18 DECEMBER – THE EXPECTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This Feast which is now kept, not only throughout the whole of Spain, but in almost all the Churches of the Catholic world, owes its origin to the Bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo in 656. These Prelates having thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord and is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter Time with which it is out of harmony for another reason — they decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn Feast with an Octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity. In course of time, however, the Church of Spain saw the necessity of returning to the practice of the Church of Rome, and of those of the whole world, which solemnise the twenty-fifth of March as the day of our Lady’s Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God. But such had been, for ages, the devotion of the people for the Feast of the eighteenth of December, that it was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it. They discontinued, therefore, to celebrate the Annunciation on this day but the faithful were requested to consider, with devotion, what must have been the sentiments of the Holy Mother of God during the days immediately preceding her giving him birth. A new Feast was instituted, under the name of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin’s Delivery. This Feast, which sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the Feast of O, on account of the Great Antiphons which are sung during these days and, in a special manner, of that which begins O Virgo Virginum (which is still used in the Vespers of the Expectation together with the O Adonai, the Antiphon of the Advent Office) — is kept with great devotion in Spain. A High Mass is sung, at a very early hour, each morning during the Octave, at which all who are with child, whether rich or poor, consider it a duty to assist that they may thus honour our Lady’s Maternity and beg her blessing upon themselves.

It is not to be wondered at that the Holy See has approved of this pious practice being introduced into almost every other country. We find that the Church of Milan, long before Rome conceded this feast to the various dioceses of Christendom, celebrated the Office of our Lady’s Annunciation on the sixth and last Sunday of Advent, and called the whole week following the Hebdomada de Exceptato (for thus the popular expression had corrupted the word Expectato). But these details belong strictly to the archaeology of Liturgy, and enter not into the plan of our present work. Let us, then, return to the Feast of our Lady’s Expectation which the Church has established and sanctioned as a new means of exciting the attention of the faithful during these last days of Advent. Most just indeed it is, Holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire you had to see Him who had been concealed for nine months in your chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also yours; to come to that blissful hour of his Birth, which will give Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy your desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery. Complete our preparation by your powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour is come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entering into our hearts.

THE GREAT ANTIPHON TO OUR LADY

O Virgin of virgins ! How shall this be! for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi in Macedonia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus (107 AD), who were of the number of the disciples by whom the primitive church was founded among the Jews and Greeks. Their happy martyrdom is mentioned by St. Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philippians.

At Laodicea in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Theotimus and Basilian.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Quinctus, Simplicius and others, who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian.

In the same country, St. Moysetes, martyr.

Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Victurus, Victor, Victorinus, Adjutor, Quartus and thirty others.

At Mopsuestia in Cilicia, St. Auxentius, bishop, who, while he was a soldier under Licinius, preferred to surrender his military insignia rather than to offer grapes to Bacchus. Having been made bishop, he was renowned for merit and rested in peace.

At Tours, St. Gratian, consecrated first bishop of that city by Pope St. Fabrian. Celebrated for many miracles, he calmly went to his repose in the Lord.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

17 DECEMBER – SECOND GREATER ANTIPHON

THE SECOND GREATER ANTIPHON

O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gaves him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O Sovereign Lord! O Adonai! come and redeem us, not by your power, but by your humility. Heretofore, you showed yourself to Moses your servant in the midst of a mysterious flame. You gave your law to your people amid thunder and lightning. Now, on the contrary, you come not to terrify, but to save us. Your chaste Mother having heard the Emperor’s edict which obliges her and Joseph her Spouse to repair to Bethlehem, she prepares everything needed for your divine birth. She prepares for you, O Sun of Justice! the humble swathing-bands with which to cover your nakedness, and protect you, the Creator of the world, from the cold of that midnight hour of your Nativity! Thus it is that you will to deliver us from the slavery of our pride and show man that your divine arm is never stronger than when he thinks it powerless and still. Everything is prepared, then, dear Jesus! Your swathing-bands are ready for your infant limbs! Come to Bethlehem and redeem us from the hands of our enemies.

DECEMBER – EMBER DAYS IN ADVENT

Pope Saint Callistus instituted the Ember Days of abstinence, fasting and prayer (jejunia quatuor temporum). These days derive their name from the practice of fasting during the day and eating nothing until night when only ember-bread, a cake baked under the embers of the evening fire, was consumed. Ember Days were substituted for the pagan holidays (feriae) set aside by the Roman state for the purpose of invoking the blessing of the gods on the fruits of the fields. These were the Feriae Messis (in June or soon after) for the harvest, the Feriae Vindemiales (between 19 August—the festival of the Vinalia—and the September Equinox) for the vintage, and the Feriae Sementinae (in the week before the winter solstice in December) for the freshly-sown seed.

In the third century the fasts held for the Christian sanctification of the seasons took place in June, September and December (the fourth, seventh and tenth months of the Roman year which began in March). The days were not fixed until the fifth century when they became prescribed for Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays in the third week of Advent, the first full week of Lent (jejunium vernum in Quadragesima), the week after Pentecost (jejunium aestivum in Pentecoste), and the third week in September (jejunium autumnale in mense septimo). Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays were chosen because from the earliest days of the Church these were the days of the weekly fasts. Wednesday was selected because this was the day on which the Jews decided that Jesus should die, and Friday was chosen because that was the day on which He was crucified.

Just as we are grateful to the Lord for the hope of happiness to which we look forward, and for the better things for which He is preparing us, so we should also praise and give Him thanks for the earthly gifts which, each year, He bestows upon us. From the beginning He regulated the fertility of the earth, and fixed unalterably the laws of growth for each seed, that the kindly providence of the Creator might ever be visible. Everything which cornfields, vineyards, and olive gardens bring forth for mankind comes from the bountiful goodness of a merciful God.¹

On the first Ember days of the year, Wednesday and Friday in the first week of Lent, the scrutinies for ordination were made during the stational Mass. This consisted of the examination of candidates for the priesthood and deaconship who were to be ordained on the Saturday before Passion Sunday and on Holy Saturday. In the early Church it was the practice to ordain during a period of fasting. The process of scrutiny consisted of a notary (scriniarius) standing in an ambone and demanding three times whether anyone present had a charge to bring against any of the candidates.

We cannot be too deeply impressed with the blessing granted a people, whose priests are according to God’s own heart. To obtain such, no humiliation should be deemed too great, no supplication should be neglected. Whilst therefore, we thank God for the fruits of the earth, and humble ourselves for the sins we have committed, we should beg God to supply his Church with worthy pastors.²

Ember Days spread from Rome to all the of all by the suffragan dioceses of the Roman Church, and then in the rest of Italy and elsewhere. Later the Carlovingian emperors naturalised it everywhere except in Spain, and at Milan where they were introduced by Saint Charles Borromeo in the sixteenth century. In Wales they were called “procession weeks” and in Germany “holy fasts.”

1Pope Leo the Great (440-461).

2The Golden Manual, 44.

15 DECEMBER – THIRD (GAUDETE) SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Saint John the Baptist and the Pharisees (James Tissot 1886)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Today again the Church is full of joy, and the joy is greater than it was. It is true that her Lord is not come, but she feels that He is nearer than before, and therefore she thinks it just to lessen somewhat the austerity of this penitential season by the innocent cheerfulness of her sacred rites. And first, this Sunday has had the name of Gaudete given to it, from the first word of the Introit. It also is honoured with those impressive exceptions which belong to the fourth Sunday of Lent, called Laetare. The Organ is played at the Mass, the Vestments are Rose-colour, the Deacon resumes the dalmatic and the Sub-Deacon the tunic, and in Cathedral Churches the Bishop assists with the precious mitre. How touching are all these usages, and how admirable this condescension of the Church, with which she so beautifully blends together the unalterable strictness of the dogmas of faith and the graceful poetry of the formulae of her liturgy! Let us enter into her spirit and be glad on this third Sunday of her Advent because our Lord is now so near to us. Tomorrow we will resume our attitude of servants mourning for the absence of their Lord and waiting for Him: for every delay, however short, is painful and makes love sad.

The Station is kept in the Basilica of Saint Peter at the Vatican. This august temple, which contains the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, is the home and refuge of all the faithful of the world. It is but natural that it should be chosen to be witness both of the joy and the sadness of the Church. O Holy Roman Church, City of our Strength! Behold us your children assembled within your walls around the tomb of the Fisherman, the Prince of the Apostles, whose sacred relics protect you from their earthly shrine, and whose unchanging teaching enlightens you from Heaven. Yet, City of strength, it is by the Saviour who is coming that you are strong. He is your wall, for it is He that encircles with His tender mercy all your children. He is your bulwark, for it is by Him that you are invincible, and that all the powers of Hell are powerless to prevail against you. Open wide your gates that all nations may enter you, for you are mistress of holiness and the guardian of truth. May the old error, which sets itself against the faith, soon disappear and peace reign over the whole fold! O Holy Roman Church! You have forever put your trust in the Lord and He, faithful to His promise, has humbled before you the haughty ones that defied you, and the proud cities that were against you. Where now are the Caesars who boasted that they had drowned you in your own blood? Where the Emperors who would ravish the inviolate virginity of your faith? Where the Heretics who during the past centuries of your existence, have assailed every article of your teaching, and denied what they listed? Where the ungrateful Princes, who would fain make a slave of you, who had made them what they were? Where that Empire of Mahomet, which has so many times raged against you, for that you, the defenceless State, did arrest the pride of its conquests? Where the Reformers, who were bent on giving the world a Christianity in which you were to have no part? Where the more modern Sophists, in whose philosophy you were set down as a system that had been tried, and was a failure, and is now a ruin? And those Kings who are acting the tyrant over you, and those people that will have liberty independently and at the risk of truth, where will they be in another hundred years? Gone and forgotten as the noisy anger of a torrent, whilst you, holy Church of Rome, built on the immovable rock, will be as calm, as young, as unwrinkled as ever. Your path through all the ages of this world’s duration will be right as that of the just man. You will ever be the self-same unchanging Church, as you have been during the [two thousand] years past, while everything else under the sun has been but change. Whence this your stability, but from Him who is very Truth and Justice? Glory be to Him in you! Each year He visits you. Each year He he brings you new gifts with which you may go happily through your pilgrimage, and to the end of time He will visit you and renew you, not only with the power of that look with which Peter was renewed, but by filling you with Himself, as He did the ever glorious Virgin who is the object of your most tender love, after that which you bear to Jesus Himself. We pray with you, O Church, our Mother, and here is our prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus! Your name and your remembrance are the desire of our souls: they have desired you in the night, yea, and early in the morning have they watched for you!”

