Part
III
Meditations on Christian Doctrine
with
A Visit to the
Blessed Sacrament
Before Meditation
A Short Visit to the
Blessed Sacrament before Meditation
{293} [Note]
In the Name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
I place myself in the presence
of Him, in whose Incarnate Presence I am before I place myself there.
I adore Thee, O my Saviour,
present here as God and man, in soul and body, in true flesh and blood.
I acknowledge and confess that I
kneel before that Sacred Humanity, which was conceived in Mary's womb,
and lay in Mary's bosom; which grew up to man's estate, and by the Sea
of Galilee called the Twelve, wrought miracles, and spoke words of
wisdom and peace; which in due season hung on the cross, lay in the
tomb, rose from the dead, and now reigns in heaven.
I praise, and bless, and give
myself wholly to Him, who is the true Bread of my soul, and my
everlasting joy.
Sunday
O Sapientia, quę ex ore
Altissimi prodiisti, attingens ą fine usque ad finem, fortiter
suaviterque disponens omnia: Veni ad docendum nos viam prudentię. {294}
Monday
O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel,
qui Moysi in igne flammę rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti:
Veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
Tuesday
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in
signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem Gentes
deprecabuntur: Veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.
Wednesday
O Clavis David, et Sceptrum
domus Israel, qui aperis et nemo claudit, claudis et nemo aperit: Veni,
et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris et umbrā mortis.
Thursday
O Oriens, Splendor lucis ęternę,
et sol justitię: Veni et illumina sedentes in tenebris et umbrā
mortis.
Friday
O Rex Gentium, et desideratus
earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: Veni et salva hominem,
quem de limo formasti. {295}
Saturday
O Emmanuel, Rex et Legifer
noster, Expectatio gentium, et Salvador earum: Veni ad salvandum nos,
Domine Deus noster.
The Latin Antiphons are taken
from the Breviary in Advent.
Meditations
on Christian Doctrine
{299}
I. Hope in God—Creator
(1)
March
6, 1848
1. GOD
has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good;
everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of
another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has
determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that
which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He
calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is
my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.
2. God knows what is my greatest
happiness, but I do not. There is no rule about what is happy and good;
what suits one would not suit another. And the ways by which perfection
is reached vary very much; the medicines necessary for our souls are
very different from each other. Thus God leads us by {300} strange ways;
we know He wills our happiness, but we neither know what our happiness
is, nor the way. We are blind; left to ourselves we should take the
wrong way; we must leave it to Him.
3. Let us put ourselves into His
hands, and not be startled though He leads us by a strange way, a mirabilis
via, as the Church speaks. Let us be sure He will lead us right,
that He will bring us to that which is, not indeed what we think
best, nor what is best for another, but what is best for us.
Colloquy. O,
my God, I will put myself without reserve into Thy hands. Wealth or woe,
joy or sorrow, friends or bereavement, honour or humiliation, good
report or ill report, comfort or discomfort, Thy presence or the hiding
of Thy countenance, all is good if it comes from Thee. Thou art wisdom
and Thou art love—what can I desire more? Thou hast led me in Thy
counsel, and with glory hast Thou received me. What have I in heaven,
and apart from Thee what want I upon earth? My flesh and my heart
faileth: but God is the God of my heart, and my portion for ever.
(2)
March
7
1. God was all-complete,
all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His
glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it
has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has
created. We are all {301} created to His glory—we are created to do
His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no
one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world,
which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed
by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.
2. God has created me to do Him
some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not
committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this
life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His
purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed,
I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of
Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a
bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I
shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a
preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but
keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.
3. Therefore I will trust Him.
Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in
sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may
serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or
perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which
is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He
may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends,
He may throw me among strangers, He {302} may make me feel desolate,
make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He
is about.
O Adonai, O Ruler of Israel,
Thou that guidest Joseph like a flock, O Emmanuel, O Sapientia, I give
myself to Thee. I trust Thee wholly. Thou art wiser than I—more loving
to me than I myself. Deign to fulfil Thy high purposes in me whatever
they be—work in and through me. I am born to serve Thee, to be Thine,
to be Thy instrument. Let me be Thy blind instrument. I ask not to
see—I ask not to know—I ask simply to be used.
(3)
1. What mind of man can imagine
the love which the Eternal Father bears towards the Only Begotten Son?
It has been from everlasting,—and it is infinite; so great is it that
divines call the Holy Ghost by the name of that love, as if to express
its infinitude and perfection. Yet reflect, O my soul, and bow down
before the awful mystery, that, as the Father loves the Son, so doth the
Son love thee, if thou art one of His elect; for He says expressly, "As
the Father hath loved Me, I also have loved you. Abide in My love." What
mystery in the whole circle of revealed truths is greater than this?
2. The love which the Son bears
to thee, a creature, is like that which the Father bears to the
uncreated Son. O wonderful mystery! This, then, is the history of
what else is so strange: that He should {303} have taken my flesh and
died for me. The former mystery anticipates the latter; that latter does
but fulfil the former. Did He not love me so inexpressibly, He would not
have suffered for me. I understand now why He died for me, because He
loved me as a father loves his son—not as a human father merely, but
as the Eternal Father the Eternal Son. I see now the meaning of that
else inexplicable humiliation: He preferred to regain me rather than to
create new worlds.
