31 MAY – SAINT PETRONILLA (Virgin)

Petronilla is said to have been a spiritual daughter of Saint Peter, who took her with him to Rome where she became paralysed. Simon Magus having asked him why, if he could perform miracles, he allowed his daughter to remain infirm, Saint Peter answered that “It was expedient for her.” Then he added, “Nevertheless, to show the power of God, she will rise from her bed and walk.” Then he called her, and she rose and was restored to her full health. An officer who greatly admired her beauty sent soldiers to her to ask her to be his wife, but she replied: “If he wants me to marry him, let him not send rough soldiers to woo me, but respectable matrons, and give me time to make up my mind.” But before Flaccus could obtain matrons to convey his offer, Petronilla died.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Though the Church makes but a simple commemoration of this illustrious virgin in the office of this day, we will not fail to offer her the homage of our devout veneration. On the twelfth of this month, we kept the feast of the noble virgin and martyr, Flavia Domitilla: it is probable that Aurelia Petronilla was also of the imperial family of the Flavians. The early traditions of the Church speak of her as being the spiritual daughter of the Prince of the Apostles, and though she did not like Domitilla lay down her life for the Faith, yet she offered to Jesus that next richest gift — her virginity. The same venerable authorities tell us also that a Roman Patrician by name Flaccus, having asked her in marriage, she requested three days for consideration during which she confidently besought the aid of her Divine Spouse. Flaccus presented himself on the third day, but found the palace in mourning and her family busy in preparing the funeral obsequies of the young virgin, who had taken her flight to Heaven, as a dove that is startled by an intruder’s approach.

In the eighth century the holy Pope Paul I had the body of Petronilla taken from the Cemetery of Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina. Her relics were found in a marble sarcophagus, the lid of which was adorned at each corner with a dolphin. The Pope had them enshrined in a little church which he built near the south side of the Vatican Basilica. This Church was destroyed in the sixteenth century in consequence of the alterations needed for the building of the new Basilica of Saint Peter, and the relics of Saint Petronilla were translated to one of its altars On the west side. It was but just that she should await her glorious Resurrection under the shadow of the great Apostle who had initiated her in the Faith and prepared her for her eternal nuptials with the Lamb.

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Your triumph, Petronilla, is one of our Easter joys! We lovingly venerate your blessed memory. You disdained the pleasures and honours of the world, and your virginal name is one of the first on the list of the Church of Rome, which was your mother. Aid her now by your prayers. Protect those who seek your intercession, and teach us how to celebrate with holy enthusiasm the Solemnities that are soon to gladden us.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Aquileia, the holy martyrs Cantius, Cantian and Cantianilla. For their attachment to the Christian faith they were condemned to capital punishment with their tutor Protus in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian.

At Torres in Sardinia, St. Crescentian, martyr.

At Comana in Pontus, in the time of the emperor Antoninus, St. Hermias, a soldier. Being miraculously delivered from many horrible torments, he converted his executioner to Christ and made him partaker of the crown which he himself obtained first by having his head struck off with the sword.

At Verona, St. Lupicinus, bishop.

At Rome, St. Paschasius, deacon and confessor, who is mentioned by Pope St. Gregory.

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

Thanks be to God.

31 MAY – FRIDAY WITHIN THE OCTAVE OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

God has satisfied the intense desires of man’s heart. The house of the marriage-feast, built by divine Wisdom on the top of mountains, has had flowing to it all the nations of Earth (Isaias ii. 2). Yesterday the whole Catholic world was animated with sentiments of love towards the adorable Sacrament, and the people said to each other in a holy transport of gratitude: “Come! Let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob.” Yesterday, the bud of the Lord was seen by us all in magnificence and glory. This divine Bud, this rich ear of corn that has sprung up from our Earth was carried in triumph and excited the enthusiasm of the Faithful, making them rejoice before It, as they that rejoice in the harvest (Isaias iv. 2). It was a heavenly harvest that had been the expectation of nations. It was the precious ear of corn, despised indeed by Israel, but gleaned by Ruth, the stranger, in the field of the true Booz, in Bethlehem. It was for this day of the great meeting of nations foretold by Isaias, that the Lord had kept reserved on the mountain the feast on a victim such as had lever been seen before, a feast of wine, the richest and purest (Isaias xxv. 6).

The poor have eaten at this banquet, and they have given fervent praise to their God. The rich have eaten and have fallen down in adoration, and all the ends of the earth, prostrate in His sacred Presence, have recognised, that he who thus gave them to feast was Christ their King (Psalms xxi. 27-30). This, they said, is our God, we have waited for Him: we have patiently waited for Him (Isaias xxv. 9). He was the desire of our soul. We desired Him in the night, and, in the morning early, our first thoughts were on Him. He is the Lord, and His remembrance could not be effaced, not even through the long ages of expectation (Isaias xxvi. 8, 9). You, Lord, are my God, I will exalt you, and give glory to your name, for you have done wonderful things, your designs of old, faithful! Faithfully have you fulfilled your eternal decrees (Isaias xv. 1).

These expressions of love on the part of the human race were but a feeble echo to the infinite love which God vouchsafed to have for His creature, man. The divine Spirit who has achieved the wonderful union between the children of Adam and eternal Wisdom shows us, everywhere in the Scriptures, that this Wisdom was impatient of delay, that He was taking each obstacle as it came, and removing it, and was preparing in countless ways for the Marriage Feast so much longed for.

We will devote these first two days of the Octave to the considering the leading features in the history of this Eucharistic preparation. We will be well repaid by the additional light which these truths will reflect upon the dogma itself. We are going to review the loving ways by which eternal Wisdom sought, for so many long ages, to bring about His own union with ourselves. As a matter of course, we clothe these truths in Scripture language, for the Scriptures are our guide in this research. It is they that tell us the workings of the divine intentions in our regard. How, then, do the Scriptures speak of these before the mystery of the Incarnation was actually accomplished?

The second Person of the adorable Trinity is there brought before us under the name of Wisdom, until such time as Her union with man being accomplished in the most perfect degree possible, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the name under which He passes in the Scriptures, a name which gives Him the appearance of a Bride. But once the mystery of perfect union achieved, another name is given Him, the name of Spouse or Bridegroom. His other name of Wisdom seems almost forgotten, and yet in the ages of lively faith it was not so. The people of those days were too full of the Scriptures to forget it. Thus we find the first Christian Emperor dedicating to this ruler and centre of his every thought the trophy of his victory over paganism, and that of the triumph of the Martyrs: all burning with love for the Wisdom of God, says Eusebius. Constantine consecrated the ancient Byzantium, which he called by his own name, to the God of the Martyrs, and dedicated to Eternal Wisdom the grandest structure of this new Rome, Saint Sophia, which for many ages was the finest Christian Church in the world.

Like our forefathers in the faith, let us, too, honour divine Wisdom, and gratefully think upon the love which urged Him, from all eternity, to unite Himself to man! It is this love that explains that mysterious joy which, as the Scripture tells us, He had at the beginning of Time when this world of ours was being gradually developed in all the beauty of its fresh creation, for sin had not then come in to break the harmony of this work of the Most High. At each additional manifestation of creative power, Wisdom takes delight, and by his delight adds a new charm to this the future scene of the divine marvels, planned as those had been by His love. This Wisdom is delighted at the omnipotence which produces Creation. He plays every day, as the Creation goes on, yes, He plays in this world, for, each progress in its formation brings Man nearer —Man, whose palace it is; and His delights are to be with the children of men (Proverbs viii. 30, 31).