Epistle – Philippians iv. 4‒7

Brethren, rejoice in the Lord always: again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men, for the Lord is near. Be nothing solicitous; but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Nothing is more just than that we rejoice in the Lord. Both the Prophet and the Apostle excite us to desire the Saviour: both of them promise us Peace. Therefore, let us not be solicitous: The Lord is near. Near to His Church, and near to each of our souls. Who can be near so burning a fire and yet be cold? Do we not feel that He is coming to us in spite of all obstacles? He will let nothing be a barrier between Himself and us, neither His own infinite high majesty, nor our exceeding lowliness, nor our many sins. Yet a little while, and He will be with us. Let us go out to meet Him by these prayers, and supplications, and thanksgiving which the Apostle recommends to us. Let our zeal to unite ourselves with our holy mother the Church become more than ever fervent: now every day her prayers will increase in intense earnestness, and her longings after Him, who is her light and her love, will grow more ardent.

Gospel – John i. 19‒28

At that time the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to John, to ask him, “Who are you?” And he confessed, and did not deny; and he confessed, “I am not the Christ.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” and he said,” I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” and he answered, “No.” They said therefore to him, “Who are you, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What say you of yourself ?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.” And they that were sent were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him, “Why then do you baptise, if you are not Christ, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, saying, “I baptise with water; but there has stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not; the same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.” These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptising.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“There has stood One in the midst of you, whom you know not,” says Saint John the Baptist to them that were sent by the Jews. So that our Lord may be near, He may even have come, and yet by some be not known! This Lamb of God is the holy Precursor’s consolation: he considers it a singular privilege to be but the Voice which cries out to men to prepare the way of the Redeemer. In this Saint John is the type of the Church, and of all such as seek Jesus. Saint John is full of joy because the Saviour is come: but the men around him are as indifferent as though they neither expected nor wanted a Saviour. This is the third week of Advent, and are all hearts excited by the great tidings told them by the Church that the Messiah is near at hand. They who love Him not as their Saviour, do they fear Him as their Judge? Are the crooked ways being made straight? Are the hills being brought low? Are Christians seriously engaged in removing from their hearts the love of riches and the love of sensual pleasures? There is no time to lose: the Lord is near! If these lines should come under the eye of any of those Christians who are in this state of sinful indifference, we would conjure them to shake off their lethargy and render themselves worthy of the visit of the divine Infant: such a visit will bring them the greatest consolation here, and give them confidence hereafter, when our Lord will come to judge all mankind. Send your grace, O Jesus, still more plentifully into their hearts. compel them to go in, and permit not that it be said of the children of the Church, as Saint John said of the Synagogue: “There stands in the midst of you One, whom you know not.”

14 DECEMBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Heron, Arsenius, Isidore and Dioscorus, a boy. In the persecution of Decius, the first three were subjected to all the refinements of cruelty by the judge, who, seeing them displaying the same constancy, ordered that they should be cast into the fire. But Dioscorus, after repeated scourgings, was set free through the intervention of Providence for the consolation of the faithful.

At Antioch, the birthday of the holy martyrs Drusus, Zosimus and Theodore.

The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Justus and Abundius, who were cast into the flames in the time of the emperor Numerian and the governor Olybrius; but having escaped uninjured, they were struck with the sword.

At Rheims, the holy bishop Nicasius, his sister, the virgin Eutropia, and their companions, martyrs, who were put to death by barbarians hostile to the Church.

In the island of Cyprus, the birthday of blessed Spiridion, bishop. He was one of those confessors who were condemned to labour in the mines, after the plucking out of their right eye and the severing of the sinews of the left knee. This prelate was renowned for the gift of prophecy and glorious miracles, and in the council of Nicaea he confounded a heathen philosopher who insulted the Christian religion and brought him to the faith.

At Bergamo, St. Viator, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. Pompey, bishop.

At Naples, in Campania, St. Agnellus, abbot. Illustrious by the gift of miracles, he was often seen with the standard of the cross delivering the city besieged by enemies.

At Ubeda, in Spain, St. John of the Cross, confessor, companion of St. Theresa in reforming the Carmelites. His feast is kept on the 24th of November.

At Milan, St. Matronian, hermit.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors, and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

6 DECEMBER - ACT OF REPARATION TO THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS

O sweet Jesus, Whose overflowing charity for men is requited by so much forgetfulness, negligence and contempt, behold us prostrate before Your altar eager to repair by a special act of homage the cruel indifference and injuries, to which Your loving Heart is everywhere subject.

Mindful alas! that we ourselves have had a share in such great indignities, which we now deplore from the depths of our hearts, we humbly ask Your pardon and declare our readiness to atone by voluntary expiation not only for our own personal offenses, but also for the sins of those, who, straying far from the path of salvation, refuse in their obstinate infidelity to follow You, their Shepherd and Leader, or, renouncing the vows of their baptism, have cast off the sweet yoke of Your Law.

We are now resolved to expiate each and every deplorable outrage committed against You; we are determined to make amends for the manifold offenses against Christian modesty in unbecoming dress and behavior, for all the foul seductions laid to ensnare the feet of the innocent, for the frequent violations of Sundays and holidays, and the shocking blasphemies uttered against You and Your Saints.

We wish also to make amends for the insults to which Your Vicar on earth and Your priests are subjected, for the profanation, by conscious neglect or terrible acts of sacrilege, of the very Sacrament of Your Divine Love; and lastly for the public crimes of nations who resist the rights and teaching authority of the Church which You have founded.

Would, O divine Jesus, we were able to wash away such abominations with our blood. We now offer, in reparation for these violations of Your divine honor, the satisfaction You once made to Your eternal Father on the cross and which You continue to renew daily on our altars; we offer it in union with the acts of atonement of Your Virgin Mother and all the Saints and of the pious faithful on earth; and we sincerely promise to make recompense, as far as we can with the help of Your grace, for all neglect of Your great love and for the sins we and others have committed in the past.

Henceforth we will live a life of unwavering faith, of purity of conduct, of perfect observance of the precepts of the gospel and especially that of charity. We promise to the best of our power to prevent other from offending You and to bring as many as possible to follow You.

O loving Jesus, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, our model in reparation, deign to receive the voluntary offering we make of this act of expiation; and by the crowning gift of perseverance keep us faithful unto death in our duty and the allegiance we owe to You, so that we may one day come to that happy home, where You with the Father and the Holy Ghost live and reign, One God, world without end. Amen.

2 DECEMBER – MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias i. 16‒18

“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely, learn to do well: seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse me,” says the Lord. “If your sins be as scarlet, they will be made as white as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they will be white as wool.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Saviour who is so soon to be with us and to save us, warns us not only to prepare ourselves to appear before Him, but also to purify our souls. “It is most just,” says Saint Bernard, “that the soul which was the first to fall should be the first to rise. Let us therefore defer caring for the body until the day when Jesus Christ will come and reform it by the Resurrection, for, in the first Coming, the Precursor says to us: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ Observe, he says not the maladies of the body, nor the miseries of the flesh. He says sins, which are the malady of the soul and the corruption of the spirit. Take heed then, you my body, and wait for your turn and time. You can hinder the salvation of the soul, and your own safety is not within your reach. Let the soul labour for herself, and strive you too to help her, for if you share in her sufferings, you will share in her glory. Retard her perfection, and you retard your own. You will not be regenerated until God sees His own image restored in the soul.”

Let us, then, purify our souls. Let us do the works of the spirit, not the deeds of the flesh. Our Saviour’s promise is most clear. He will turn the deep dye of our iniquities into the purest whiteness. He asks but one thing of us: that we sin no more. He says to us: “Cease to do perversely, and then come and accuse me, come and complain against me if I do not cleanse you.” O Jesus, we will not defer a single day of this holy season. We accept, from this moment, the conditions you offer us. We sincerely desire to make our peace with you, to bring the flesh into subjection to our spirit, to make good all the injustice we have committed against our neighbour, and to hush, by the sighs of our heart-felt compunction, that voice of our sins which has so long cried to you for vengeance.

10 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

According to Honorius of Autun, the Mass of today has reference to the days of Antichrist. The Church, foreseeing the reign of the man of sin (2 Thessalonians ii. 3) and as though she were actually undergoing the persecution, which is to surpass all others — she takes her Introit of this twenty-second Sunday from the Psalm De profundis (Psalm cxxix.) If unitedly with this prophetic sense we would apply these words practically to our own personal miseries, we must remember the Gospel we had eight days ago, and which formerly was the one appointed for the present Sunday. Each one of us will recognise himself in the person of the insolvent debtor who has nothing to trust to but his master’s goodness, and in our deep humiliation we will exclaim: “If you, Lord, mark iniquities, who will endure it?”

Epistle – Philippians i. 6‒11

Brethren, we are confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you, will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. As it is meet for me to think this for you all: for that I have you in my heart; and that in my bands, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers of my joy. For God is my witness, how I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding, that you may approve the better things, that you may be sincere and without offence until the day of Christ. Filled with the fruits of justice, through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Saint Paul, in the Church’s name, again invites our attention to the near approach of the Last Day. But what on the previous Sunday he called the evil day, he now, in the short passage taken from his Epistle to the Philippians which has just been read to us, calls and twice over, the day of Christ Jesus. The Epistle to the Philippians is full of loving confidence. Its tone is decidedly one of joy, and yet it plainly shows us that persecution was raging against the Church, and that the old enemy was making capital of the storm to stir up evil passions, even amid the very flock of Christ. The Apostle is in chains. The envy and treachery of false brethren intensify his sufferings (Philippians I. 15, 17) Still, joy predominates in his heart over everything else because he is come to that perfection of love in which divine charity is enkindled by suffering more even than by the sweetest spiritual caresses. To him, to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippian i. 21). He cannot make up his mind which of the two to choose: death, which would give him the bliss of being with his Jesus (Philippians i. 23), or life, which will add to his merits and his labours for the salvation of men (Philippians i. 22). What are all personal considerations to him? His one joy for both the present and the future is that Christ may be known and glorified, no matter how! (Philippians i. 18).