3. How constant is He in His
affection! He has loved us from the time of Adam. He has said from the
beginning, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee." He did not
forsake us in our sin. He did not forsake me. He found me out and
regained me. He made a point of it—He resolved to restore me, in spite
of myself, to that blessedness which I was so obstinately set against.
And now what does He ask of me, but that, as He has loved me with an
everlasting love, so I should love Him in such poor measures as I can
show.
O mystery of mysteries, that the
ineffable love of Father to Son should be the love of the Son to us! Why
was it, O Lord? What good thing didst Thou see in me a sinner? Why wast
Thou set on me? "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son
of man that Thou visitest him?" This poor flesh of mine, this weak
sinful soul, which has no life except in Thy grace, Thou didst set Thy
love upon it. Complete Thy work, O Lord, and as Thou hast loved me from
the beginning, so make me to love Thee unto the end. {304}
II.
Hope in God—Redeemer
(1)
The Mental Sufferings of our Lord
August
18, 1855
1. AFTER
all His discourses were consummated (Matt. xxvi. 1), fully
finished and brought to an end, then He said, The Son of man will be
betrayed to crucifixion. As an army puts itself in battle array, as
sailors, before an action, clear the decks, as dying men make their will
and then turn to God, so though our Lord could never cease to speak good
words, did He sum up and complete His teaching, and then commence His
passion. Then He removed by His own act the prohibition which kept Satan
from Him, and opened the door to the agitations of His human heart, as a
soldier, who is to suffer death, may drop his handkerchief himself. At
once Satan came on and seized upon his brief hour.
2. An evil temper of murmuring
and criticism is spread among the disciples. One was the source of it,
but it seems to have been spread. The thought {305} of His death was
before Him, and He was thinking of it and His burial after it. A woman
came and anointed His sacred head. The action spread a soothing tender
feeling over His pure soul. It was a mute token of sympathy, and the
whole house was filled with it. It was rudely broken by the harsh voice
of the traitor now for the first time giving utterance to his secret
heartlessness and malice. Ut quid perditio hęc? "To what purpose
is this waste?"—the unjust steward with his impious economy making up
for his own private thefts by grudging honour to his Master. Thus in the
midst of the sweet calm harmony of that feast at Bethany, there comes a
jar and discord; all is wrong: sour discontent and distrust are
spreading, for the devil is abroad.
3. Judas, having once shown what
he was, lost no time in carrying out his malice. He went to the Chief
Priests, and bargained with them to betray his Lord for a price. Our
Lord saw all that took place within him; He saw Satan knocking at his
heart, and admitted there and made an honoured and beloved guest and an
intimate. He saw him go to the Priests and heard the conversation
between them. He had seen it by His foreknowledge all the time he had
been about Him, and when He chose him. What we know feebly as to be,
affects us far more vividly and very differently when it actually takes
place. Our Lord had at length felt, and suffered Himself to feel, the
cruelty of the ingratitude of which He was the sport and victim. He had
treated Judas as one of His most familiar friends. He had shown marks of
the closest intimacy; He had made {306} him the purse-keeper of Himself
and His followers. He had given him the power of working miracles. He
had admitted him to a knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of
heaven. He had sent him out to preach and made him one of His own
special representatives, so that the Master was judged of by the conduct
of His servant. A heathen, when smitten by a friend, said, "Et tu Brutė!"
What desolation is in the sense of ingratitude! God who is met with
ingratitude daily cannot from His Nature feel it. He took a human heart,
that He might feel it in its fulness. And now, O my God, though in
heaven, dost Thou not feel my ingratitude towards Thee?
March
10
4. I see the figure of a man,
whether young or old I cannot tell. He may be fifty or he may be thirty.
Sometimes He looks one, sometimes the other. There is something
inexpressible about His face which I cannot solve. Perhaps, as He bears all
burdens, He bears that of old age too. But so it is; His face is at once
most venerable, yet most childlike, most calm, most sweet, most modest,
beaming with sanctity and with loving kindness. His eyes rivet me and
move my heart. His breath is all fragrant, and transports me out of
myself. Oh, I will look upon that face forever, and will not cease.
5. And I see suddenly
some one come to Him, and raise his hand and sharply strike Him on that
heavenly face. It is a hard hand, the hand of a rude man, and perhaps
has iron upon it. It could not be {307} so sudden as to take Him by
surprise who knows all things past and future, and He shows no sign of
resentment, remaining calm and grave as before; but the expression of
His face is marred; a great wheal arises, and in a little time that
all-gracious Face is hid from me by the effects of this indignity, as if
a cloud came over It.
6. A hand was lifted up against
the Face of Christ. Whose hand was that? My conscience tells me: "thou
art the man." I trust it is not so with me now. But, O my soul,
contemplate the awful fact. Fancy Christ before thee, and fancy
thyself lifting up thy hand and striking Him! Thou wilt say, "It is
impossible: I could not do so." Yes, thou hast done so. When thou didst
sin wilfully, then thou hast done so. He is beyond pain now: still thou
hast struck Him, and had it been in the days of His flesh, He would have
felt pain. Turn back in memory, and recollect the time, the day, the
hour, when by wilful mortal sin, by scoffing at sacred things, or by
profaneness, or by dark hatred of this thy Brother, or by acts of
impurity, or by deliberate rejection of God's voice, or in any other
devilish way known to thee, thou hast struck The All-holy One.