Incomprehensible love! It precedes, though it foresees, sin. And, though foreseeing it, loves not the less! It has its divine delights to be with us, and we have attractions for it in spite of all the bitterness caused by the sight of our future black ingratitude! The Fall of man will, as one of its terrific consequences, modify, much and cruelly, the earthly existence which Wisdom is to have upon our Earth But, in order that we may the more easily understand and more fully appreciate how immense must that love be, which could be proof against such obstacles, let us turn our thoughts today to the course that these loving intentions would have taken, had man persevered in the state of innocence. Although the Sacred Scriptures, written as they have been for the benefit of fallen man, suppose that state, and are ever telling us of the mystery of the restoration of the sinful world — yet do they make frequent allusions to God's original intention, and with these to guide us it is not difficult to mark out the leading features of the primitive plan.

Wisdom, speaking of Herself, says: “The Lord possessed me, in the beginning of His ways” (Proverbs viii. 22) Is She not the first of all creatures? (Ecclesiasticus i. 4) Not, of course, as to that divine form of which the Apostle speaks, and by which Wisdom is equal to God (Philippians ii. 6), but in that human existence which She has selected in preference to all other possible natures, for the one by which to unite Herself with finite being. That selection was one of an unlimited and most gratuitous love. It made the type and law of entire creation to be One who would be so closely resembling us human beings, and what an honour! We are told in holy Writ that the most high and almighty Creator created Wisdom before all things, and created Her in the Holy Ghost and that taking Her as His type, and number, and measure, He poured Her out upon all His works, and upon all flesh (Ecclesiasticus i. 4, 8-10). When the fullness of the appointed time came, this Wisdom Herself was to come, giving to all creation, of which She was the head and centre, its purpose and meaning: She was to blend and unite with the infinite homage, which resulted from Her own divine personality, the homage of every existing creature. And thus give perfection to the external glory of the Father by Her own adoration, which was to be eternal and infinite. Once this happy time is come, and there will appear that human nature, chosen by divine Wisdom from the beginning to be His created form, to be the instrument of that homage to the Father, which, as we were just saying, will be perfect and divine, because of the personal union of this created nature with the Nature of God the Son. Eternal Wisdom will thus be one with the Son of the purest of Virgins. The nuptial-song will be taken up by all creatures, both on Earth and in Heaven, and through this Son of Man, who will then be called the Spouse, Wisdom will continue to the end of time in the soul of every individual of the human race (that is, of every soul that does not refuse the honour), the ineffable mystery of his divine marriage with our nature.

He wishes, then, to unite Himself with each one of us, but what means will He adopt for this deifying union? Of all the Sacraments which our Lord might have instituted after His Incarnation in the supposition of man's not forfeiting his state of innocence, there is not one, says Suarez, which has so many probabilities on its side as the Eucharist. There is not one which, in itself, is so desirable and is more independent on sin, for the notion of expiation which, in our present state, lingers about It as the memorial of our Jesus’ Passion, may be prescinded from without affecting the essence of the Sacrament — that essence being, the Real Presence of our Lord, and the close union by which He unites us to Himself. It is the same with the Eucharist as a Sacrifice: the primary notion of Sacrifice, as we will see further on, does not absolutely include the idea of sin. So that when Christ, as the head of the human family, comes into this world to offer up a Sacrifice in the name of us all, that Sacrifice will be one which is worthy of His Father and Himself. Spouse as He is, and by virtue of the divine unction, Priest, too: it is by the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that He will act in this twofold character, for by that Sacrifice He brings the human race into union with Himself by the embrace of the sacred Mysteries and, when He has divinised it by union with Himself, making it one body with Himself, of which He is the Head, He offers it to His Eternal Father.

But, for the coming of the Spouse, the Bridegroom, there must be a numerous retinue to do Him honour and tell His praises when the day arrives for His entrance into the banquet-hall. And from now till the time when Earth, being peopled enough, will have ready for her King-Priest a court that is worthy of Him, so many ages are to intervene! What will He, that is, what will Wisdom be doing in the interval?

We have already seen how in the early days of creation He played before His Father, and was all transported with delight. But when the work was done, the Creator withdrew into the repose and rest of the seventh day. Seated on His Father’s right hand, in the splendours of the Saints, will Wisdom wait inactive for that day to come when He, who has begotten Him before the day- star and has betrothed Him to human nature, will send Him down to this Earth, there to consummate the alliance for which He has been eternally longing? The sacred Scriptures give a very different description of Him during the time preceding his actual coming. They tell us that Wisdom is so active, though so gentle, that He is more active than all active things, and was everywhere, and put Himself in every place, and in the Prophets, so that He was easily found by them that wanted to find Him. He even anticipated their research and was more ready to show Himself than they could possibly be to find Him. If any soul was intent, like some early riser, to find Him, He soon met such a seeker. Nay, Himself went about seeking for such as were worthy of Him, and when He met them, in the ways here or there in this wide world, this beautiful Wisdom would show Himself to them with all the cheerfulness of earnestness. Thus do the Scriptures describe Wisdom as engaged during the ages preceding His Incarnation. He does not as yet quit the throne of glory on which He sits, lighting up all Heaven with His beauty, but He is preparing the day of His Marriage, and that by impressing it on man’s mind and notice in every possible way. He meets him at every turn to speak of it, to tell him of how He, Wisdom, loves him. He selects certain symbols by which to show the generations then living a picture of the wondrous mysteries He intended to achieve when the time came. Let us take one of these symbols for our lesson today, that we too may lose not a particle of what our Jesus has ever done to make Himself known.

But before we go further, let us listen to the Scripture character drawn of this beautiful Wisdom: He is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of His goodness: holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hinders, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtile (Wisdom vii. 22-26; vi. 13-17; ix. 4, 10). And now to a choice symbol, chosen by our Jesus by which He spoke of Himself before He came to the Nuptials. The Lord God, says Scripture, had planted a Paradise of pleasure from the beginning, in which He intended to place Man, whom He was not to create till the sixth day. In the midst of this Paradise there grew a tree of singular beauty. It was a tree to which God had attached a great mystery, and its name was the Tree of Life. A river, with four streams, watered this garden of delights (Genesis ii. 8-10), and this river was shown later on to Saint John as a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb (Apocalypse xxii. 1). This twofold symbol of the Tree and the River bear no allusion to future sin. They had been put in Paradise, the abode of innocence, before man himself, and therefore are portions of the primitive plan of God; and, therefore, in themselves signify nothing, and symbolise nothing, but what has reference, first and foremost, to the state of innocence.