As to his hopes and expectations, he cannot be disappointed for Christ is sure to be glorified in his body, by its life and by its death! (Philippians i. 24‒27), hence in Paul’s soul that sublime indifference which is the climax of the Christian life. It is, of course, a totally different thing from that fatal apathy, to which the false mystics of the seventeenth century pretended to reduce the love of man’s heart. What tender affection has not this convert of Damascus for his brethren once he has reached this point of perfection! “God,” says he, “is my witness, how I long after you all, in the bowels of Jesus Christ!” The one ambition which rules and absorbs him is that God, who has begun in them the work, which is good by excellence, the work of Christian perfection (such as we know had been wrought in the Apostle himself), may be continued and perfected in them all by the day when Christ is to appear in His glory (Colossians iii. 4). This is what he prays for: that the wedding garment of those whom he has betrothed to the one Spouse (2 Corinthians xi. 2), in other words, that charity may beautify them with all its splendour for the grand Day of the eternal nuptials.

Now what is the sure means by which charity is to be perfected in them? It must abound, more and more, in knowledge and in all understanding of salvation, that is, in Faith. It is Faith that constitutes the basis of all supernatural virtue. A restricted, a diminished (Psalm xi. 2) Faith, could never support a large and high-minded charity. Those men, therefore, are deceiving themselves, whose love for revealed truth does not keep pace with their charity! Such Christianity as that believes as little as it may. It has a nervous dread of new definitions, and out of respect for error it cleverly and continually narrows the supernatural horizon. Charity, they say, is the queen of virtues. It makes them take everything easily, even lies against Truth. To give the same rights to error as to Truth is, in their estimation, the highest point of Christian civilisation grounded on love!

They quite forget that the first object of charity being God, who is substantial Truth, He has no greater enemy than a lie. They cannot understand how it is that a Christian does not do a work of love by putting on the same footing the Object beloved, and His mortal enemy! The Apostles had very different ideas: in order to make charity grow in the world, they gave it a rich sowing of truth. Every new ray of Light they put into their disciples’ hearts was an intensifying of their love. And these disciples, having, by Baptism, become themselves light (Ephesians v. 8), they were most determined to have nothing to do with darkness. In those days to deny the truth was the greatest of crimes . To expose themselves, by a want of vigilance, to infringe on the rights of truth, even in the slightest degree, was the height of imprudence (Ephesians v. 15, 17). When Christianity first shone on mankind, it found error supreme mistress of the world. Having, then, to deal with a universe that was rooted in death (Matthew iv. 16), Christianity adopted no other plan for giving it salvation than that of making the Light as bright as could be. Its only policy was to proclaim the power which truth alone has for saving man, and to assert its exclusive right to reign over this world. The triumph of the Gospel was the result: it came after three centuries of struggle — a struggle intense and violent on the side of darkness which declared itself to be supreme and was resolved to keep so — but a struggle most patient and glorious on the side of the Christians, the torrents of whose blood did but add fresh joy to the brave army, for it became the strongest possible foundation of the united Kingdom of Love and Truth.

But now with the connivance of those whose Baptism made them too be Children of Light, error has regained its pretended Rights. As a natural consequence, the charity of an immense number has grown cold in proportion (Matthew xxiv. 12). Darkness is again thickening over the world as though it were in the chill of its last agony. The children of light (Ephesians v. 8) who would live up to their dignity must behave exactly as did the early Christians. They must not fear, nor be troubled. But like their forefathers and the Apostles, they must be proud to suffer for Jesus’s sake (Philippians i. 28‒30) and prize the word of life (Philippians ii. 16) as quite the dearest thing they possess: for they are convinced that, so long as truth is kept up in the world, so long is there hope for it (John viii. 32). As their only care is to make their manner of life worthy of the Gospel of Christ (Philippians i. 27). they go on, with all the simplicity of children of God, faithfully fulfilling the duties of their state of life in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation as stars of the firmament do in the night (Philippians ii. 15). “The stars shine in the night,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “they glitter in the dark. So far from growing dim amid the gloom that surrounds them, they seem all the more brilliant. So will it be with you if you are virtuous amid the wicked. Your light will shine so much the clearer.” “As the stars,” says Saint Augustine, “keep on their course in the track marked out for them by God, and grow not tired of sending forth their light in the midst of darkness, neither heed they the calamities which may be happening on Earth, so should do those holy ones whose conversation is truly in Heaven (Philippians iii. 20). They should pay no more notice as to what is said or done against them, than the stars do.”

Gospel – Matthew xxii. 15‒21

At that time the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to ensnare Jesus in His speech. And they sent to Him their disciples, with the Herodians, saying: “Master, we know that you are a true speaker, and teach the way of God in truth, neither care you for any man: for you do not regard the person of men. Tell us therefore what you think: is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar or not?” But Jesus knowing their wickedness, said: “Why do you tempt me, you hypocrites! Show me the coin or the tribute. And they offered Him a penny. And Jesus said to them: “Whose image and inscription is this?” They say to Him: “Caesar’s. Then He said to them: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The getting truths to be diminished (Psalm xi. 2) is evidently to be a leading peril of the latter times, for during these weeks which represent the last days of the world, the Church is continually urging us to a sound and solid understanding of truth as though she considered that to be the great preservative for her children. Last Sunday she gave them, as defensive armour, the shield of faith and as an offensive weapon, the word of God. On the previous Sunday it was circumspection of mind and intelligence that she recommended to them, with a view to their preserving, during the approaching evil days, the holiness which is founded on truth. For, as she told them the previous week, their riches in all knowledge are of paramount necessity. Today, in the Epistle, she implored of them to be ever progressing in knowledge and all understanding, as being the essential means for abounding in charity, and for having the work of their sanctification perfected for the day of Christ Jesus. The Gospel comes with an appropriate finish to these instructions given us by the Apostle: it relates an event in our Lord’s life which stamps those counsels with the weightiest possible authority — the authority of the example of Him who is our divine Model. He gives His disciples the example they should follow when, like Himself, they have snares laid by the world for their destruction.

It was the last day of Jesus’s public teaching. It was almost the eve of His departure from this Earth. His enemies had failed in every attempt until then made to ensnare Him. This last plot was to be unusually deep-laid. The Pharisees, who refused to recognise Caesar’s authority and denied his claim to tribute, joined issue with their adversaries, the partisans of Herod and Rome, to propose this insidious question to Jesus: Is it lawful to give tribute to Caasar, or not? If our Lord’s answer was negative, He incurred the displeasure of the government. If He took the affirmative side, He would lose the estimation of the people. With His divine prudence, He disconcerted their plans. The two parties, so strangely made friends by partnership in one common intrigue, heard the magnificent answer which was divine enough to make even Pharisees and Herodians one in the Truth: but Truth was not what they were in search of, so they both skulked back again into their old party squabbles. The league formed against our Jesus was broken. The effort made by error recoiled on its own self, as must ever be the case. And the answer it had elicited passed from the lips of our Incarnate Lord to those of His Bride, the Church, who would be ever repeating it to this world of ours, for it contains the first principle of all governments on Earth.

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”: it was the dictum most dear to the Apostles. If they boldly asserted that we must obey God rather than men (Acts v. 29), they explained the whole truth, and added: “Let every soul be subject to the higher powers: for there is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God. Therefore, he that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation. Wherefore, be subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’s sake. For, therefore, also you pay tribute, for they are the ministers of God serving unto this purpose” (Romans xiii. 1, 2, 5, 6). The will of God (1 Peter ii. 15) — there is the origin, there is the real greatness of all authority amongst men! Of himself man has no right to command his fellow man. The number, however imposing it may be, makes no difference with this powerlessness of men over my conscience: for whether they be one, or five hundred, I, by nature, am equal to each one among them. And by adding the number of their so-called rights over me, they are only adding to the number of nothingnesses. But, God, wishing that men should live one with the other, has thereby wished that there exist among them a power which should rule over the rest; that is, should direct the thousands or millions of different wills to the unity of one social end. God leaves to circumstances, though it is His providence that regulates those circumstances — He leaves to men themselves, at the beginning of any mere human society — a great latitude as to the choice of the form under which is to be exercised both the civil power itself and the mode of its transmission. But, once regularly invested with the power, its depositories, its possessors — are responsible to God alone, as far, that is as the legitimate exercise of their authority goes — because it is from God alone that that power comes to them. It does not come to them from their people who, not having that power themselves, cannot give it to another. So long as those rulers comply with the compact or do not turn to the ruin of their people the power they received for its well-being — so long their right to the obedience of their subjects is the right of God Himself — whether they exercise their authority in exacting the subsidies needed for government or in passing laws which, for the general good of the people, restrain the liberty otherwise theirs, by natural right; or, again, by bidding their soldiers defend their country, at the risk of life. In all such cases, it is God Himself that commands, and insists on being obeyed: in this world He puts the sword into the hands of representatives, that they may punish the disobedient, and in the next He Himself will eternally punish them unless they have made amends.

How great, then, is not the dignity of human Law! It makes the legislator a representative of God and, at the same time, spares the subject the humiliation of feeling himself debased before a fellow man! But in order that the law oblige, that is, be truly a law, it is evident that it must be, first and foremost, conformable to the commands and the prohibitions of that God, whose will alone can give it a sacred character, by making it enter into the domain of man’s conscience. It is for this reason, that there cannot be a law against God, or His Christ, or His Church. When God is not with him who governs, the power he exercises is nothing better than brute force. The sovereign or the parliament that pretends to govern a country in opposition to the laws of God has no right to anything but revolt and contempt from every upright man. To give the sacred name of law to tyrannical enactments of that kind is a profanation, unworthy not only of Christian, but of every man who is not a slave.

4 NOVEMBER – SAINTS VITALIS AND AGRICOLA (Martyrs)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Let us offer our homage to two Martyrs whose memory was celebrated on this day even before that of Saint Charles. Vitalis the slave and Agricola his master, combating together in the glorious arena proved that social inequality counts for nothing with regard to Heaven’s nobility. Saint Ambrose, when sojourning at Bologna where they had suffered, discovered their bodies and celebrated their triumph. The Church, following his example, has ever associated them in one common homage.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The birthday of the Saints Philologus and Patrobas, disciples of the blessed Apostle St. Paul.

At Autun, St. Proculus, martyr.

In Vexin in the north of France, St. Clarus, priest and martyr.
 

At Ephesus, St. Porphyry, martyr, under the emperor Aurelian.

At Myra in Lycia, the holy martyrs Nicander, bishop, and Hermas, priest, under the governor Libanius.

The same day, the birthday of St. Pierius, priest of Alexandria, who, being deeply versed in the sacred Scriptures, leading a very pure life, and freed from all impediments in order to apply to Christian philosophy, taught the people with great renown, and published various treatises, under the emperors Carus and Diocletian, when Theonas governed the church of Alexandria. After the persecution, he spent the remainder of his life at Rome where he rested in peace.