O injured Lord, what can I say?
I am very guilty concerning Thee, my Brother; and I shall sink in sullen
despair if Thou dost not raise me. I cannot look on Thee; I shrink from
Thee; I throw my arms round my face; I crouch to the earth. Satan will
pull me down if Thou take not pity. It is terrible to turn to Thee; but
oh turn Thou me, and so shall {308} I be turned. It is a purgatory to
endure the sight of Thee, the sight of myself—I most vile, Thou most
holy. Yet make me look once more on Thee whom I have so incomprehensibly
affronted, for Thy countenance is my only life, my only hope and health
lies in looking on Thee whom I have pierced. So I put myself before
Thee; I look on Thee again; I endure the pain in order to the
purification.
O my God, how can I look Thee in
the face when I think of my ingratitude, so deeply seated, so habitual,
so immovable—or rather so awfully increasing! Thou loadest me day by
day with Thy favours, and feedest me with Thyself, as Thou didst Judas,
yet I not only do not profit thereby, but I do not even make any
acknowledgment at the time. Lord, how long? when shall I be free from
this real, this fatal captivity? He who made Judas his prey, has got
foothold of me in my old age, and I cannot get loose. It is the same day
after day. When wilt Thou give me a still greater grace than Thou hast
given, the grace to profit by the graces which Thou givest? When wilt
Thou give me Thy effectual grace which alone can give life and vigour to
this effete, miserable, dying soul of mine? My God, I know not in what
sense I can pain Thee in Thy glorified state; but I know that every
fresh sin, every fresh ingratitude I now commit, was among the blows and
stripes which once fell on Thee in Thy passion. O let me have as little
share in those Thy past sufferings as possible. Day by day goes, and I
find I have been more and more, by the new sins of each day, the cause
of them. I know that at best I have a real {309} share in solido
of them all, but still it is shocking to find myself having a greater
and greater share. Let others wound Thee—let not me. Let not me have
to think that Thou wouldest have had this or that pang of soul or body
the less, except for me. O my God, I am so fast in prison that I cannot
get out. O Mary, pray for me. O Philip, pray for me, though I do not
deserve Thy pity.
(2)
Our Lord Refuses Sympathy
1. SYMPATHY
may be called an eternal law, for it is signified or rather
transcendentally and archetypically fulfilled in the ineffable mutual
love of the Divine Trinity. God, though infinitely One, has ever been
Three. He ever has rejoiced in His Son and His Spirit, and they in
Him—and thus through all eternity He has existed, not solitary, though
alone, having in this incomprehensible multiplication of Himself and
reiteration of His Person, such infinitely perfect bliss, that nothing
He has created can add aught to it. The devil only is barren and lonely,
shut up in himself—and his servants also.
2. When, for our sakes, the Son
came on earth and took our flesh, yet He would not live without the
sympathy of others. For thirty years He lived with Mary and Joseph and
thus formed a shadow of the Heavenly Trinity on earth. O the perfection
of {310} that sympathy which existed between the three! Not a look of
one, but the other two understood, as expressed, better than if
expressed in a thousand words—nay more than understood, accepted,
echoed, corroborated. It was like three instruments absolutely in tune
which all vibrate when one vibrates, and vibrate either one and the same
note, or in perfect harmony.
3. The first weakening of that
unison was when Joseph died. It was no jar in the sound, for to the last
moment of his life, he was one with them, and the sympathy between the
three only became more intense, and more sweet, while it was brought
into new circumstances and had a wider range in the months of his
declining, his sickness, and death. Then it was like an air ranging
through a number of notes performed perfectly and exactly in time and
tune by all three. But it ended in a lower note than before, and when
Joseph went, a weaker one. Not that Joseph, though so saintly, added
much in volume of sound to the other two, but sympathy, by its very
meaning, implies number, and, on his death, one, out of three harps, was
unstrung and silent.
4. O what a moment of sympathy
between the three, the moment before Joseph died—they supporting and
hanging over him, he looking at them and reposing in them with
undivided, unreserved, supreme, devotion, for he was in the arms of God
and the Mother of God. As a flame shoots up and expires, so was the
ecstasy of that last moment ineffable, for each knew and thought of the
reverse {311} which was to follow on the snapping of that bond. One
moment, very different, of joy, not of sorrow, was equal to it in
intensity of feeling, that of the birth of Jesus. The birth of Jesus,
the death of Joseph, moments of unutterable sweetness, unparalleled in
the history of mankind. St. Joseph went to limbo, to wait his time, out
of God's Presence. Jesus had to preach, suffer, and die; Mary to witness
His sufferings, and, even after He had risen again, to go on living
without Him amid the changes of life and the heartlessness of the
heathen.
5. The birth of Jesus, the death
of Joseph, those moments of transcendentally pure, and perfect and
living sympathy, between the three members of this earthly Trinity, were
its beginning and its end. The death of Joseph, which broke it up, was
the breaking up of more than itself. It was but the beginning of that
change which was coming over Son and Mother. Going on now for thirty
years, each of them had been preserved from the world, and had lived for
each other. Now He had to go out to preach and suffer, and, as the
foremost and most inevitable of His trials, and one which from first to
last He voluntarily undertook, even when not imperative, He deprived
Himself of the enjoyment of that intercommunion of hearts—of His heart
with the heart of Mary—which had been His from the time He took man's
nature, and which He had possessed in an archetypal and transcendent
manner with His Father and His Spirit from all eternity.