Now, an ancient writer, published under the name of Saint Ambrose, says, “the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, is Christ in the midst of his Church.” “So then,” says Saint Augustine, “Christ was the Tree of Life; neither would God have man to live in Paradise, without his having mysteries of things spiritual presented to him under corporal forms. In the other trees, therefore, he had food. But in that one (of Life), he had a sacred symbol (sacramentum). And what was it that is symbolised, but Wisdom, of which it is said, ‘She is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold on her’ (Proverbs iii. 18) ... For it is right to give to Christ the name of a thing which had been previously made, that it should signify Him.” Saint Hilary, too, bears testimony to this same traditional interpretation. After quoting the same text from Proverbs, he says: “Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the Tree of Life, because, as we are taught by the authority of the Prophets, on account of its being a symbol (sacramentum) of His future Incarnation and Passion.. Our Lord compared Himself to a Tree, when He said: ‘A Tree is known by its fruit...’ This Tree, then, is living. Yes, not living only, but rational also, for it gives its fruit when it wills (and, as the Psalm says), in its own time... And what is that time? That of which the Apostle speaks, when he says, that God might make known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He had purposed in Him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times... the dispensation of the fruit, then, is reserved for the fullness of times.” But what is to be the Fruit of this Tree, the leaves of which fall not off (Psalms i. 3), and are for the healing of the nations (Apocalypse xxii. 2) —what is to be the Fruit, but divine Wisdom, in His own very self and substance? In His divine form, He is the food of the Angels too. But He is to be that of man in His two Natures, that thus, by His Flesh reaching man’s soul, He may fill that soul with His divinity, as it was beautifully expressed in the Office composed by Blessed Juliana.

Thus, therefore, divine Wisdom, our Jesus, had preceded man in Paradise: Adam was not yet there, but Wisdom was. For His love made Him hasten there and take up His abode there, ready to receive man on his arrival — receive him in that Tree of Life which, together with the Most High, He, as the Wisdom in which the Creator formed all His works, had planted in the garden of delights (Wisdom viii. 4). Speaking of this Tree, the Bride of the Canticle said: “As the apple tree among the barren trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among the sons” of the rest of men; “I sat down under his shadow whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate” (Canticles ii. 3). This sweet Fruit of the Tree of Life was a figure of the Eucharist.

But how is this? We were yesterday invited by Wisdom to eat Bread in His house, and not Fruit in His garden. What means this change of language? It is because man has brought about an immense change of purpose: in his pride, he has eaten of a fruit which was not good, a fruit which was forbidden, and has ruined him for his taking it. He has been driven from the garden of delights. Cherubim and a flaming sword have been placed to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Instead of fruits of Paradise, the food of man is henceforth to be bread, bread which costs toil and sweat, bread which means grinding under a millstone, and burning in fire. Such is the sentence passed on man by a justly angered God. But, alas, this most just condemnation is to go far beyond the guilty one. It will strike man, but it will strike divine Wisdom, too — Wisdom who has given Himself to man to be his food and companion. In the immensity of His love, Wisdom will not abandon this fallen nature of man. He will, that He may save it, take upon Himself all the consequences of the Fall and, like fallen man, become passible and mortal.

The marriage-feast is not to be in Eden, as was first intended. Poor Eden! She had been so exquisitely prepared for that feast. She had her fragrant fields of loveliest emerald, and her fruit which was so fair to behold, and so pleasant to eat of (Genesis ii. 9), and so immortalising with a youth that was to last forever! To reach man, now that he is fallen, eternal Wisdom must make His way through the briars and thickets of His new abode. The Marriage-Feast will be kept in a house which it has cost Him infinite pains to build to Himself as a cover against the miseries of the land of exile. And as to the food served for the banquet, it is not to be the fruit spontaneously yielded by the Tree of Life: it is to be the divine Wheat, ground by suffering and baked on the altar of the Cross.

30 MAY – SAINT FELIX I (Pope and Martyr)

Felix, a Roman by birth, and son of Constantius, governed the Church during the reign of the emperor Aurelian. He decreed that the Mass should be celebrated upon the shrines and tombs of the martyrs. He held two ordinations in the month of December and made 9 priests, 5 deacons and 5 bishops. He was crowned with martyrdom, and was buried on the Via Aurelia in a Basilica which he himself had built and dedicated. He ruled 2 years, 4 months and 29 days.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The holy Popes of the primitive ages of the Church abound during these last days of our Paschal Season. Today we have Felix I, a martyr of the persecution under Aurelian in the third century. His Acts have been lost, with the exception of this one detail: that he proclaimed the dogma of the Incarnation with admirable precision in a Letter addressed to the Church of Alexandria, a passage of which was read, with much applause, at the two Ecumenical Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. We also learn from a law he passed for these troubled times of the Church, that this holy Pontiff was zealous in procuring for the martyrs the honour that is due to them. He decreed that the Holy Sacrifice should be offered up on their tombs. The Church has kept up a remnant of this law by requiring that all altars, whether fixed or portable, must have amongst the relics that are placed in them a portion of some belonging to the martyrs.

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You, O holy Pontiff, imitated your Divine Master in His death, for you gave your life for your sheep. Like Him, too, you are to rise from your tomb and your happy soul will be reunited to its body which suffered death in testimony of the truth you proclaimed at Rome. Jesus is the first-born of the dead (Apocalypse i. 5). You followed Him in His Passion, you will follow Him in His Resurrection. Your body was laid in those venerable vaults which the piety of early Christians honoured with the appellation of Cemeteries, a word which signifies a place in which to sleep. You, O Felix, will awaken on that great day on which the Pasch is to receive its last and perfect fulfilment: pray that we also may then share with you in that happy Resurrection. Obtain for us that we may be faithful to the graces received in this year’s Easter, and prepare us for the visit of the Holy Ghost who is soon to descend upon us, that he may give stability to the work that has been achieved in our souls by our merciful Saviour.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYOLOGY:

At Torres in Sardinia, the holy martyrs Gabinus and Crispulus.

At Antioch, the Saints Sycus and Palatinus who endured many torments for the name of Christ.

At Ravenna, St. Exuperantius, bishop and confessor.

At Pavia, St. Anastasius, bishop.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the Saints Basil and his wife Emmelia, parents of St. Basil the Great, who lived in exile in the fastnesses of Pontus during the reign of Galerius Maximian, and after the persecution rested in peace, leaving their children the heirs of their virtues.

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

Thanks be to God.

30 MAY – SAINT FERDINAND III OF CASTILE (King and Confessor)

Ferdinand was born in about 1201 to King Alfonso IX of León and his second wife Queen Berenguela of Castile, at the Monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, now the Province of Zamora). He showed so much prudence in his youth that his mother resigned her kingdom in his favour. Ferdinand had all the virtues becoming to a king: magnanimity, clemency, justice and zeal for Catholic faith and worship, which he ardently defended and propagated. Ferdinand forbade heretics to settle in his kingdom and he built, endowed and dedicated churches in Cordova, Jaen, Seville and other cities rescued from the Moors. He restored the Cathedrals of Toledo, Burgos and other cities. He also he levied powerful armies in the kingdom of Castile and Leon and each year engaged in battles with the Saracens.