At Rhodez in France, blessed Amantius, bishop, whose life was resplendent with sanctity and miracles.

In Bithynia, St. Joannicius, abbot.

At Alba-Begale in Hungary, the demise of St. Emeric, confessor, son of St. Stephen, king of Hungary.

In the monastery of Cerfroid, in the diocese of Meaux, St. Felix de Valois, founder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Bedemption of Captives. His feast is celebrated on the twentieth of this month by order of Pope Innocent XI.

At Treves, St. Modesta, virgin.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

3 NOVEMBER – TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The remaining Sundays are the last of the Church’s Cycle, but their proximity with its final termination varies each Year according as Easter was early or late. This their moveable character does away with anything like harmony between the composition of their Masses and the Lessons of the Night Office, all of which, dating from August, have been appointed and fixed for each subsequent week. This we have already explained to our Readers.

Still, the instruction which the Faithful ought to derive from the sacred Liturgy would be incomplete, and the spirit of the Church, during these last weeks of her Year would not be sufficiently understood by her children, unless they were to remember that the two months of October and November are filled, the first with readings from the book of the Machabees, whose example inspirits us for the final combats, and the second with lessons from the Prophets proclaiming to us the judgements of God.

Durandus, Bishop of Mende, in his Rational, tells us that this, and the following Sundays till Advent, bear closely on the Gospel of the Marriage-Feast, of which they are really but a further development. “Whereas,” says he, speaking of this twenty-first Sunday, “this Marriage has no more powerful opponent than the envy of Satan, the Church speaks to us today on our combat with him, and on the armour with which we must be clad in order to go through this terrible battle, as we will see by the Epistle. And because sackcloth and ashes are the instruments of penance, therefore does the Church borrow for the Introit the words of Mardochai, who prayed for God’s mercy in sackcloth and ashes.”

These reflections of Durandus are quite true but if the thought of her having soon to be united with her divine Spouse is uppermost in the Church’s mind, yet it is by forgetting her own happiness and turning all her thoughts to mankind, whose salvation has been entrusted to her care by her Lord, that she will best prove herself to be truly His Bride during the miseries of those last days. As we have already said, the near approach of the general judgement and the terrible state of the world during the period immediately preceding that final consummation of time is the very soul of the Liturgy during these last Sundays of the Church’s Year. As regards the present Sunday, the portion of the Mass which used formerly to attract the attention of our Catholic forefathers was the Offertory taken from the book of Job, with its telling exclamations and its emphatic repetitions. We may, in all truth, say, that this Offertory contains the ruling idea which runs through this twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. Reduced like Job on the dung-hill, to the extremity of wretchedness, the world has nothing to trust to but to God’s mercy. The holy men who are still living in it, imitating in the name of all mankind, the sentiments of the just man of Idumea, honour God by a patience and resignation which do but add power and intensity to their supplications. They begin by making their own the sublime prayer made, by Mardochai, for his people who were doomed to extermination. The world is condemned to a similar ruin (Esther xiii. 9‒11).

Epistle – Ephesians vi. 10‒17

Brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of His power. Put on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take to yourself the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, with which you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take to yourself the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The early beginnings of man’s union with his God are, generally speaking, deliciously calm. Divine Wisdom, once He has led His chosen creature by hard laborious work to the purification of his mind and senses, allows him (when the sacred alliance is duly concluded) to rest on His sacred breast and thoroughly attaches the devoted one to Himself by delights which are an ante-dated Heaven, making the soul despise every earthly pleasure. It seems as though the welcome law of Deuteronomy were always in force (Deuteronomy xxiv. 5), namely, that no battle and no anxiety must ever break in upon the first season of the glorious union. But this exemption from the general taxation is never of long duration, for combat is the normal state of every man here below (Job vii. 1).

The Most High is pleased at seeing a battle well fought by His Christian soldiers. There is no name so frequently applied to Him by the Prophets as that of the God of Hosts. His divine Son, who is the Spouse, shows Himself here on this Earth of ours as the Lord who is mighty in battle (Psalm xxiii. 8). In the mysterious nuptial Canticle of the forty-fourth Psalm He lets us see Him as Most Powerful Prince girding on His grand Sword (Psalm xliv. 4) and making His way, with His sharp arrows, through the very heart and thick of His enemies (Psalm xliv. 6) in order to reach, in fair valiance and beautiful victory, the Bride He has chosen as His own (Psalm xliv. 5). She, too, just like Him —she, the Bride, whose beauty He has vouchsafed to love (Psalm xliv. 12) and wills her to share in all His own glories (Psalm xliv. 10) — yes, she too advances towards Him in the glittering armour of a warrior (Canticles iv. 4) surrounded by choirs (Canticles vii. 1) singing the magnificent exploits of the Spouse and, she herself terrible as an army set in array (Canticles vi. 9). The armour of the brave is on her arms and breast. Her noble bearing reminds one of the tower of David with its thousand bucklers (Canticles iv. 4).

United to her divine Lord, warriors the most valiant stand about her. They merit that privilege by their well-proved sword and their skill in war. Each one of them has his sword quite ready because of the night-surprises which the enemy may use against this most dear Church (Canticles iii. 7, 8). For until the dawn of the eternal day when the shadows of this present life are put to flight (Canticles iv. 6) by the light of the Lamb (Apocalypse xxi. 9, 23) who will then have vanquished all His enemies — yes, until that day, power is in the hands of the rulers of the world of this darkness, says Saint Paul in today’s Epistle. And it is against them that we must take to ourselves the armour of God which he there describes. We must wear it all if we would be able to resist in the evil day.

The evil days spoken of by the Apostle last Sunday (Ephesians v. 16) are frequent in the life of every individual as likewise in the world’s history. But,for every man, and for the world at large, there is one evil day, evil beyond all the others: it is the last day, the day of judgement, the day of exceeding bitterness, as the Church calls it on account of the woe and misery which are to fill it. We talk of so many years as passing away, and of centuries succeeding each other. But all these are neither more nor less than preparations hurrying on the world to the Last Day. Happy they who, on that Day, will fight the good fight (2 Timothy iv. 7) and win victory! Or who, as our Apostle expresses it, will stand while all around them is ruin, yes, stand, in all things, perfect! They will not be hurt by the second death (Apocalypse ii. 11). Wreathed with the crown of justice (2 Timothy iv. 8) they will reign with God (Apocalypse xx. 6) on His throne, together with His Son (Apocalypse iii. 21).

The war is an easy one when we have this Man-God for our Leader. All He asks of us is what the Apostle thus words: “Be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of His power!” It is leaning on her Beloved that the beautiful Church is to go up from the desert and thus supported she is actually to be flowing with delights (Canticles viii. 5) even in those most sad days. The faithful soul is out of herself with love when she remembers that the armour she wears is the armour of God, that is, the very armour of her Spouse. It is quite thrilling to hear the Prophets describing this Jesus, this Leader, of ours, accoutred for battle and with all the pieces we, too, are to wear: He girds Himself with the girdle of faith (Isaias xi. 5), then He puts the helmet of salvation on His beautiful head (Isaias lix. 17), then the breastplate of justice (Wisdom v. 19), then the shield of invincible equity (Wisdom v. 20), and finally a magnificently tempered sword, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God (Apocalypse ii. 16). We should almost think we were here having a list of our own arms. Well, yes, but they are His first. And the Gospel shows Him to us as entering, Himself, on the great battle, that He might show us how to use these same divine arms which He puts upon each of us, if we will but be His soldiers.

This armour consists of many parts, because of its varied uses and effects. And yet, whether offensive or defensive, all of them have one common name, and that name is Faith. Our Epistle makes us say so. And our Jesus, our Leader, taught it us when to the triple temptation brought against Him by the devil on the mount of Quarantana, He made answer to each temptation by a text from the sacred Scriptures (Matthew iv. 1‒11) The victory which overcomes the world is our Faith, says Saint John (1 John v. 4). When Saint Paul, at the close of his career, reviews the combats he had fought through life, he sums up all in this telling word: “I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy iv. 7). The life of Paul in that should be the life of every Christian, for he says to us: “Fight the good fight of faith!” (1 Timothy vi. 12). It is Faith which, in spite of those fearful odds enumerated in today’s Epistle as being against us, it is Faith that ensures the victory to men of good will. If, in the warfare we must go through, we were to reckon the chances of our enemies by their overwhelming forces and advantages, it is quite certain that we should have little hope of winning the day: for it is not with men like ourselves, it is not, as the Apostle puts it, with flesh and blood, that we have to wrestle, but with enemies that we can never grapple with, who are in the high places of the air around us and are, therefore, invisible and most skilled, and powerful, and wonderfully up in all the sad secrets of our poor fallen nature, and turning the whole weight of their advantages to trick man and ruin him out of hatred for God. These wicked spirits were originally created that in the purity of their unmixed spiritual nature they should be a reflex of the divine splendour of their Maker. And now, having rebelled by pride, they exhibit that execrable prodigy of angelic intelligences spending all their powers in doing evil to man, and in hating truth.

How, then, are we who, by our very nature are darkness and misery, to wrestle with these spiritual principalities and powers who devote all their wisdom and rage to produce darkness so as to turn the whole Earth into a world of darkness? “By our becoming Light,” answers Saint John Chrysostom. The light, it is true, is not to shine on us in its own direct brightness until the great day of the revelation of the sons of God (Romans viii. 19), but meanwhile we have a divine subsidy which supplements sight. That subsidy is the Revealed Word (2 Peter ii. 19). Baptism did not open our eyes so as to see God, but it opened our ears so as to give us to hear Him when He speaks to us. Now He speaks to us by the Scriptures and by His Church, and our Faith gives us, regarding Truth thus Revealed, a certainty as great as though we saw it with the eyes of either body or soul, or both. By his child-like docility, the just man walks on in peace with the simplicity of the Gospel within him. Better than breastplate or helmet, the shield of faith protects us, and from every sort of injury. It blunts the fiery darts of the world, it repels the fury of our own passions, it makes us far-seeing enough to escape the most artful snares of the most wicked ones. Is not the word of God good for every emergency? And we may have it as often and as much as we please.

Satan has a horror of the Christian who, though he may be weak in other respects, is strong in this divine word. He has a greater fear of that man than he has of all your schools of philosophy, and all its professors. He has got accustomed to the torture of such a man crushing him beneath his feet (Romans xvi. 20) and with a rapidity (Romans xvi. 20) which is akin to what our Lord tells us He Himself witnessed: “I saw Satan, like lightning, falling from Heaven” (Luke x. 18): it was on the great battle-day (Apocalypse xii. 7) when he was hurled from paradise by that one word Michael — exquisite word, which was given to the triumphant Archangel to be his everlasting noble name! And he himself, by that word of God, and by that victory for God, was made our model and our defender. We have already explained to our readers why it is that these closing weeks of the Church’s Year are so full of the grand Archangel Saint Michael.