O my soul, thou art allowed to
contemplate this union of the three, and to share thyself its sympathy,
{312} by faith though not by sight. My God, I believe and know that then
a communion of heavenly things was opened on earth which has never been
suspended. It is my duty and my bliss to enter into it myself. It is my
duty and my bliss to be in tune with that most touching music which then
began to sound. Give me that grace which alone can make me hear and
understand it, that it may thrill through me. Let the breathings of my
soul be with Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Let me live in obscurity, out of
the world and the world's thought, with them. Let me look to them in
sorrow and in joy, and live and die in their sweet sympathy.
6. The last day of the
earthly intercourse between Jesus and Mary was at the marriage feast at
Cana. Yet even then there was something taken from that blissful
intimacy, for they no longer lived simply for each other, but showed
themselves in public, and began to take their place in the dispensation
which was opening. He manifested forth His glory by His first miracle;
and hers also, by making her intercession the medium of it. He honoured
her still more, by breaking through the appointed order of things for
her sake, and though His time of miracles was not come, anticipating it
at her instance. While He wrought His miracle, however, He took leave of
her in the words "Woman, what is between thee and Me?" Thus He parted
with her absolutely, though He parted with a blessing. It was leaving
Paradise feeble and alone.
7. For in truth it was fitting
that He who was to be the true High Priest, should thus, while He
exercised {313} His office for the whole race of man, be free from all
human ties, and sympathies of the flesh. And one reason for His long
abode at Nazareth with His Mother may have been to show, that, as He
gave up His Father's and His own glory on high, to become man, so He
gave up the innocent and pure joys of His earthly home, in order that He
might be a Priest. So, in the old time, Melchisedech is described as
without father or mother. So the Levites showed themselves truly worthy
of the sacerdotal office and were made the sacerdotal tribe, because
they steeled themselves against natural affection, said to father or
mother, "I know you not," and raised the sword against their own
kindred, when the honour of the Lord of armies demanded the sacrifice.
In like manner our Lord said to Mary, "What is between Me and thee?" It
was the setting apart of the sacrifice, the first ritual step of the
Great Act which was to be solemnly performed for the salvation of the
world. "What is between Me and thee, O woman?" is the offertory before
the oblation of the Host. O my dear Lord, Thou who hast given up Thy
mother for me, give me grace cheerfully to give up all my earthly
friends and relations for Thee.
8. The Great High Priest said to
His kindred, "I know you not." Then, as He did so, we may believe that
the most tender heart of Jesus looked back upon His whole time since His
birth, and called before Him those former days of His infancy and
childhood, when He had been with others from whom He had long been
parted. Time was when St. Elizabeth and the Holy Baptist had formed part
of the Holy {314} Family. St. Elizabeth, like St. Joseph, had been
removed by death, and was waiting His coming to break that bond which
detained both her and St. Joseph from heaven. St. John had been cut off
from his home and mankind, and the sympathies of earth, long since—and
had now begun to preach the coming Saviour, and was waiting and
expecting His manifestation.
Give me grace, O Jesus, to live
in sight of that blessed company. Let my life be spent in the presence
of Thee and Thy dearest friends. Though I see them not, let not what I
do see seduce me to give my heart elsewhere. Because Thou hast blessed
me so much and given to me friends, let me not depend or rely or throw
myself in any way upon them, but in Thee be my life, and my conversation
and daily walk among those with whom Thou didst surround Thyself on
earth, and dost now delight Thyself in heaven. Be my soul with Thee,
and, because with Thee, with Mary and Joseph and Elizabeth and John.
9. Nor did He, as time went on,
give up Mary and Joseph only. There still remained to Him invisible
attendants and friends, and He had their sympathy, but them He at length
gave up also. From the time of His birth we may suppose He held
communion with the spirits of the Old Fathers, who had prepared His
coming and prophesied of it. On one occasion He was seen all through the
night, conversing with Moses and Elias, and that conversation was about
His Passion. What a field of thought is thus opened to us, of which we
know how little. When {315} He passed whole nights in prayer, it was
greater refreshment to soul and body than sleep. Who could support and
(so to say) re-invigorate the Divine Lord better than that "laudabilis
numerus" of Prophets of which He was the fulfilment and antitype?
Then He might talk with Abraham who saw His day, or Moses who spoke to
Him; or with His especial types, David and Jeremias; or with those who
spoke most of Him, as Isaias and Daniel. And here was a fund of great
sympathy. When He came up to Jerusalem to suffer, He might be met in
spirit by all the holy priests, who had offered sacrifices in shadow of
Him; just as now the priest recalls in Mass the sacrifices of Abel,
Abraham, and Melchisedech, and the fiery gift which purged the lips of
Isaias, as well as holding communion with the Apostles and Martyrs.