Ferdinand secured victory by the prayers he offered up to God. He used to chastise his body with disciplines and a rough hair-shirt, with the intention of rendering God propitious. By so doing he gained extraordinary victories over the mighty armies of the Moors, and, after taking possession of Jaen, Cordova and Murcia, and making a tributary of the kingdom of Granada, he restored many cities to the Christian religion and to Spain. He led his victorious standard before Seville, the capital of Baeza, being, as it is related, urged thereto by Saint Isidore, who had formerly been bishop of that city, and who appeared to him in a vision. Ferdinand was miraculously aided during that siege: the Muslims had stretched an iron chain across the Guadalquiver to block up the passage but there arose a violent wind, and one of the royal ships was, by the king's order, sent against the chain, which broke with so much violence that it was carried far beyond, and bore down a bridge of boats. The Moors lost all hope and the city surrendered. Ferdinand attributed all these victories to the patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose image he always had in his camp, and honoured it with much devotion.

Having taken Seville, Ferdinand’s first thoughts were directed to religion. He immediately caused the mosque of the Saracens to be purified and dedicated as a Christian church, having provided it with an archiepiscopal See, richly endowed, as also with a well-appointed college of Canons and dignitaries. He built several other churches and monasteries in Seville. While engaged in these holy works, he was preparing to pass over to Africa to crush the Muslim empire but before he could do so he died. When death approached he fastened a cord round his neck, prostrated on the ground, and, shedding abundant tears, adored the Blessed Sacrament which was brought to him as Viaticum. Having received it in admirable dispositions of reverence, humility and faith, he slept in the Lord in 1252. His body, which remained incorrupt for many centuries is buried in the Cathedral Church of Seville.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

During the Season consecrated to the mystery of our Emmanuel’s birth we saw standing near His crib the Blessed Emperor Charlemagne. Crowned with the imperial diadem, and with a sword in his hand, he seemed to be watching over the babe whose first worshippers were shepherds. And now, near the glorious sepulchre, which was first visited by Magdalene and her companions, we perceive a King — Ferdinand the Victorious —wearing a crown and keeping guard with his valiant sword —the terror of the Saracen.

Catholic Spain is personified in her Ferdinand. His mother Berengera was sister to Blanche the mother of Saint Louis of France. In order to form “the Catholic Kingdom,” there was needed one of our Lord’s Apostles — Saint James the Great; there was needed a formidable trial —the Saracen invasion which deluged the Peninsula; there was needed a chivalrous resistance, which lasted eight hundred years, and by which Spain regained her glory and her freedom. Saint Ferdinand is the worthy representative of the brave heroes who drove out the Moors from their fatherland and made her what she is: but he had the virtues of a saint, as well as the courage of a soldier.

His life was one of exploits, and each was a victory. Cordova, the city of the Caliphs, was conquered by this warrior Saint. At once, its Alhambra ceased to be a palace of Mahometan effeminacy and crime. Its splendid Mosque was consecrated to the Divine Service, and afterwards became the Cathedral of the city. The followers of Mahomet had robbed the Church of Saint James at Compostella of its bells, and had them brought in triumph to Cordova. Ferdinand ordered them to be carried there again, on the backs of the Moors.

After a siege of 16 months, Seville also fell into Ferdinand’s hands. Its fortifications consisted of a double wall, with 166 towers. The Christian army was weak in numbers. The Saracens fought with incredible courage, and had the advantages of position and tact on their part, but the Crescent was to be eclipsed by the Cross. Ferdinand gave the Saracens a month to evacuate the city and territory. Three hundred thousand withdrew to Xeres, and a hundred thousand passed over into Africa. The brave Moorish General, when taking his last look at the city, wept and said to his officers: “None but a Saint could, with such a small force, have made himself master of so strong and well-manned a place.”

We will not enumerate the other victories gained by our Saint. The Moors foresaw that the result would be their total expulsion from the Peninsula. But this was not all that Ferdinand aimed at: he even intended to invade Africa, and thus crush the Muslim power forever. The noble project was prevented by his death, which took place in the fifty-third year of his age.

He always looked on himself as the humble instrument of God’s designs, and zealously laboured to accomplish them. Though most austere towards himself, he was a father in his compassion for his people, and was one day heard to say: “I am more afraid of the curse of one poor woman, than of all the Saracen armies together.” He richly endowed the churches which he built in Spain. His devotion to the Holy Mother of God was most tender, and he used to call her his Lady: in return, Mary procured him victory in all his battles, and kept away all pestilence and famine from the country during his entire reign, which, as the contemporary chroniclers observe, was an evident miracle, considering the circumstances of the age and period. The whole life of our Saint was a series of happiness and success, whereas, the life of that other admirable King, Saint Louis of France, was one of almost uninterrupted misfortune, as though God would give to the world, in these two Saints a model of courage in adversity, and an example of humility in prosperity. They form unitedly a complete picture of what human life is, regenerated as it has now been by our Jesus, in whom we adore both the humiliations of the Cross and the glories of the Resurrection. What happy times were those, when God chose kings by which to teach mankind such sublime lessons!

One feels curious to know how such a man, such a King as Ferdinand, would take death when it came upon him. When it came, he was in his fifty-fourth year. The time approached for his receiving the Holy Viaticum. As soon as the priest entered the room with the Blessed Sacrament, the holy King got out of bed, prostrated himself in adoration and, humbly putting a cord round his neck, received the Sacred Host. This done, and feeling that he was on the verge of eternity, he ordered his attendants to remove from him every sign of royalty, and called his sons round his bed. Addressing himself to the eldest, who was Alphonsus the Good, he entrusted him with the care of his brothers, and reminded him of the duties he owed to his subjects and soldiers. He then added these words: “My son, you see what armies, and possessions, and subjects, you have, more than any other Christian king: make a proper use of these advantages, and, having the power, be and do good. You are now master of the country which the Moors took in times past from King Rodriguez. If you keep the kingdom in the state in which I now leave it to you, you will be as I have been, a good king, which you will not be, if you allow any portion of it to be lost.”

As his end drew near, the dying King was favoured with an apparition from Heaven. He thanked God for granting him that consolation, and then asked for the blessed candle. But before taking it in his hand, he raised up his eyes to Heaven and said: “You, O Lord, have given me the kingdom which I should not otherwise have had. You have given me more honour and power than I deserved: receive my thanks! I give you back this kingdom, which I have increased as far as I was able. I also commend my soul into your hands!" He then asked pardon of the by-standers, begging them to overlook any offence that he might have committed against them. The whole court was present and, with tears, asked the Saint to forgive them. The holy King then took the blessed candle into his hands, and raising it up towards heaven, said: “Lord Jesus Christ! My Redeemer! Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I return to the earth. Lord, receive my soul! and, through the merits of your most holy Passion, deign to admit it among those of your servants!” Having said this, he gave back the candle and asked the bishops and priests who were present to recite the Litanies, which being ended, he bade them sing the Te Deum. When the Hymn was finished, he bowed down his head, closed his eyes, and calmly expired.

Thus died those men whose glorious works were the result of their Faith, and who looked on themselves as only sent into this world that they might serve Christ and labour to propagate His kingdom. It was they that gave Europe its highest glory: they made the Gospel its first law, and based its Constitution on the Canons of the Church. It is now governed by a very different standard. It is paying dearly for the change, and is being drifted rapidly to dissolution and ruin.