Gospel – Matthew xviii. 23‒35

At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a king who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him that owed him ten thousand talents: and as he had not the means to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children, and all that he had, and payment be made. But that servant falling down besought him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.” And the lord of that servant, being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant had gone out, he found one of his fellow-servants that owed him a hundred pence; and laying hold of him, he throttled him, saying, “Pay me what you owe.” And his fellow-servant falling down besought him, saying, “Have patience with me and I will pay you all.” And he would not, but went and cast him into prison till he paid the debt. Now his fellow-servants, seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that had been done. Then his lord called him and said to him, “You wicked servant, I forgave you all the debt because you besought me; should not you then have had compassion also on you fellow-servant, as I had compassion on you?” And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“O thou just Judge of vengeance (on man) grant us the gift of forgiveness, before the Day of reckoning cometh!” Such is the petition that comes from the heart of holy Mother Church as she thinks on what may have befallen those countless children of hers who have been victims of death during this, as every other, year. It is, moreover, the supplication that should be made by every living soul after hearing the Gospel just read to us. The Sequence Dies Irae from which these words are taken is not only a sublime prayer for the Dead. It is, likewise, and especially at this close of the Ecclesiastical Year, an appropriate expression for all of us who are still living. Our thoughts and our expectations are naturally turned towards our own deaths. We almost seem forgotten and overlooked in this evening of the world’s existence. But it is not so, for we know from the sacred Scripture that we will join those who have already slept the last sleep, and will be taken, together with them, to meet our divine Judge (1 Thessalonians iv. 14‒16).

Let us hearken to some more of our Mother’s words in that same magnificent Sequence. This is their meaning: “How great will be our fear when the Judge is just about to come, and rigorously examine all our works! The trumpet’s wondrous sound will pierce the graves of every land and summon us all before the throne! Death will stand amazed, and nature too, when the creature will rise again, to go and answer Him that is to judge! The written Book will be brought forth, in which all is contained, for which the world is to be tried. So, when the Judge will sit on his throne, every hidden secret will be revealed, nothing will remain unpunished! What shall I, poor wretch, then say? Who ask to be my patron, when the just man himself will scarce be safe? O King of dreaded majesty! who saves gratuitously them that are saved, save me, fount of love! Do thou remember, loving Jesu! that I was cause of your life on earth! Lose me not, on that Day!”

Undoubtedly, such a prayer as this has every best chance of being graciously heard, addressed as it is to Him who has nothing so much at heart as our salvation and who, for procuring it, gave Himself up to fatigue, and suffering, and death on the Cross: but we should be inexcusable, and deserve condemnation twice over, were we to neglect to profit of the advice He Himself gives us by which to avert from us the perils of “that day of tears, when guilty man will rise from the dust and go to be judged!” Let us, then, meditate on the parable of our Gospel, whose sole object is to teach us a sure way of settling, at once, our accounts with the divine King. We are all of us, in fact, that negligent servant, that insolvent debtor, whose master might in all justice sell him with all he has, and hand him over to the torturers. The debt contracted with God, by the sins we have committed, is of that nature as to deserve endless tortures. it supposes an eternal Hell in which the guilty one will ever be paying without ever cancelling his debt. Infinite praise, then, and thanks to the divine Creditor who, being moved to pity by the entreaties of the unhappy man who asks for time and he will pay all —yes, this good God grants him far beyond what he prays for, He, there and then, forgives him the debt. He puts but this condition on the pardon, as is evident from the sequel: He insists, and most justly, that he should go and do in like manner towards his fellow-servants who may, perhaps, owe something to him. After being so generously forgiven by his Lord and King — after having his infinite debt so gratuitously cancelled — how can he possibly turn a deaf ear to the very same prayer which won pardon for himself, now that a fellow servant makes it to him? Is it to be believed that he will refuse all pity towards one whose only offence is that he asks him for time, and he will pay all?

“It is quite true,” says Saint Augustine, “that every man has his fellow-man a debtor, for who is the man that has had no one to offend him? But, at the same time, who is the man that is not debtor to God, for all of us have sinned? Man, therefore, is both debtor to God, and creditor to his fellow-man. It is for this reason that God has laid down this rule for your conduct: that you must treat your debtor, as He treats his... We pray every day. Every day we send up the same petition to the divine throne. Every day we prostrate ourselves before God, and say to Him: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive them that are debtors to us” (Matthew vi. 12) Of what debts speak you? Is it of all your debts? Or of one or two only? You will say: Of all. Do you therefore forgive your debtor, for it is the rule laid upon you. It is the condition accepted by you.”

“It is a greater thing,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “to forgive our neighbour the trespasses he has committed against us, than to condone him a sum of money. For, by forgiving him his sins, we imitate God.” And, after all, what is the injury committed by one man against another man, if compared with the offence committed by man against God? Alas! we have all got the habit of that second. Even the just man knows its misery seven times (Proverbs xxiv. 16) over and, as the text probably means, seven times a day, so that it comes ruffling our whole day long. Let this, at least, be our parallel habit: that we contract a facility in being merciful towards our fellow-men since we, every night, have the assurance given us that we will be pardoned all our miseries on the condition of our owning them. It is an excellent practice not to go to bed without putting ourselves in the dispositions of a little child who can rest his head on God’s bosom and there fall asleep. But if we thus feel it a happy necessity to find in the heart of our heavenly Father (Matthew vi. 9) forgetfulness of our day’s faults, yes, more an infinitely tender love for us His poor tottering children, how can we, at that very time, dare to be storing up in our minds old grudges and scores against our neighbours, our brethren, who are also His children? Even supposing that we had been treated by them with outrageous injustice or insult, could these their faults bear any comparison with our offences against that good God, whose born enemies we were, and whom we have caused to be put to an ignominious death?

Whatever may be the circumstances attending the unkindness shown us, we may and should invariably practise the rule given us by the Apostle: “Be kind one to another! Merciful! Forgiving one another, as God has forgiven you, in Christ! Be imitators of God, as most dear children!” (Ephesians iv. 32, v. 1). What! You call God your Father and you remember an injury that has been done you? “That,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “is not the way a son of God acts in! The work of a son of God is this — to pardon one’s enemies, to pray for them that crucify him, to shed his blood for them that hate him. Would you know the conduct of one who is worthy to be a son of God? He takes his enemies, and his ingrates, and his robbers, and his insulters, and his traitors, and makes them his brethren and sharers of all his wealth!”

25 SEPTEMBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Emmaus, the birthday of blessed Cleophas, a disciple of Christ. It is related that he was killed by the Jews for the confession of Our Lord in the same house in which he had entertained Him, and where he was honourably buried.

At Rome, under the emperor Antoninus, St. Herculanus, soldier and martyr, who, being converted to Christ by the miracles wrought during the martyrdom of the blessed bishop Alexander, was put to the sword after enduring many torments.

At Amiens in France, in the persecution of Diocletian, blessed Firmin, bishop. Under the governor Rictiovarus, after various torments, he suffered martyrdom by being beheaded.

At Damascus, the holy martyr Paul, Tata, his wife, and Sabinian, Maximus, Rufus, and Eugenius, their sons. Accused of professing the Christian religion, they were scourged and tortured in other ways until they gave up their souls to God.

In Asia, the holy martyrs Bardomian, Eucarpus and twenty-six others.

The same day, St. Anathalon, bishop, who was a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Barnabas and succeeded him in the See of Milan.

At Lyons, the decease of St. Lupus, at one time an anchoret, but later a bishop.

At Auxerre, St. Anacharius, bishop and confessor.

At Blois, St. Solemnius, bishop of Chartres, renowned for miracles.

The same day, St. Principius, bishop of Soissons, brother of the blessed bishop Remigius.

At Anagni, the holy virgins Aurelia and Neomisia.

At San Severino, the decease of St. Pacificus of St. Severin, confessor, of the Order of the Reformed Friars Minor of the Observance of St. Francis, illustrious by his extraordinary patience and love of solitude. He was placed in the Calendar of the Saints by Pope Gregory XVI.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

23 SEPTEMBER – SAINT THECLA (Virgin and Martyr)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

While honouring the first successor of Saint Peter, Rome commemorates the proto-martyr of the female sex. Together with holy Church, then, let us unite in the concert of praise unanimously lavished upon Thecla by the fathers of East and West. When the martyr pontiff Methodius gave his ‘Banquet of virgins’ to the Church about the end of the third century, it is on the brow of the virgin of Iconium that he placed the fairest of the crowns distributed at the banquet of the Spouse. And justly so, for had not Thecla been trained by Paul who had made her more learned in the Gospel than she was before in philosophy and every science? Heroism in her kept pace with knowledge. Her magnanimity of purpose was equalled by her courage while, strong in the virginal purity of her soul and body, she triumphed over fire, wild beasts and sea monsters, and won the glory of a triple martyrdom. A fresh triumph is hers at the mysterious banquet. Wisdom has taken possession of her, and, like a divine harp, makes music in her soul, which is echoed on her lips in words of wondrous eloquence and sublime poetry. When the feast is over, and the virgins rise to give thanks to the Lord, Thecla leads the chorus, singing:

For you, O Bridegroom, I keep myself pure, and with burning lamp I come to meet you.

I have fled from the bitter pleasures of mortals and the luxurious delights of life and its love. Under your life-giving arms I desire to be protected and to gaze forever on your beauty, O blessed One.

For you, O Bridegroom, I keep myself pure, and with burning lamp I come to meet you.

I have contemned union with mortal man. I have left my golden home for you, O King. I have come in undefiled robes, that I may enter with you into your happy bridal chamber.

For you, O Bridegroom, I keep myself pure, and, with burning lamp I come to meet you.

Having escaped the enchanting wiles of the serpent and triumphed over the flaming fire and the attacks of wild beasts, I await you from Heaven.

For you, O Bridegroom, I keep myself pure, and with burning lamp I come to meet you.

Through love of you, O Word, I have forgotten the land of my birth. I have forgotten the virgins my companions, and even the desire of mother and of kindred, for you, O Christ, are all things to me.

For you, O Bridegroom, I keep myself pure, and with burning lamp I come to meet you.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Campania, the commemoration of blessed Sosius, deacon of the church of Misenum. The holy bishop Januarius, seeing a flame arise from his head as he was reading the Gospel in the church, foretold that he would be a martyr, and not many days after, when he was thirty years of age, he and the holy bishop suffered martyrdom by decapitation.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Andrew, John, Peter and Anthony.