10. Let us linger for a while
with Mary—before we follow the steps of her Son, our Lord. There was
an occasion when He refused leave to one who would bid his own home
farewell, before he followed Him; and such was, as it seems, almost His
own way with His Mother; but will He be displeased, if we one instant
stop with her, though our meditation lies with Him? O Mary, we are
devout to thy seven woes—but was not this, though not one of those
seven, one of the greatest, and included those that followed, from thy
knowledge of them beforehand? How didst thou bear that first separation
from Him? How did the first days pass when thou wast desolate? where
didst thou hide thyself? where didst thou pass the long three years and
more, while {316} He was on His ministry? Once—at the beginning of
it—thou didst attempt to get near Him, and then we hear nothing of
thee, till we find thee standing at His cross. And then, after that
great joy of seeing Him again, and the permanent consolation, never to
be lost, that with Him all suffering and humiliation was over, and that
never had she to weep for Him again, still she was separated from him
for many years, while she lived in the flesh, surrounded by the wicked
world, and in the misery of His absence.
11. The blessed Mary, among her
other sorrows, suffered the loss of her Son, after He had lived under
the same roof with her for thirty years. When He was no more than
twelve, He gave her a token of what was to be, and said, "I must be
about my Father's business;" and when the time came, and He began His
miracles, He said to her, "What is to Me and to thee?"—What is common
to us two?—and soon He left her. Once she tried to see Him, but in
vain, and could not reach Him for the crowd, and He made no effort to
receive her, nor said a kind word; and then at the last, once more she
tried, and she reached him in time, to see Him hanging on the cross and
dying. He was only forty days on earth after His resurrection, and then
He left her in old age to finish her life without Him. Compare her
thirty happy years, and her time of desolation.
12. I see her in her forlorn
home, while her Son and Lord was going up and down the land without a
place to lay His head, suffering both because she was so desolate and He
was so exposed. How dreary {317} passed the day; and then came reports
that He was in some peril or distress. She heard, perhaps, He had been
led into the wilderness to be tempted. She would have shared all His
sufferings, but was not permitted. Once there was a profane report which
was believed by many, that He was beside Himself, and His friends and
kindred went out to get possession of Him. She went out too to see Him,
and tried to reach Him. She could not for the crowd. A message came to
Him to that effect, but He made no effort to receive her, nor said a
kind word. She went back to her home disappointed, without the sight of
Him. And so she remained, perhaps in company with those who did not
believe in Him.
13. I see her too after His
ascension. This, too, is a time of bereavement, but still of
consolation. It was still a twilight time, but not a time of grief. The
Lord was absent, but He was not on earth, He was not in suffering. Death
had no power over Him. And He came to her day by day in the Blessed
Sacrifice. I see the Blessed Mary at Mass, and St. John celebrating. She
is waiting for the moment of her Son's Presence: now she converses with
Him in the sacred rite; and what shall I say now? She receives Him, to
whom once she gave birth.
O Holy Mother, stand by me now
at Mass time, when Christ comes to me, as thou didst minister to Thy
infant Lord—as Thou didst hang upon His words when He grew up, as Thou
wast found under His cross. Stand by me, Holy Mother, that I may {318}
gain somewhat of thy purity, thy innocence, thy faith, and He may be the
one object of my love and my adoration, as He was of thine.
14. There were others who more
directly ministered to Him, and of whom we are told more—the Holy
Angels. It was the voice of the Archangel that announced to the prophet
His coming which consigned the Eternal to the womb of Mary. Angels
hymned His nativity and all the Angels of God worshipped at his crib. An
Angel sent Him into Egypt and brought Him back. Angels ministered to Him
after His temptation. Angels wrought His miracles, when He did not will
to exert His Almighty fiat. But He bade them go at length, as He had
bidden His Mother go. One remained at His agony. Afterwards He said, "Think
ye not I could pray to My Father, and He would send me myriads of
Angels?"—implying that in fact His guards had been withdrawn. The
Church prays Him, on His ascension, "King of Glory, Lord of Angels,
leave us not orphans." He, the Lord of Angels, was at this time
despoiled of them.
15. He took other human friends,
when He had given up His Mother—the twelve Apostles—as if He desired
that in which He might sympathise. He chose them, as He says, to be, "not
servants but friends." He made them His confidants. He told them things
which He did not tell others. It was His will to favour, nay, to indulge
them, as a father behaves towards a favourite child. He made them more
blessed than kings and prophets and wise {319} men, from the things He
told them. He called them "His little ones," and preferred them for His
gifts to the wise and prudent. He exulted, while He praised them, that
they had continued with Him in His temptations, and as if in gratitude
He announced that they should sit upon twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel. He rejoiced in their sympathy when His solemn trial
was approaching. He assembled them about Him at the last supper, as if
they were to support Him in it. "With desire," He says, "have I desired
to eat this Pasch with you, before I suffer." Thus there was an
interchange of good offices, and an intimate sympathy between them. But
it was His adorable will that they too should leave Him, that He should
be left to Himself. One betrayed, another denied Him, the rest ran away
from Him, and left Him in the hands of His enemies. Even after He had
risen, none would believe in it. Thus he trod the winepress alone.
16. He who was Almighty, and
All-blessed, and who flooded His own soul with the full glory of the
vision of His Divine Nature, would still subject that soul to all the
infirmities which naturally belonged to it; and, as He suffered it to
rejoice in the sympathy, and to be desolate under the absence, of human
friends, so, when it pleased Him, He could, and did, deprive it of the
light of the presence of God. This was the last and crowning misery that
He put upon it. He had in the course of His ministry fled from man to
God; he had appealed to Him; He had taken refuge from the rude
ingratitude of the race {320} whom He was saving in divine communion. He
retired of nights to pray. He said, "the Father loveth the Son, and
shews to Him all things that He doth Himself." He returned thanks to Him
for hiding His mysteries from the wise to reveal them to the little
ones. But now He deprived Himself of this elementary consolation, by
which He lived, and that, not in part only, but in its fulness. He said,
when His passion began, "My soul is sorrowful even unto death;" and at
the last, "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Thus He was stripped of
all things.