* * * * *

BY delivering your people from the yoke of the Infidel, you, O Ferdinand, imitated our Risen Jesus who rescued us from death and restored us to the life we had lost. Your conquests were not like those of this world’s conquerors, who have no other aim than the satisfying their own and their peoples’ pride. Your ambition was to deliver your people from an oppression which had weighed heavily on them for long ages. Your object was to save them from the danger of apostasy, which they incurred by being under the Moorish yoke. Champion of Christ! It was for His dear sake you laid siege to the Saracen cities. His banner was yours, and your first anxiety was to spread His kingdom. He, in return, blessed you in all your your battles, and made you ever victorious.

Your mission, Ferdinand, was to form for our God a nation which has been honoured by holy Church above all others with the glorious name of the “Catholic Kingdom.” Happy Spain which by her perseverance and courage broke the Mussulman yoke, that still weighs down the other countries which it made its prey! Happy Spain which repelled the invasion of Protestantism and by this preserved the Faith, which both saves souls and constitutes a nation’s strongest power! Pray for your country, O saintly King! False doctrines and treacherous influences are now rife within her, and many of her children have been led astray. Never permit her to injure, by cowardly compromise, that holy Faith which has been her grandest glory and safeguard. Frustrate the secret plots which are working to undermine her Catholicity. Keep up within her her old hatred of heresy, and maintain her in the rank she holds among Catholic nations. Unity in faith and worship may still save her from the abyss into which so many other countries have fallen. O holy King! Save once more the land that God entrusted to your keeping, and which you restored to Him with such humble gratitude when you were about to change your earthly for a heavenly crown. You are still her beloved protector. Hasten then to her aid!

30 MAY – SOLEMNITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

A great solemnity has this day risen upon our Earth: a Feast both to God and men, for it is the Feast of Christ the Mediator who is present in the sacred Host that God may be given to man, and man to God. Divine union — yes, such is the dignity to which man is permitted to aspire, and to this aspiration, God has responded, even here below, by an invention which is all of Heaven.

It is today that man celebrates this marvel of God’s goodness. And yet, against both the Feast and its divine object there has been made the old fashioned objection: “How can these things be done?” (John iii. 9; vi. 53). It really does seem as though reason has a right to find fault with what looks like senseless pretensions of man’s heart. Every living being thirsts after happiness, and yet and because of that it only aspires after the good of which it is capable, for it is the necessary condition of happiness that in order to its existence there must be the full contentment of the creature’s desire. Hence, in that great act of creation which the Scripture so sublimely calls “His playing in the world” (Proverbs viii. 30, 31), when with His almighty power, He prepared the heavens and enclosed the depths, and balanced the foundations of the earth (Proverbs viii. 27, 29), we are told that Divine Wisdom secured the harmony of the universe by giving to each creature, according to its degree in the scale of being, an end adequate to its powers. He thus measured the wants, the instinct, the appetite (that is, the desire) of each creature, according to its respective nature so that it would never have cravings, which its faculties were insufficient to satisfy.

In obedience, then, to this law, was not man, too, obliged to confine, within the limits of his finite nature, his desires for the good and the beautiful, that is, his searching after God, which is a necessity with every intelligent and free being? Otherwise, would it not be that, for certain beings, their happiness would have to be in objects, which must ever be out of the reach of their natural faculties? Great as the anomaly would appear, yet does it exist. True psychology, that is, the true science of the human mind, bears testimony to this desire for the infinite. Like every living creature around him, man thirsts for happiness. And yet, he is the only creature on earth that feels within itself longings for what is immensely beyond its capacity. While docile to the lord placed over them by the Creator, the irrational creatures are quite satisfied with what they find in this world. They render to man their several services, and their own desires are all fully gratified by what is within their reach: it is not so with Man. He can find nothing in this his earthly dwelling which can satiate his irresistible longings for a something which this Earth cannot give, and which time cannot produce: for that something is the infinite.

God Himself, when revealing Himself to man through the works He has created, that is, when showing Himself to man in a way which His natural powers can take in: God, when giving man to know Him as the First Cause, as Last End of all creatures, as unlimited perfection, as infinite beauty, as sovereign goodness, as the object which can content both our understanding and our will — no, not even God Himself, thus known and thus enjoyed, could satisfy man. This being, made out of nothing, wishes to possess the Infinite in his own substance. He longs after the sight of the face, he ambitions to enjoy the life, of his Lord and God. The Earth seems to him but a trackless desert where he can find no water that can quench his thirst. From early dawn of each wearisome day, his soul is at once on the watch, pining for that God who alone can quell his desires. Yes, his very flesh too has its thrilling expectations for that beautiful Infinite One (Psalms lxii.) Let us listen to the Psalmist, who speaks for us all: “As the hart pants after the fountains of water, so my soul pants after you, God! My soul has thirsted after the strong, living, God: when will I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread, day and night, while it is said to me daily:Where is your God? These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me, for I will go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God. With the voice of joy and praise, the noise of one that is feasting. Why are you sad, my soul? and why do you trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to Him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God” (Psalms xli.)

If reason is to be the judge of such sentiments as these, they are but wild enthusiasm and silly pretensions. Why talk of the sight of God, of the life of God, of a banquet in which God Himself is to be the repast? Surely, these are things far too sublime for man, or any created nature, to reach. Between the wisher and the object longed for, there is an abyss— the abyss of disproportion, which exists between nothingness and being. Creation, all powerful as it is, does not in itself imply the filling up of that abyss. If the disproportion could ever cease to be an obstacle to the union aspired to, it would be by God Himself going that whole length, and then imparting something of His own divine energies to the creature that had once been nothing. But, what is there in man to induce the Infinite Being, whose magnificence is above the heavens, to stoop so low as that? This is the language of reason.

But, on the other hand, who was it that made the heart of man so great and so ambitious that no creature can fill it. How comes it that while the heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declares how full of wisdom and power is every work of His hands (Psalm xviiii. 2), how comes it, we ask, that in man alone there is no proportion, no order? Could it be that the great Creator has ordered all things, excepting man alone, with measure, and number, and weight? (Wisdom xi. 21) That one creature who is the masterpiece of the whole creation, that creature for whom all the rest was intended as for its king, is he to be the only one that is a failure, and to live as a perpetual proclaimer that his Maker could not, or would not, be wise, when he made Man? Far from us be such a blasphemy! God is love, says Saint John (1 John iv. 8), and love is the knot which mere human philosophy can never loosen, and therefore must ever leave unsolved the problem of man’s desire for the Infinite.

Yes, God is charity. God is love. The wonder in all this question is not our loving and longing for God, but that He should have first loved us (1 John iv. 10). God is love, and love must have union. And union makes the united like one another. Oh the riches of the Divine Nature in which are infinite Power, and Wisdom, and Love! These three constitute, by their divine relations, that blessed Trinity which has been the light and joy of our souls ever since that bright Sunday’s Feast, which we kept in its honour! Oh the depth of the divine counsels in which that which is willed by boundless Love finds, in infinite Wisdom, how to fulfil in work what will be to the glory of Omnipotence!