In the diocese of Coutances, St. Paternus, bishop and martyr.

At Ancona, St. Constantius, sacristan of the Church, renowned for the gift of miracles.

In Spain, the holy women Xantippa and Polyxena, who were disciples of the Apostles.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

6 SEPTEMBER – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The prophet Zacharias, who returned in his old age from Chaldea to his own country and lies buried near the prophet Aggeus.

In Hellespont, St. Onesiphorus, a disciple of the Apostles, of whom the blessed Apostle St. Paul speaks in his Epistle to Timothy. He was severely scourged with St. Porphyry by order of the proconsul Hadrian, and being dragged by wild horses, gave up his soul to God.

At Alexandria, the holy martyrs Faustus, priest, Macarius, and ten companions, who received the martyr’s crown by being beheaded for the name of Christ in the time of the emperor Decius and the governor Valerius.

In Cappadocia, the holy martyrs Cottidus, deacon, Eugenius, and their companions.

In Africa, in the persecution of the Vandals, the holy bishops Donatian, Praesidius, Mansuetus, Germanus and Fusculus, who were most cruelly scourged and sent into exile by order of the Arian king Hunneric because they proclaimed the Catholic truth. Among them was one named Laetus, also a bishop, a courageous and most learned man, who was burned alive after a long imprisonment in a loathsome dungeon.

At Verona, St. Petronius, bishop and confessor.

At Rome, the holy abbot Eleutherius, a servant of God, who, according to the testimony of Pope St. Gregory, raised a dead man to life by his prayers and tears.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

28 JUNE – THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS

In 1875 Blessed Pius IX consecrated the Catholic Church to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and in 1899 Pope Leo XIII dedicated the whole of mankind to the Sacred Heart, raising the Feast of the Sacred Heart to the rite of Double of the First Class. Finally, in 1929 Pope Pius XI composed a new Office and Mass for the Feast of the Sacred Heart.

Our Lord made the following promises to those who practice devotion to His Sacred Heart:

I will grant them the graces necessary for their state of life.

I will establish peace in their families.

I will comfort them in their afflictions.

I will be their safe refuge during life, and especially at death.

I will give abundant blessings on all their undertakings.

Sinners will find a fountain and a boundless ocean of mercy in My Heart.

Tepid souls will become fervent.

Fervent souls will quickly achieve great perfection.

I will bless every place where the picture of My Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured.

I will give to priests the power to touch the hardest hearts.

I will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance.

They will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments, and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

A new ray of light shines today in the heaven of holy Church, and its light brings warmth. The divine Master given to us by our Redeemer, that is, the Paraclete Spirit, who has come down into this world, continues His teachings to us in the sacred Liturgy. The earliest of these His divine teachings was the mystery of the Trinity. And we have worshipped the Blessed Three: we have been taught who God is, we know Him in His own nature, we have been admitted by faith into the sanctuary of the infinite Essence. Then, this Spirit, the mighty wind of Pentecost (Acts ii. 2), opened to our souls new aspects of the truth which it is His mission to make the world remember (John xiv. 26), and His revelation left us prostrate before the sacred Host, the Memorial which God Himself has left us of all His wonderful works (Psalms cx. 3).

Today it is the Sacred Heart of the Word made flesh that this Holy Spirit puts before us that we may know and love and adore It. There is a mysterious connection between these three Feasts, of Trinity, Corpus Christi and the Sacred Heart. The aim of the Holy Ghost in all three is this: to initiate us more and more into that knowledge of God by faith, which is to fit us for the face-to-face Vision in Heaven. We have already seen how God being made known to us by the first in Himself, manifests Himself to us by the second in His outward works — for the Holy Eucharist is the memorial here below in which He has brought together, and with all possible perfection, all those His wondrous works. But by what law can we pass so rapidly, so almost abruptly, from one Feast, which is all directly regarding God, to another which celebrates His works, done by Him to and for us? Then again: how came the divine thought, how came, that is, eternal Wisdom, from the infinite repose of the eternally blessed Trinity to the external activity of a love for us poor creatures which has produced what we call the Mysteries of our Redemption? The Heart of the Man-God is the solution of these difficulties. It answers all such questions and explains to us the whole divine plan.

We knew that the sovereign happiness which is in God, we knew that the life eternal communicated from the Father to the Son, and from these two to the Holy Ghost, in light and love, was to be given by the will of these Three Divine Persons to created beings. Not only to those which were purely spiritual, but likewise to that creature whose nature is the union of spirit and matter, that is, to Man. We are of this lower nature, and a pledge of this life eternal was given to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. It is by the Eucharist that Man, who has already been made a partaker of the divine nature (2 Peter i. 4) by the grace of the sanctifying Spirit is united to the divine Word, and is made a true member of this Only Begotten Son of the Father. Yes: though it had not yet appeared what we will be, says Saint John, still we are now the sons of God. We know that when He will appear we will be like Him, for we are called to live as the Word Himself does, in the society of that eternal Father of His, for ever and ever.

But the infinite love of the sacred Trinity which thus called us frail creatures to a participation in Its own blessed life would accomplish this merciful design by the help and means of another love, a love more like what we ourselves can feel. That is, the created love of a human soul evinced by the beatings of a heart of flesh like our own. The Angel of the great Counsel who is sent to make known to the world the merciful designs of the Ancient of days, took to Himself, in order to fulfil His divine mission, a created, a human form. And this would enable men to see with their eyes, yes, and even touch with their hands, the Word of life, that life eternal which was with the Father, but appeared even to us (1 John i. 2). This human nature which the Son of God took into personal union with Himself from the womb of the Virgin-Mother was the docile instrument of infinite love, but it was not absorbed into, or lost in, the Godhead. It retained its own substance, its special faculties, its distinct will, which Will ruled, under the influence of the divine Word, the acts and movements of His most holy Soul and adorable Body. From the very first instant of its existence, the human Soul of Christ was inundated, more directly than was any other creature, with that true light of the Word, “which enlightens every man who comes into this world” (John i. 9). It enjoyed the face-to-face vision of the divine essence, and therefore took in at a single glance the absolute beauty of the sovereign Being and the wisdom of the divine decree which called finite beings into a participation of infinite bliss. It understood its sublime mission, and conceived an immense love for man and for God. This love began simultaneously with life and filled not only His soul, but impressed its own way the Body too — the Body which was formed from the substance of the Virgin Mother by the operation of the Holy Ghost. The effect of His love told, consequently, upon His Heart of true human flesh. It set in motion those beatings which made the Blood of redemption circulate in His sacred veins.

For it was not with Him as with other men, the pulsations of whose hearts are at first the consequence of nothing but the vital power which is in the human frame, and later on when age has awakened reason into act, the ideas so produced will produce physical impressions on us which will, now and then, quicken or dull the throbbings of these our hearts. With the Man-God it was not so: His Heart, from the very first moment of its life, responded, that is, throbbed, to the law of His soul’s love, whose power to act upon His human Heart was as incessant and as intense as is the power of organic vitality — a love as burning at the first instant of the Incarnation, as it is this very hour in Heaven. For the human love which the Incarnate Word had, resulting as it did from His intellectual knowledge of God and His creatures, was as perfect as that knowledge and therefore as incapable of all progress; though, being our Brother, and our model in all things, He day-by-day made more manifest to us the exquisite sensibility of His divine Heart.

At the period of Jesus’ coming on this Earth man had forgotten how to love, for he had forgotten what true beauty was. His heart of flesh seemed to him as a sort of excuse for his false love of false goods: his heart was but an outlet by which his soul could stray from heavenly things to the husks of earth, there to waste his power and substance (Luke xv. 13). To this material world which the soul of man was intended to make subserve its Maker’s glory — to this world which by a sad perversion kept man’s soul a slave to his senses and passions — the Holy Ghost sent a marvellous power, which, like a resistless lever, would replace the world in its right position: it was the sacred Heart of Jesus, a Heart of flesh like that of other human beings, from whose created throbbings there would ascend to the eternal Father an expression of love which would be a homage infinitely pleasing to the infinite Majesty, because there was in that love of that human Heart the dignity of its union with the Word. It is a harp of sweetest melody that is ever vibrating under the touch of the Spirit of Love. It gathers up into its own music the music of all creation, whose imperfections it corrects, and supplies its deficiencies, and tunes all discordant voices into unity, and so offers to the glorious Trinity a hymn of perfect praise. The Trinity finds its delight in this Heart. It is the one only organum, as Saint Gertrude calls it, the one only instrument which finds acceptance with the Most High. Through it must pass all the inflamed praises of the burning Seraphim, just as must do the humble homage paid to its God by inanimate creation. By it alone are to come upon this world the favours of Heaven. It is the mystic ladder between man and God, the channel of all graces, the way by which man ascends to God and God descends to man.

The Holy Ghost, whose masterpiece it is, has made it a living image of Himself. For although in the ineffable relations of the divine Persons He is not the source of love, He is its substantial expression or, in theological language, the term. It is He who inclines the Holy Trinity to those works outside Itself, which first produce creatures and then, having given them being (and to some, life,) He (the Holy Spirit) pours out on them all the effusion of their Creator’s love for them. And so is it with the love which the Man-God has for God and Man — its direct and, so to say, material expression is the throbbing it produces on His sacred Heart. And again, it is by that Heart that, like the Water and Blood which came from His wounded Side, He pours out onto the world a stream of redemption and grace which is to be followed by the still richer one of glory.

“One of the soldiers,” as the Gospel tells us, “opened Jesus’ Side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water” (John xix. 34). We must keep before us this text and the fact it relates, for they give us the true meaning of the Feast we are celebrating. The importance of the event here related is strongly intimated by the earnest and solemn way in which Saint John follows up his narration. After the words just quoted he adds: “And he that saw it, has given testimony of it, and his testimony is true. And he knows that he says true, that you also may believe; for these things were done that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John xix. 35, 36). Here the Gospel refers us to the testimony of the Prophet Zacharias who, after predicting the Spirit of grace being poured out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Zacharias xii. 10) says: “They will look on Him whom they pierced” (Zacharias xii. 10, as quoted in John xix. 37).