My God and Saviour, who wast
thus deprived of the light of consolation, whose soul was dark, whose
affections were left to thirst without the true object of them, and all
this for man, take not from me the light of Thy countenance, lest
I shrivel from the loss of it and perish in my infirmity. Who can
sustain the loss of the Sun of the soul but Thou? Who can walk without
light, or labour without the pure air, but Thy great Saints? As for me,
alas, I shall turn to the creature for my comfort, if Thou wilt not give
me Thyself. I shall not mourn, I shall not hunger or thirst after
justice, but I shall look about for whatever is at hand, and feed on
offal, or stay my appetite with husks, ashes, or chaff, which if they
poison me not, at least nourish not. O my God, leave me not in that dry
state in which I am; give me the comfort of Thy grace. How can I have
any tenderness or sweetness, unless I have Thee to look upon? how can I
continue in prayer, as is my duty doubly, since I belong to the Oratory,
unless Thou encourage me and make it pleasant to me? It is hardly that
an old man keeps {321} any warmth in him; it is slowly that he recovers
what is lost. Yet, O my God, St. Philip is my father—and he seems
never in his life to have been desolate. Thou didst give him trials, but
didst thou ever take from him the light of Thy countenance! O Philip,
wilt thou not gain for me some tithe of thy own peace and joy, thy
cheerfulness, thy gentleness, and thy self-denying charity? I am in all
things the most opposite to thee, yet I represent thee.
(3)
The Bodily Sufferings of our Lord
April
19, Wednesday in Holy Week
1. HIS
bodily pains were greater than those of any martyr, because He willed
them to be greater. All pain of body depends, as to be felt at all, so
to be felt in this or that degree, on the nature of the living mind
which dwells in that body. Vegetables have no feeling because they have
no living mind or spirit within them. Brute animals feel more or less
according to the intelligence within them. Man feels more than any
brute, because he has a soul; Christ's soul felt more than that of any
other man, because His soul was exalted by personal union with the Word
of God. Christ felt bodily pain more keenly than any other man, as much
as man feels pain more keenly than any other animal.
2. It is a relief to pain to
have the thoughts drawn another way. Thus, soldiers in battle often do
not {322} know when they are wounded. Again, persons in raging fevers
seem to suffer a great deal; then afterwards they can but recollect
general discomfort and restlessness. And so excitement and enthusiasm
are great alleviations of bodily pain; thus savages die at the stake
amid torments singing songs; it is a sort of mental drunkenness. And so
again, an instantaneous pain is comparatively bearable; it is the
continuance of pain which is so heavy, and if we had no memory of the
pain we suffered last minute, and also suffer in the present, we should
find pain easy to bear; but what makes the second pang grievous is
because there has been a first pang; and what makes the third more
grievous is that there has been a first and second; the pain seems to
grow because it is prolonged. Now Christ suffered, not as in a delirium
or in excitement, or in inadvertency, but He looked pain in the face! He
offered His whole mind to it, and received it, as it were, directly into
His bosom, and suffered all He suffered with a full consciousness of
suffering.
3. Christ would not drink the
drugged cup which was offered to Him to cloud His mind. He willed to
have the full sense of pain. His soul was so intently fixed on His
suffering as not to be distracted from it; and it was so active, and
recollected the past and anticipated the future, and the whole passion
was, as it were, concentrated on each moment of it, and all that He had
suffered and all that He was to suffer lent its aid to increase what He
was suffering. Yet withal His soul was so calm and sober and unexcited
as to be passive, and thus to receive the full burden {323} of the pain
on it, without the power of throwing it off Him. Moreover, the sense of
conscious innocence, and the knowledge that His sufferings would come to
an end, might have supported Him; but He repressed the comfort and
turned away His thoughts from these alleviations that He might suffer
absolutely and perfectly.
O my God and Saviour, who went
through such sufferings for me with such lively consciousness, such
precision, such recollection, and such fortitude, enable me, by Thy
help, if I am brought into the power of this terrible trial, bodily
pain, enable me to bear it with some portion of Thy calmness. Obtain for
me this grace, O Virgin Mother, who didst see thy Son suffer and didst
suffer with Him; that I, when I suffer, may associate my sufferings with
His and with thine, and that through His passion, and thy merits and
those of all Saints, they may be a satisfaction for my sins and procure
for me eternal life.
Maundy
Thursday
4. Our Lord's sufferings were so
great, because His soul was in suffering. What shows this is that His
soul began to suffer before His bodily passion, as we see in the agony
in the garden. The first anguish which came upon His body was not from
without—it was not from the scourges, the thorns, or the nails, but
from His soul. His soul was in such agony that He called it death: "My
soul is sorrowful even unto death." The anguish was such that it, as it
were, {324} burst open His whole body. It was a pang affecting His
heart; as in the deluge the floods of the great deep were broken up and
the windows of heaven were open. The blood, rushing from his tormented
heart, forced its way on every side, formed for itself a thousand new
channels, filled all the pores, and at length stood forth upon His skin
in thick drops, which fell heavily on the ground.