Glory be to you, Holy Spirit! Your reign over the Church has but just begun this year of grace, and you are giving us light by which to understand the divine decrees. The day of your Pentecost brought us a new Law, a Law where all is brightness. And it was given to us in place of that Old one of shadows and types. The pedagogue, who schooled the infant world for the knowledge of truth, has been dismissed. Light has shone on us through the preaching of the Apostles, and the children of light, set free, knowing God and known by Him, are daily leaving behind them the weak and needy elements of early childhood (Galatians iii. 5, 24, 25; iv. 9). Scarcely, divine Spirit, was completed the triumphant Octave in which the Church celebrated your Coming and her own birth which that Coming brought, when all eager for the fulfilment of your mission of bringing to the Bride’s mind the things taught her by her Spouse (John xiv. 26), you showed her the divine and radiant mystery of the Trinity, that not only her Faith might acknowledge, but that her adoration and her praise might also worship it. And she and her children find their happiness in its contemplation and love. But, that first of the great mysteries of our faith, the unsearchable dogma of the Trinity, does not represent the whole richness of Christian revelation. You, O blessed Spirit, hasten to complete our instruction, and widen the horizon of our faith.

The knowledge you have given us of the essence and the life of the Godhead, was to be followed and completed by that of His external works, and the relations which this God has vouchsafed to establish between Himself and us. In this very week when we begin under your direction, to contemplate the precious gifts left us by our Jesus when He ascended on high (Psalms lxvii. 19), on this first Thursday, which reminds us of that holiest of all Thursdays — our Lord’s Supper — you, O divine Spirit, bring before our delighted vision the admirable Sacrament which is the compendium of the works of God, one in Essence and three in Persons; the adorable Eucharist, which is the divine memorial (Psalms cx. 4) of the wonderful things achieved by the united operation of Omnipotence, Wisdom and Love. The Most Holy Eucharist contains within itself the whole plan of God with reference to this world of ours. It shows how all previous ages have been gradually developing the divine intentions which were formed by infinite love and, by that same love, carried out to the end (John xiii. 1), yes, to the furthest extremity here below, that is, to Itself. For the Eucharist is the crowning of all the antecedent acts done by God in favour of His creatures. The Eucharist implies them all, it explains all.

Man’s aspirations for union with God —aspirations which are above his own nature, and yet so interwoven with it as to form one inseparable life — these strange longings can have but one possible cause, and it is God Himself — God who is the author of that being called Man. None but God has formed the immense capaciousness of man’s heart, and none but God is willing or able to fill it. Every act of the divine will, whether outside Himself or in, is pure love, and is referred to that Person of the Blessed Trinity who is the Third and who, by the mode of His Procession, is substantial and infinite love. Just as the Almighty Father sees all things before they exist in themselves in His only Word, who is the term of the divine intelligence, so likewise that those same things may exist in themselves, the same Almighty Father wishes them, in the Holy Ghost, who is to the divine will what the Word is to the infinite intelligence. The Spirit of Love, who is the final term to the fecundity of Persons in the divine essence, is, in God, the first beginning of the exterior works produced by God. In their execution, those exterior works are common to the Three Persons, but they are attributed to the Holy Ghost inasmuch as He, being the Spirit of Love, solicits the Godhead to act outside Itself. He is the Love who, with its divine weight and influence of love, sways the Blessed Trinity to the external act of creation: infinite Being leans, as it were, towards the deep abyss of nothingness, and out of that abyss, creates. The Holy Spirit opens the divine counsel, and says: “Let us make man to our image and likeness!” (Genesis i. 26) Then God creates man to His own image. He creates him to the image of God (Genesis i. 27) taking His own Word as the model to which He worked, for that Word is the sovereign archetype according to which is formed the more or less perfect essence of each created being. Like Him then, to whose image he was made, Man was endowed with understanding and free-will. As such, he would govern the whole inferior creation and make it serve the purposes of its Creator, that is, he would turn it into a homage of praise and glory to its God. And though that homage would be finite, yet would it be the best of which it was capable.

This is what is called the natural order. It is an immense world of perfect harmonies and, had it ever existed without any further perfection than its own natural one, it would have been a masterpiece of God’s goodness. And yet, it would have been far from realising the designs of the Spirit of Love.

With all the spontaneity of a will which was free not to act, and was as infinite as any other of the divine perfections, the Holy Spirit wills that Man should after this present life be a partaker of the very life of God by the face-to-face vision of the divine essence. Nay, the present life of the children of Adam here on this Earth is to put on, by anticipation, the dignity of that higher life, and this so literally, that the future one in Heaven is to be but the direct sequel, the consequent outgrowth, of the one led here below. And how is man, so poor a creature in himself, to maintain so high a standing? How is he to satisfy the cravings thus created within his heart? Fear not: the Holy Ghost has a work of His own, and He does it simultaneously with the act of creation, for the Three Persons infuse into their creature, Man, the image of their own divine attributes and, upon his finite and limited powers, graft, so to say, the powers of the divine nature. This being made for an end which is above created nature: these energies superadded to man’s natural powers, transforming, yet not destroying, them, and enabling the possessor to attain the end to which God calls him — is called the supernatural order, in contradistinction to that lower one, which would have been the order of nature, had not God, in His infinite goodness, thus elevated man above his own mere state as man, and that from the very first of his coming into existence.

Man will retain all those elements of the natural order which are essentials to his human nature. And with those essential elements, the functions proper to each: but there is a principle that, in every series, that should give the specific character to the aggregate which was the end proposed by the ruling mind. Now, the last end of Man was never other in the mind of his Creator than a supernatural one, and consequently the natural order, properly so called, never existed independently of, or separate from, the supernatural. There has been a proud school of philosophy, called “free and independent,” which professed to admit no truths except natural ones, and practise no other virtues than such as were merely human: but, such theories cannot hold. The disciples of godless and secular education, by the errors and crimes into which their unaided nature periodically leads them, demonstrate, almost as forcibly as the eminent sanctity of souls which have been faithful to grace, that mere nature, or mere natural goodness, never was and never can be, a permanent and normal state for man to live in. And even granting that he could so live, yet man has no right to reduce himself to a less exalted position, than the one intended for him by his Maker.

“By assigning us a supernatural vocation, God testified the love He bore us. But at the same time He acted as Lord, and evinced His authority over us. The favour He bestowed on us has created a duty corresponding. Men have a saying, and a true one: ‘He that has nobility, has obligations,’ and the principle holds with regard to the supernatural nobility, which it has pleased God to confer on us” (Mgr. Pie, Bishop of Poitiers, First Synodical Instruction on the Chief Errors of our times, viii.). It is a nobility which surpasses every other. It makes man not only an image of God, but like Him! (Genesis i. 26). Between God — the Infinite, the Eternal — and Man, who but a while back was nothing, and ever must be a creature — friendship and love are henceforth to be possible: such is the purpose of the capabilities, and powers, and the life, bestowed on the human creature by the Spirit of Love. So, then, those longings for His God, those thrillings of his very flesh, of which we were just now reading the inspired description by the Psalmist (Psalms lxii.) — they are not the outpourings of foolish enthusiasm! That thirsting after God, the strong, the living God; that hungering for the feast of divine union — no, they are not empty ravings (Psalms xli.). Made “partaker of the divine nature” (1 Peter i. 4), as Saint Peter so strongly words the mystery, is it to be wondered at if man be conscious of it, and lets himself be drawn by the uncreated flame, into the very central Fire, it came from to him? The Holy Spirit, too is present in his creature, and is witness of what Himself has produced there. He joins His own testimonies to that of our own conscience, and tells our spirit that we are truly what we feel ourselves to be — the sons of God (Romans viii. 16).