And, when they look on his side thus pierced, what will they see there but that great truth which is the summary of all Scripture, of all history: “God so loved the world, as to give it his Only Begotten Son; that whoever believes in him, may not perish, but may have eternal life” (John iii. 16). This grand truth was during the ages of expectation veiled under types and figures. It could be deciphered by but few, and even then, only obscurely. But it was made known with all possible clearness on that eventful day when on Jordan’s banks (Luke iii. 21, 22) the whole sacred Trinity manifested who was the Elect, the Chosen One, of the Father — the Son in whom He was so well pleased (Isaias xliii. 1). Yes, it was Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Mary. But there was another revelation of deepest interest to us which had still to be made: it was how, and in what way, would the eternal life brought by this Jesus into the world, pass from Him into each one of us?

This second revelation was made to us when the soldier’s spear opened the divine source, and there flowed from it that Water and Blood which, as the Scripture tells us, completed the testimony of the Blessed Three. “There are three,” says Saint John, who give testimony in Heaven: the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these Three are One. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood”: and these three are one, that is, they are one, because they concur in giving the one same testimony. “And, this,” continues Saint John, “is the testimony: that God has given to us eternal life, and that this life is in His Son” (John v. 7, 8, 11). These words contain a very profound mystery, but we have their explanation in today’s Feast which shows us how it is through the Heart of the Man-God that the divine work is achieved and how, through that same Heart, the plan which was conceived from all eternity by the Wisdom of the Father, has been realised.

To communicate His own happiness to creatures by making them, through the Holy Ghost, partakers of His own divine nature (1 Peter i. 4), and members of His beloved Son — this was the merciful design of the Father. And all the works of the Trinity outside itself tend to the accomplishment of that same. When the fullness of time had come, there appeared upon our earth He that came by water and blood, Jesus Christ —not by water only, but by water and blood. The Spirit who, together with the Father and the Son has already on the banks of Jordan given His testimony, gives it here again, for Saint John continues: “And it is the Spirit which testifies that Christ is the truth” (1 John v. 6), and that He spoke the truth when He said of Himself that He is Life (John v. 26). Yes, the Spirit, as the Gospel teaches us (John vii. 37-39), comes forth with the water from the fountains of the Saviour (Isaias xii. 3), and makes us worthy of the Precious Blood which flows together with the water. Then does mankind, thus born again of water and the Holy Ghost, become entitled to enter into the kingdom of God (John iii. 5), and the Church, thus made ready for her Spouse in those same waters of Baptism, is united to the Incarnate Word in the Blood of the sacred Mysteries. We, being members of that holy Church, have had the same union with Christ. We are bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh (Genesis ii. 23; Ephesians v. 30). We have received the power to be made adopted Sons of God (John i. 12) and sharers, for all eternity, of the divine life which He, the Son by nature, has in the bosom of the Father.

On, then, you [the people of the Old Testament] who are ignorant of the nuptials of the Lamb, give the signal of their being accomplished. Lead the Spouse to the nuptial bed of the Cross. He will lay Himself down on that most precious wood which His mother, the Synagogue, has made to be His couch. She prepared it for Him on the eve of the day of his alliance when, from His Sacred Heart, there is to come forth his Bride, together with the Water which cleanses her, and the Blood which is to be her dower. It was for the sake of this Bride that He left His Father and the bright home of His heavenly Jerusalem. He ran as a giant in the way of His intense love. He thirsted, and the thirst of the desire gave Him no rest. The scorching wind of suffering which dried up His bones was less active than the fire which burned in His Heart, and made its beatings send forth in the agony in the Garden the Blood which, on the morrow, was to be spent for the redemption of His Bride. He has reached Calvary, it is the end of His journey. He dies, He sleeps, with His burning thirst upon Him. But the Bride, who is formed for Him during this His mysterious sleep, will soon rouse him from it. That Heart, from which she was born, has broken that she might come forth. Broken, it ceased it beat, and the grand hymn which, through it, had been so long ascending from Earth to Heaven, was interrupted, and creation was dismayed at the interruption. Now that the world has been redeemed man should sing more than ever the canticle of his gratitude. And the strings of the harp are broken! Who will restore them? Who will rewaken in the Heart of our Jesus the music of its divine throbbings?

The new-born Church, His Bride, is standing near that opened side of her Jesus. In the intensity of her first joy she thus sings to God the Father: “I will praise you, Lord, among the people, and I will sing to you among the nations” (Psalms cvii. 1-4) Then, to her Jesus: “Arise, you, my glory! my psaltery, my harp, arise!” And He arose in the early morning of the great Sunday. His Sacred Heart resumed its melody, and with it sent up to Heaven the music of holy Church, for the Heart of the Spouse belongs to His Bride, and they are now two in one flesh (Genesis ii. 24; Ephesians v. 31).

Christ being now in possession of her who has wounded His Heart (Canticles iv. 9), He gives her in return full power over that Sacred Heart of His from which she has issued. There lies the secret of all the Church’s power. In the relations existing between husband and wife, which were created by God at the beginning of the world and (as the Apostle assures us), in view of this great mystery of Christ and the Church — man is the head (1 Corinthians xi. 3) and the woman may not domineer in the government of the family. Has the woman, then, no power? She has power, and a great power. She must address herself to her husband’s heart, and gain all by love. If Adam, our first father, sinned, it was because Eve used, and for evil, her influence over his heart by misleading him, and us in him. Jesus saves us because the Church has won His Heart , and that human Heart could not be won without the divinity also being moved to mercy. And here we have the doctrine of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, as far as regards the principle on which it rests. In this its primary and essential notion, the devotion is as old as the Church herself, for it rests on this truth which has been recognised in every age — that Christ is the Spouse, and the Church is His Bride.

The Fathers and holy Doctors of the early Ages had no other way than the one we have been putting before our readers, when expounding the mystery of the Church’s having been formed from Jesus’ side. And the words they used — though always marked by that reserve which was called for by so many of their hearers being as yet uninitiated — were taken as the text for the sublime and fearless developments of later Ages. “The initiated,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “know the mystery of the Saviour's fountains: from those, that is, from the Blood and the Water, the Church was formed; from those same came our Mysteries so that, when you approach the dread chalice, you must come up to it as though you were about to drink of that very Side of Christ.” “The Evangelist,” says Saint Augustine, “made use of a word which has a special import, when he said the soldier opened Jesus’ Side with a spear. He did not say, struck the Side, or wounded the Side, or anything else like that; but he said, he opened Jesus’ Side. He opened it, for that Side was like the door of life. And when it was opened, the Sacraments (the Mysteries) of the Church came through it... This was predicted by that door which Noah was commanded to make in the side of the Ark, through which were to go those living creatures which were not to be destroyed by the deluge. And all these things were a figure of the Church.”

“Enter into the rock, and hide in the pit” (Isaias ii. 10), says Isaias. And what means this, but “enter into the Side of your Lord?” as the expression is interpreted in the thirteenth century by Guerric, a disciple of Saint Bernard, and Abbot of Igny. Saint Bernard himself thus comments the verses 13 and 14 of the second Chapter of the Canticle: “Come, my dove, in the clifts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall” (Canticles ii. 13, 14): “O beautiful clifts of the rock in which the dove takes safe shelter, and fearlessly looks at the hawk that hovers about!... And what may I see through that opening? The iron has pierced his soul, and his Heart has come near; so that, through the clift, the mystery of his Heart is made visible, that great mystery of love, those bowels of the mercy of our God.. "What else are you, Lord, but treasures of love, but riches of goodness?... I will make my way to those full store cellars. I will take the Prophet’s advice, and will leave the cities. I will dwell in the Rock, and be like the dove that makes her nest in the mouth of the hole in the highest place (Jeremias xlviii. 28). Sheltered there, like as Moses was in the hole of the Rock (Exodus xxxiii. 21), I will see my Lord as He passes by.” In the next century, we have the Seraphic Doctor, Saint Bonaventure, telling us in his own beautiful style how the new Eve was born from the Side of Christ when in His sleep, and how the spear of Saul was thrown at David and struck the wall (1 Kings xviii. 10, 11) as though it would make its way into Him, of whom David was but a type, that is, into Christ, who is the Rock (1 Corinthians x. 4) the mountain-cave where are salubrious springs, the shelter where doves build their nests.

Our readers will not expect us to do more than give them this general view of the great mystery, and tell them how the holy Doctors of the Church spoke of it. As far as Saint Bernard and Saint Bonaventure are concerned, the devotion to the mystery of Christ’s side opened on the Cross is but a part of that which they would have us show to the other wounds of our Redeemer. The Sacred Heart, as the expression of Jesus’ love, is not treated of in their writings with the explicitness with which the Church would afterwards put it before us. For this end, our Lord Himself selected certain privileged souls through whose instrumentality He would bring the Christian world to a fuller appreciation of the consequences which are involved in the principles admitted by the whole Church.

It was on the 27th of January in 1281, in the Benedictine Monastery of Helfta near Eisleben in Saxony, that our Divine Lord first revealed these ineffable secrets to one of the Community of that House, whose name was Gertrude. “She was then twenty years of age. The Spirit of God came upon her, and gave her her mission... She saw, she heard, she was permitted to touch, and what is more, she drank of, that chalice of the Sacred Heart, which inebriates the elect. She drank of it, even while in this vale of bitterness. And what she herself so richly received, she imparted to others who showed themselves desirous to listen. Saint Gertrude’s mission was to make known the share and action of the Sacred Heart in the economy of God’s glory and the sanctification of souls. And in this respect, we cannot separate her from her companion Saint Mechtilde. On this special doctrine regarding the heart of the Man-God, Saint Gertrude and Saint Mechtilde hold a very prominent position among all the Saints and mystical writers of the Church. In saying this we do not except even the Saints of these later ages by whom our Lord brought about the public, the official, worship which is now given to His Sacred Heart. These Saints have spread the devotion, now shown to it, throughout the whole Church, but they have not spoken of the mysteries it contains within it, with that set purpose, that precision, that loveliness, which we find in the Revelations of the two Saints, Gertrude and Mechtilde.