5. He remained in this living
death from the time of His agony in the garden; and as His first agony
was from His soul, so was His last. As the scourge and the cross did not
begin His sufferings, so they did not close them. It was the agony of
His soul, not of His body, which caused His death. His persecutors were
surprised to hear that He was dead. How, then, did He die? That agonised,
tormented heart, which at the beginning so awfully relieved itself in
the rush of blood and the bursting of His pores, at length broke. It
broke and He died. It would have broken at once, had He
not kept it from breaking. At length the moment came. He gave the word
and His heart broke.
6. O tormented heart, it was
love, and sorrow, and fear, which broke Thee. It was the sight of human
sin, it was the sense of it, the feeling of it laid on Thee; it was zeal
for the glory of God, horror at seeing sin so near Thee, a sickening,
stifling feeling at its pollution, the deep shame and disgust and
abhorrence and revolt which it inspired, keen pity for the souls whom it
has drawn headlong into hell—all these feelings together Thou didst
allow to rush upon {325} Thee. Thou didst submit Thyself to their
powers, and they were Thy death. That strong heart, that all-noble,
all-generous, all-tender, all-pure heart was slain by sin.
O most tender and gentle Lord
Jesus, when will my heart have a portion of Thy perfections? When will
my hard and stony heart, my proud heart, my unbelieving, my impure
heart, my narrow selfish heart, be melted and conformed to Thine? O
teach me so to contemplate Thee that I may become like Thee, and to love
Thee sincerely and simply as Thou hast loved me.
(4)
It is Consummated
April
22
1. IT
is over now, O Lord, as with Thy sufferings, so with our humiliations.
We have followed Thee from Thy fasting in the wilderness till Thy death
on the Cross. For forty days we have professed to do penance. The time
has been long and it has been short; but whether long or short, it is
now over. It is over, and we feel a pleasure that it is over; it is a
relief and a release. We thank Thee that it is over. We thank Thee for
the time of sorrow, but we thank Thee more as we look forward to the
time of festival. Pardon our shortcomings in Lent and reward us in
Easter.
2. We have, indeed, done very
little for Thee, O Lord. We recollect well our listlessness and
weariness; {326} our indisposition to mortify ourselves when we had no
plea of health to stand in the way; our indisposition to pray and to
meditate—our disorder of mind—our discontent, our peevishness. Yet
some of us, perhaps, have done something for Thee. Look on us as a
whole, O Lord, look on us as a community, and let what some have done
well plead for us all.
3. O Lord, the end is come. We
are conscious of our languor and lukewarmness; we do not deserve to
rejoice in Easter, yet we cannot help doing so. We feel more of
pleasure, we rejoice in Thee more than our past humiliation warrants us
in doing; yet may that very joy be its own warrant. O be indulgent to
us, for the merits of Thy own all-powerful Passion, and for the merits
of Thy Saints. Accept us as Thy little flock, in the day of small
things, in a fallen country, in an age when faith and love are scarce.
Pity us and spare us and give us peace.
O my own Saviour, now in the
tomb but soon to arise, Thou hast paid the price; it is done—consummatum
est—it is secured. O fulfil Thy resurrection in us, and as Thou
hast purchased us, claim us, take possession of us, make us Thine.{327}
III.
God and the Soul
(1) God the
Blessedness of the Soul
1. TO
possess Thee, O Lover of Souls, is happiness, and the only happiness of
the immortal soul! To enjoy the sight of Thee is the only happiness of
eternity. At present I might amuse and sustain myself with the vanities
of sense and time, but they will not last for ever. We shall be stripped
of them when we pass out of this world. All shadows will one day be
gone. And what shall I do then? There will be nothing left to me but the
Almighty God. If I cannot take pleasure in the thought of Him, there is
no one else then to take pleasure in; God and my soul will be the only
two beings left in the whole world, as far as I am concerned. He will be
all in all, whether I wish it or no. What a strait I shall then be in if
I do not love Him, and there is then nothing else to love! if I feel
averse to Him, and He is then ever looking upon me!
2. Ah, my dear Lord, how can I
bear to say that Thou wilt be all in all, whether I wish it or no? {328}
Should I not wish it with my whole heart? What can give me
happiness but Thou? If I had all the resources of time and sense about
me, just as I have now, should I not in course of ages, nay of years,
weary of them? Did this world last for ever, would it be able ever to
supply my soul with food? Is there any earthly thing which I do not
weary of at length even now? Do old men love what young men love? Is
there not constant change? I am sure then, my God, that the time would
come, though it might be long in coming, when I should have exhausted
all the enjoyment which the world could give. Thou alone, my dear Lord,
art the food for eternity, and Thou alone. Thou only canst satisfy the
soul of man. Eternity would be misery without Thee, even though Thou
didst not inflict punishment. To see Thee, to gaze on Thee, to
contemplate Thee, this alone is inexhaustible. Thou indeed art
unchangeable, yet in Thee there are always more glorious depths and more
varied attributes to search into; we shall ever be beginning as if we
had never gazed upon Thee. In Thy presence are torrents of delight,
which whoso tastes will never let go. This is my true portion, O my
Lord, here and hereafter!