It is the same Holy Spirit who, secreting Himself in the innermost centre of our being, that He may foster and complete His work of love — yes, it is that same Spirit who at one time opens to our soul’s eye, by some sudden flash of light, the future glory that awaits us, and then inspires us with a sentiment of anticipated triumph (Ephesians i. 17, 18; Romans v. 2), and then, at another time, He breathes into us those unspeakable moanings (Romans viii. 26), those songs of the exile, whose voice is choked with the hot tears of love, for that his union with his God seems so long deferred. There are too certain delicious hymns, which coming from the very depths of souls wounded with divine love, make their way up to the throne of God. And the music is so sweet to Him that it almost looks as though it had been victorious, and had won the union! Such music of such souls does really win: if not the eternal union — for that could not be during this life of pilgrimage, and trials, and tears — still it wins wonderful unions here below, which human language has not the power to describe.

In this mysterious song between the Divine Spirit and man’s soul, we are told by the Apostle, that “ He, who searches hearts, knows what the Spirit desires, because he asks for the saints according to God” (Romans viii. 27). What a desire must not that be which the Holy Spirit desires! It is as powerful as the God who desires it. It is a desire, new, indeed, inasmuch as it is in the heart of man, but eternal, inasmuch as it is the desire of the Holy Spirit, whose Procession is before all ages. In response to this desire of the Spirit, the great God, from the infinite depths of His eternity, resolved to manifest Himself in time and unite Himself to man while yet a wayfarer, He resolved thus to manifest and unite Himself, not in His own Person, but in His Son, who is the brightness of His own glory, and the true figure of His own substance (Hebrews i. 3) God so loved the world (John iii. 16) as to give it His own Word —that divine Wisdom, who, from the bosom of His Father, had devoted Himself to our human nature. That bosom of the Father was imaged by what the Scripture calls Abraham’s bosom, where, under the ancient covenant, were assembled all the souls of the just, as in the place where they were to rest till the way into the Holy of Holies should be opened for the elect (Hebrews ix. 8). Now, it was from this bosom of His eternal Father, which the Psalmist calls the bride-chamber (Psalms xviii. 6), that the Bridegroom came forth at the appointed time, leaving His heavenly abode and coming down into this poor Earth to seek His Bride that, when He had made her His own, He might lead her back with Himself into His kingdom where He would celebrate the eternal nuptials. This is the triumphant procession of the Bridegroom in all His beauty (Psalms xliv. 5), a procession of which the Prophet Micheas, when speaking of his passing through Bethlehem, says that his going forth is from the days of eternity (Michaes v. 2). Yes, truly from the days of eternity, for as we are taught by the sublime principles of Catholic theology, the connection between the eternal procession of the divine Persons and the temporal mission is so intimate that one same eternity unites the two together in God: eternally, the Trinity has beheld the ineffable birth of the Only Begotten Son in the bosom of the Father. Eternally, with the same look, it has beheld Him coming as Spouse from that same Father’s bosom.

If we now come to compare the eternal decrees of God one with the other, it is not difficult to recognise which of them holds the chief place and, as such, comes first in the divine intention of creation. God the Father has made all things with a view to this union of human nature with His Son — union so close, that, for one individual member of that nature, it was to go so far as a personal identification with the Only Begotten of the Father. So universal, too, was the union to be, that all the members were to partake of it, in a greater or less degree. Not one single individual of the race was to be excluded, except through his own fault, from the divine nuptials with eternal Wisdom which was made visible in a Man, the most beautiful above all the children of men (Psalms lxiv. 2). For as the Apostle says, “God, who heretofore commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has Himself shined in our hearts, giving them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in and by the face of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians iv. 6). So that the mystery of the Marriage-Feast is, in all truth, the mystery of the world and the kingdom of Heaven is well likened to a King who made a Marriage for his Son (Matthew xxii. 1-14).

But where is the meeting between the King’s Son and his Betrothed to take place? Where is this mysterious union to be completed? Who is there to tell us what is the dowry of the Bride, the pledge of the alliance? Is it known who is the Master who provides the nuptial banquet, and what sorts of food will be served to the guests? The answer to these questions is given this very day throughout the Earth. It is given with loud triumphant joy. There can be no mistake. It is evident from the sublime message which Earth and Heaven re-echo, that He who is come is the Divine Word. He is adorable Wisdom, and is come forth from His royal abode to utter His voice in our very streets, and cry out at the head of multitudes, and speak His words in the entrance of city gates (Proverbs i. 20, 21). He stands on the top of the highest places by the way, in the midst of the paths, and makes Himself heard by the sons of men (Proverbs viii. 1-4). He bids His servants go to the tower and the city walls, with this His message: “Come! Eat my Bread, and drink the Wine which I have mingled for you; for Wisdom has built herself a House, supported on seven pillars; there she has slain her victims, mingled her wine, and set forth her table (Proverbs ix. 1-5): all things are ready; come to the marriage!” (Matthew xxii. 4).

Epistle – 1 Corinthians xi. 23‒29

Brethren, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and giving thanks, broke it and said: “Take and eat: this is my body which will be delivered for you: do this in commemoration of me.” In like manner, also, the chalice, after He had supped, saying: “This chalice is the new testament in my blood: do this, as often as you will drink, in commemoration of me. For as often as you will eat this bread and drink the chalice, you will show the death of the Lord until he comes.” Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks the chalice of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But, let a man prove himself: and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice. For he who eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The Holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, is the very centre of the Christian religion, and therefore our Lord would have a fourfold testimony to be given in the inspired writings to its Institution. Besides the account given by Saints Matthew, Mark and Luke, we have also that of Saint Paul, which has just been read to us, and which he received from the lips of Jesus Himself, who vouchsafed to appear to him after his conversion, and instruct him.

Saint Paul lays particular stress on the power given by our Lord to His disciples of renewing the act which He Himself had just been doing. He tells us what the Evangelists had not explicitly mentioned that as often as a Priest consecrates the Body and Blood of Christ, he show (he announces) the Death of the Lord. And by that expression tells us that the Sacrifice of the Cross, and that of our Altars, is one and the same. It is likewise by the immolation of our Redeemer on the Cross, that the Flesh of this Lamb of God is truly meat, and His Blood truly drink, as we will be told in a few moments by the Gospel. Let not the Christian, therefore, forget it, not even on this day of festive triumph. The Church insists on the same truth in her Collect of this Feast: it is the teaching which she keeps repeating, through this formula, throughout the entire Octave: and her object in this is to impress vividly on the minds of her children this, the last and earnest injunction of our Jesus: “As often as you will drink of this cup of the new Testament, do it for the commemoration of me.” The selection she makes of this passage of Saint Paul for the Epistle should impress the Christian with this truth — that the divine Flesh which feeds his soul, was prepared on Calvary and that, although the Lamb of God is now living and impassible, He became our food, our nourishment, by the cruel death which He endured. The sinner who has made his peace with God will partake of this sacred Body with deep compunction, reproaching himself for having shed its Blood by his sins: the just man will approach the holy Table with humility, remembering how he too has had but too great a share in causing the innocent Lamb to suffer and that if he be at present in the state of grace, he owes it to the Blood of the Victim, whose Flesh is about to be given to him for his nourishment.