It was the Beloved Disciple, who had rested His head upon Jesus’ breast at the Supper, and perhaps heard the beatings of the Sacred Heart — the Disciple who, when standing at the foot of the Cross, had seen that Heart pierced with the soldier’s spear — yes, it was he who announced to Gertrude its future glorification. She asked him how it was that he had not spoken in his writings in the New Testament of what he had experienced when he reclined upon Jesus’ Sacred Heart: he thus replied: ‘My mission was to write for the Church, which was still young, a single word of the uncreated Word of God the Father, that uncreated Word, concerning which the intellect of the whole human race might be ever receiving abundant truth, from now till the end of the world, and yet it would never be fully comprehended. As to the sweet eloquence of those throbbings of His Heart, it is reserved for the time when the world has grown old, and has become cold in God’s love, that it may regain favour by the hearing such revelation.’” (The Legate of Divine Love. Bk. iv. Ch. 4)

“Gertrude was chosen as the instrument of that revelation, and what she has told us is exquisitely beautiful. At one time, the divine Heart is shown to her as a treasure which holds all riches within it. At another, it is a harp played upon by the Holy Spirit, and the music which comes from it gladdens the Blessed Trinity and all the heavenly court. It is a plenteous spring whose stream bears refreshment to the souls in Purgatory, strength and every other grace to them that are still struggling on this Earth, and delights which inebriate the blessed in the heavenly Jerusalem. It is a golden thurible from which there ascend as many different sorts of fragrant incense as there are different races of men, for all of whom our Redeemer died upon the Cross. It is an altar on which the Faithful lay their offerings, the elect their homage, the Angels their worship, and the eternal High Priest offers Himself as a Sacrifice. It is a lamp suspended between Heaven and Earth. It is a chalice out of which the Saints, but not the Angels, drink, though these latter receive from it delights of varied kinds. It was in this Heart, that was formed and composed the Lord’s Prayer, the Pater noster: that Prayer was the fruit of Jesus’ Heart. By that same Sacred Heart are supplied all the negligences and deficiencies which are found in the honour we pay to God and His Blessed Mother and Saints. The Heart of Jesus makes itself as our servant, and our bond, in fulfilment of all the obligations incumbent on us. In it alone,do our actions derive that perfection, that worth, which makes them acceptable in the eyes of the divine Majesty, and every grace which flows from Heaven to Earth passes through that same Heart. When our life is at its close, that Heart is the peaceful abode, the holy sanctuary, ready to receive our souls as soon as they have departed from this world. And having received them, it keeps them in itself for all eternity, and beatifies them with every delight!” (Preface to the Revelations of St. Gertrude, translated into French, from the new Latin Edition, published by the Benedictine Fathers of Solesmes).

By thus revealing to Gertrude the admirable mysteries of divine love included in the doctrine which attaches to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was, so to say, forestalling the workings of Hell which, two centuries later on, were to find their prime mover in that same spot. Luther was born at Eisleben in the year 1483. He was the apostle, after being the inventor, of theories the very opposite of what the Sacred Heart reveals. Instead of the merciful God as known and loved in the previous ages, Luther would have the world believe Him to be the direct author of sin and damnation who creates the sinner for crime and eternal torments, and for the mere purpose of showing that He could do anything, even injustice! Calvin followed. He took up the blasphemous doctrines of the German apostate and rivetted the protestant principles by his own gloomy and merciless logic. By these two men the tail of the dragon dragged the third part of the stars of Heaven (Apocalypse xii. 4). In the seventeenth century the old enemy put on hypocrisy in the shape of Jansenism, changing the names of things but leaving the things unchanged, he tried to get into the very centre of the Church and there pass off his impious doctrines. Ad Jansenism which, under the pretext of safeguarding the rights of God’s sovereign dominion, aimed at making men forget that He was a God of mercy, Jansenism was a favourable system with which the enemy might propagate his so-called Reformation. That God “who so loved the world” (John iii. 16) beheld mankind discouraged or terrified, and behaving as though in Heaven there was no such thing as mercy, still less, love. This Earth of ours was to be made to see that its Creator had loved it with affectionate love, that He had taken a Heart of flesh in order to bring that infinite love within man’s reach and sight, that He made that human Heart which He had assumed do its work, that is, beat and throb from love, just as ours do, for He had become one of ourselves, and, as the Prophet words it, had taken “the cords of Adam” (Osee xi. 4): that Heart felt the thrill of joy when duty doing made us joyous. It felt a weight and pang when it saw our sorrows. It was gladsome when it found that, here and there, there would be souls to love Him in return.

How were men to be told all this? Who would be chosen to fulfil the prophecy made by Gertrude the Great? Who would come forth, like another Paul or John, and teach to the world, now grown old, the language of the divine throbbings of Jesus’ Heart? There were then living many men noted for their learning and eloquence, but they would not suit the purpose of God. God, who loves to choose the weak (and often it is that He may confound the strong) (1 Corinthians i. 27), had selected for the manifesting of the mystery of the Sacred Heart a servant of His of whose existence the world knew not: it was a Religious woman who lived in a monastery which had nothing about it to attract notice. As in the thirteenth century, He had passed by the learned men, and even the great Saints, who were then living, and selected the Blessed Juliana of liege as the instrument which was to bring about the institution of the Corpus Christi Feast — so in this present case: He would have His own Sacred Heart be glorified in His Church by a solemn Festival. And He imparts and entrusts his wish to the humble Visitandine of Paray-le-Monial, now known and venerated throughout the world under the name of Blessed Margaret-Mary. The mission thus divinely given to her was to bring forward the treasure which had been revealed to Saint Gertrude and which, all the long interval, had been known to only a few privileged souls. Sister Margaret Mary was to publish the secret to the whole world, and make the privilege cease, by telling every one how to possess it. Through this apparently inadequate instrument, the Sacred Heart of Jesus was a heavenly reaction offered to the world against the dullness which had settled on its old age: it became a touching appeal to all faithful souls that they would make reparation for all the contempt, and slight, and coldness, and sins, with which our age treats the love of our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus.

“I was praying before the Blessed Sacrament on one of the days during the Octave” (of Corpus Christi, June 1675), says the Blessed Margaret, “and I received from my God exceeding great graces of His love. And feeling a desire to make some return and give Him love for love, He said to me: ‘You can not make me a greater, than by doing that which I have so often asked of you.’ He then showed me His divine Heart and said: ‘Behold this Heart which has so loved men as that it has spared nothing, even to the exhausting and wearing itself out, in order to show them its love. And instead of acknowledgement, I receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude by their irreverences and sacrileges, and by the coldness and contempt with which they treat me in this Sacrament of love. But what is still more deeply felt by me is that they are hearts which are consecrated to me, which thus treat me. It is on this account, that I make this demand of you: that the first Friday after the Octave of the Blessed Sacrament be devoted to a special Feast in honour of my Heart. That you will go to Communion on that day and give it a reparation of honour by an act of amendment, to repair the insults it has received during the time of its being exposed on the Altar. I promise you also that my Heart will dilate itself, that it may pour forth, with abundance, the influences of its divine love upon those who will thus honour it and will do their best to have such honour paid to it.’” By thus calling His servant to be the instrument of the glorification of His Sacred Heart, our Lord made her a sign of contradiction, just as He Himself had been (Luke ii. 34). It took more than ten years for Blessed Margaret to get the better, by dint of patience and humility, of the suspicions with which she was treated by the little world around her, and of the harsh conduct of the Sisters who lived with with her in the same Monastery, and of trials of every sort. At last, on the 21st of June in 1686, the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi, she had the consolation of seeing the whole Community of Paray-le-Monial kneeling before a picture which represented the Heart of Jesus as pierced with a spear. It was the Heart by itself. It was encircled with flames and a crown of thorns, with the Cross above it, and the three Nails. That same year there was begun in the Monastery the building of a Chapel in honour of the Sacred Heart, and Blessed Margaret had the happiness of seeing it finished and blessed. She died shortly afterwards, in the year 1690. But all this was a very humble beginning: where was the institution of a Feast, properly so called? and there its solemn celebration throughout the Church?

So far back as the year 1674, our Lord had in His own mysterious way brought Margaret-Mary to form the acquaintance of one of the most saintly Religious of the Society of Jesus then living — it was Father De la Colombiere. He recognised the workings of the Holy Spirit in this His servant, and became the devoted apostle of the Sacred Heart, first of all at Paray-le-Monial, and then later on in England where he was imprisoned by the heretics of those times and merited the glorious title of Confessor of the Faith. This fervent disciple of the Heart of Jesus died in the year 1682, worn out by his labours and sufferings. But the Society, in a body, inherited his zeal for the propagation of devotion to the Sacred Heart. At once, numerous confraternities began to be formed, and everywhere there began to be built Chapels in honour of that same Heart. Hell was angry at this great preaching of God’s love. The Jansensists were furious at this sudden proclamation, at this apparition, as Saint Paul would say, “of the goodness and kindness of God our Saviour” (Titus iii. 4), and the men who were proclaiming it were aiming at restoring hope to souls in which they, the Jansenists, had sowed despondency. The big world must interfere, and it began by talking of innovations, of scandals, of even idolatry. At all events, this new devotion was, to put it mildly, a revolting dissecting of the sacred Body of Christ! Erudite pamphlets were published, some theological, some physiological, to prove that the Church should forbid the subject! Indecent engravings were circulated, and witticisms, such as indignation can make, were made, in order to bring ridicule upon those for whom the world had coined the name of Cordicoloe, or Heart-Worshippers.

But, human wisdom, or human prejudice, or even human ridicule, cannot withstand God’s purposes. He wished that human hearts should he led to love, and therefore worship, the Sacred Heart of their Redeemer. And He inspired His Church to receive the devotion which would save so many souls, though the world might not take Heaven’s view. The Apostolic See had witnessed all this and, at last, gave its formal sanction. Rome had frequently granted Indulgences in favour of the devotions privately practised towards the Sacred Heart. She had published innumerable Briefs for the establishment of local Confraternities under that title. And, in 1765, in accordance with the request made by the Bishops of Poland and the Arch-Confraternity of the Sacred Heart at Rome, Pope Clement XIII issued the first pontifical decree in favour of the Feast of the Heart of Jesus, and approved of a Mass and Office which had been drawn up for that Feast. The same favour was gradually accorded to other Churches until, at length, on the 23rd of August, 1856, Pope Pius IX of glorious memory, at the instance of all the Bishops of France, issued the Decree for the inserting the Feast of the Sacred Heart on the Calendar, and making obligatory its celebration by the universal Church.

The glorification of the Heart of Jesus called for that of its humble handmaid. On the 18th of September 1864, the Beatification of Margaret-Mary was solemnly proclaimed by the same Sovereign Pontiff who had put the last finish to the work she had begun, and given it the definitive sanction of the Apostolic See. From that time forward, the knowledge and love of the Sacred Heart have made greater progress, than they had done during the whole two previous centuries. In every quarter of the globe we have heard of Communities, Religious Orders and whole Dioceses consecrating themselves to this source of every grace, this sole refuge of the Church in these sad times. There have been pilgrimages made of thousands from every country to the favoured sanctuary of Paray-le-Monial, where it pleased the Divine Heart to first manifest Itself in its visible form to us mortals.