3. My God, how far am I from
acting according to what I know so well! I confess it, my heart goes
after shadows. I love anything better than communion with Thee. I am
ever eager to get away from Thee. Often I find it difficult even to say
my prayers. There is hardly any amusement I would not rather take up
than set myself to think of Thee. Give me grace, O my Father, to be
utterly ashamed {329} of my own reluctance! Rouse me from sloth and
coldness, and make me desire Thee with my whole heart. Teach me to love
meditation, sacred reading, and prayer. Teach me to love that which must
engage my mind for all eternity.
(2)
Jesus Christus Heri et Hodie: Ipse et in Sęcula
Jesus Christ yesterday and today, and the same for ever
1. ALL
things change here below. I say it, O Lord; I believe it; and I shall
feel it more and more the longer I live. Before Thy eyes, most awful
Lord, the whole future of my life lies bare. Thou knowest exactly what
will befall me every year and every day till my last hour. And, though I
know not what Thou seest concerning me, so much I know, viz. that Thou
dost read in my life perpetual change. Not a year will leave me as it
found me, either within or without. I never shall remain any time in one
state. How many things are sure to happen to me, unexpected, sudden,
hard to bear! I know them not. I know not how long I have to live. I am
hurried on, whether I will it or no, through continual change. O my God,
what can I trust in? There is nothing I dare trust in; nay, did I trust
in anything of earth, I believe for that very reason it would be taken
away from me. I know Thou wouldest take it away, if Thou hadst love for
me. {330}
2. Everything short of Thee, O
Lord, is changeable, but Thou endurest. Thou art ever one and the same.
Ever the true God of man, and unchangeably so. Thou art the rarest, most
precious, the sole good; and withal Thou art the most lasting. The
creature changes, the Creator never. Then only the creature stops
changing, when it rests on Thee. On Thee the Angels look and are at
peace; that is why they have perfect bliss. They never can lose their
blessedness, for they never can lose Thee. They have no anxiety, no
misgivings—because they love the Creator; not any being of time and
sense, but "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today, who is also for
ever.
3. My Lord, my Only God, "Deus
meus et omnia," let me never go after vanities. "Vanitas
vanitatum et omnia vanitas." All is vanity and shadow here
below. Let me not give my heart to anything here. Let nothing allure me
from Thee; O keep me wholly and entirely. Keep thou this most frail
heart and this most weak head in Thy Divine keeping. Draw me to Thee
morning, noon, and night for consolation. Be Thou my own bright Light,
to which I look, for guidance and for peace. Let me love Thee, O my Lord
Jesus, with a pure affection and a fervent affection! Let me love Thee
with the fervour, only greater, with which men of this earth love beings
of this earth. Let me have that tenderness and constancy in loving Thee,
which is so much praised among men, when the object is of the earth. Let
me find and feel Thee to be my only joy, my only refuge, my only
strength, my only comfort, my only hope, my only fear, my only love.
{331}
(3)
An Act of Love
1. MY
Lord, I believe, and know, and feel, that Thou art the Supreme Good.
And, in saying so, I mean, not only supreme Goodness and Benevolence,
but that Thou art the sovereign and transcendent Beautifulness. I
believe that, beautiful as is Thy creation, it is mere dust and ashes,
and of no account, compared with Thee, who art the infinitely more
beautiful Creator. I know well, that therefore it is that the Angels and
Saints have such perfect bliss, because they see Thee. To see even the
glimpse of Thy true glory, even in this world throws holy men into an
ecstasy. And I feel the truth of all this, in my own degree, because
Thou hast mercifully taken our nature upon Thee, and hast come to me as
man. "Et vidimus gloriam ejus, gloriam quasi Unigeniti a Patre"—"and
we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the
Father." The more, O my dear Lord, I meditate on Thy words, works,
actions, and sufferings in the Gospel, the more wonderfully glorious and
beautiful I see Thee to be.
2. And therefore, O my dear
Lord, since I perceive Thee to be so beautiful, I love Thee, and desire
to love Thee more and more. Since Thou art the One Goodness,
Beautifulness, Gloriousness, in the whole world of being, and there is
nothing like Thee, but Thou art infinitely more glorious and good than
even the {332} most beautiful of creatures, therefore I love Thee with a
singular love, a one, only, sovereign love. Everything, O my Lord, shall
be dull and dim to me, after looking at Thee. There is nothing on earth,
not even what is most naturally dear to me, that I can love in
comparison of Thee. And I would lose everything whatever rather than
lose Thee. For Thou, O my Lord, art my supreme and only Lord and love.
3. My God, Thou knowest
infinitely better than I, how little I love Thee. I should not love Thee
at all, except for Thy grace. It is Thy grace which has opened the eyes
of my mind, and enabled them to see Thy glory. It is Thy grace which has
touched my heart, and brought upon it the influence of what is so
wonderfully beautiful and fair. How can I help loving Thee, O my Lord,
except by some dreadful perversion, which hinders me from looking at
Thee? O my God, whatever is nearer to me than Thou, things of this
earth, and things more naturally pleasing to me, will be sure to
interrupt the sight of Thee, unless Thy grace interfere. Keep Thou my
eyes, my ears, my heart, from any such miserable tyranny. Break my
bonds—raise my heart. Keep my whole being fixed on Thee. Let me never
lose sight of Thee; and, while I gaze on Thee, let my love of Thee grow
more and more every day.
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March 1, 1855.
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