 96, 99
J Truth, uat men’s but God’s, 349
Service, life a, 28
I Uncreated, threshold of the, 65
Shame of the Cross, 184
Silence at the Passion, 251—of our ' Union with God. in the order of
Lord, 256
I nature, 61—of grace, 61—because
Sinners, praying for, 301
of the Incarnation, 62 — special
Sins. 262
work of the Incarnation, 63
Sleep of Jesus, 179
Solitude, 193—of the Passion. 194, Varani, B., Battista, 182, 184
Via Dolorosa, 176, 189, 191
*95
I Victory of the Resurrection, 135
Sorrow, nature of, 159, 160
Sorrows, the Alan of, 221
Vision, the Beatific, the cause of oui
nut sinning in heaven, 5—during
Soul, each, separately loved by God,
31—beauty of, in a state of grace, I the Passion, 204
1 Vocation of the Apostles, 247
136—of Jesus, trials of, 196
Souls, perishing, 38—Mary the safety
I Ways of mercy, 13
of, 279
i Weakness, the strength of Chris­
Spectators of the Passion, 206
Spouse of the Holy Ghost, 75, 77
tians, 351, 354
Weariness, 153
Stations of the Cross, 266
J
Well, Jacob’s, 133
Stigmatisation, 21/.
I Will of God, 327
Stupidities well meant, 21
i Words, the Seven, 216
Success, a perpetual struggle. 28
Sufferings, unknown, of the Passion, Works, the divine, 12
World, the, how viewed by saint·,
*73
I **
7
Sword of Peter, 355
Worship of Alary, 287
Wounds, the Five, 356
Talking a source of sin, 6
Taste for God, 41—a magnificent
Years, the thirty-three, 73 —all
grace, 42
I Christian life like, 97—were a
Tears of Jesus, 159
I passion, 172—Face of Jesas in,
Temperance, 84
Teresa’s, St., devotion to the incom­
245
prehensibility of God, 10—on Years, the sixty-three, of Mary,
seeming faults, 26—devotion of, ’ 309
to St. Joseph, 334

BURNS AND OATES, LIMITED. LONDON.