But let us dread, and dread above all things, the sacrilegious daring spoken against in such strong language by our Apostle — and which, by a monstrous contradiction, would attempt to put again to death Him who is the Author of Life. And this attempt to be made in the very banquet which was procured for us men by the Precious Blood of this Saviour! “Let a man prove himself,” says the Apostle, “and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of the chalice.” This proving one’s self is sacramental confession, which must be made by him who feels himself guilty of a grievous sin which has never before been confessed. However sorry he may be for it, were he even reconciled to God by an act of perfect contrition, the injunction of the Apostle, interpreted by the custom of the Church and the decisions of her Councils, forbids his approaching the holy Table until he has submitted his sin to the power of the Keys.

Sequence of Corpus Christi

Praise your Saviour, O Sion! Praise your Guide and Shepherd, in hymns and canticles. As much as you have power, so also dare; for He is above all praise, nor can you praise Him enough.

This day, there is given to us a special theme of praise—the living and life-giving Bread, which, as our faith assures us, was given to the Twelve brethren, as they sat at the Table of the holy Supper.

Let our praise be full, let it be sweet; let our soul’s jubilee be joyous, let it be beautiful; for we are celebrating that great day, on which is commemorated the first institution of this Table.

In this Table of the new King, the new Pasch of the new Law puts an end to the old Passover. Newness puts the old to flight, and so does truth the shadow; the light drives night away.

What Christ did at that Supper, that He said was to be done in remembrance of Him. Taught by His sacred institutions, we consecrate the Bread and Wine into the Victim of Salvation.

This is the dogma given to Christians — that bread passes into flesh, and wine into blood. What you understand not, what you see not — that let a generous faith confirm you in, beyond nature’s course.

Under the different species — which are signs not things — there hidden lie things of infinite worth. The Flesh is food, the Blood is drink; yet Christ is whole, under each species.

He is not cut by the receiver, nor broken, nor divided: He is taken whole. He is received by one, He is received by a thousand; the one receives as much as all; nor is He consumed, who is received.

The good receive, the bad receive — but with the difference of life or death. ’Tis death to the bad, ’tis life to the good: lo! how unlike is the effect of the one like receiving.

And when the Sacrament is broken, waver not! but remember, that there is as much under each fragment, as is hid under the whole.

Of the substance that is there, there is no division; it is but the sign that is broken and He who is the Signified, is not thereby diminished, either as to state or stature.

Lo! the Bread of Angels is made the food of pilgrims; verily, it is the Bread of the children, not to be cast to dogs.

It is foreshown in figures—when Isaac is slain, when the Paschal Lamb is prescribed, when Manna is given to our fathers.

O good Shepherd! True Bread! Jesus! have mercy on us: feed us, defend us: give us to see good things in the land of the living.

O You, who know and can do all things, who feeds us mortals here below, make us your companions in the banquet yonder above, and your joint-heirs, and fellow-citizens with the Saints! Amen. Alleluia.

Gospel – John vi. 56‒59

At that time Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews, “My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the Father; so, he who eats me, the same, also, will live by me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The beloved Disciple could not remain silent on the Mystery of Love. But, at the time when he wrote his Gospel, the institution of the Eucharist had been sufficiently recorded by the three Evangelists who had preceded him, as also by the Apostle of the Gentiles. Instead, therefore, of repeating what these had written, he completed it by relating the solemn promise made by Jesus on the banks of Lake Tiberias a year before the Last Supper. He was surrounded by the thousands who were in admiration at his having miraculously multiplied the loaves and fishes: Jesus takes the opportunity of telling them that He Himself is the true bread come down from Heaven, and which, unlike the manna given to their fathers by Moses, could preserve man from death. Life is the best of all gifts, as death is the worst of evils. Life exists in God as in its source (Psalms xxxv. 10). He alone can give it to whom He pleases, and restore it to him who has lost it. Man, who was created in grace, lost his life when he sinned, and incurred death. But God so loved the world, as to send it, lost as it was, His Son (John iii. 16) with the mission of restoring man to life. True God of true God, Light of Light, the Only Begotten Son is, likewise, true Life of true Life, by nature: and, as the Father enlightens them that are in darkness, by this Son, who is His Light, so, likewise, He gives life to them that are dead, and He gives it to them in this same Son of His, who is His living Image.

The Word of God, then, came among men, that they might have life, and abundant life (John x. 10). And whereas it is the property of food to increase and maintain life, therefore did He become our Food, our living and life-giving Food, which has come down from Heaven. Partaking of the life eternal which He has in His Father’s bosom, the Flesh of the Word communicates this same life to them that eat It. That, (as Saint Cyril of Alexandria observes) which, of its own nature, is corruptible, cannot be brought to life in any other way, than by its corporal union with the body of Him who is life by nature: now, just as two pieces of wax melted together by the fire make but one, so are we and Christ made one by our partaking of His Body and Blood. This life, therefore, which resides in the Flesh of the Word, made ours within us, will be no more overcome by death. On the day appointed, this life will throw off the chains of the old enemy and will triumph over corruption in these our bodies, making them immortal. Hence it is, that the Church, with her delicate feelings both as Bride and Mother, selects from this same passage of Saint John, her Gospel for the daily Mass of the Dead, thus drying up the tears of the living who are mourning over their departed friends, and consoling them by bringing them into the presence of the holy Host, which is the source of true life, and the centre of all our hopes. Thus was it to be, that not only the soul was to be renewed by her contact with the Word, but even the body, earthly and material as it is, was to share, in its way, of what our Saviour called the Spirit that quickens (John vi. 64).

“They,” as Saint Gregory of Nyssa has so beautifully said, “who have been led by an enemy’s craft to take poison, neutralise, by some other potion, the power which would cause death. And as was the deadly, so likewise the curative must be taken into the very bowels of the sufferer, that so the efficacy of that which brings relief may permeate through the whole body. Thus we, having tasted that which ruined our nature, require a something which will restore and put to right that which was disordered and that, when this salutary medicine will be within us, it may, as an antidote, drive out the mischief of the poison, which had previously been taken into the body. And what is this (salutary medicine)? No other than that Body, which had both been shown to be stronger than death, and was the beginning of our life. For, says the Apostle, as a little leaven makes the whole paste to be like itself, so, likewise, that Body, which God had willed should be put to death, when it is within ours, transmutes and transfers it wholly to Itself... Now, the only way by which a substance may be thus got into the body, is by its being taken as food and drink.”

29 MAY – SAINT MARY MAGDALENE OF PAZZI (Virgin)

Caterina de' Pazzi was born into a noble family in 1566. At the age of 16 she entered the Carmelite Convent of Our Lady of the Angels in Florence and took the name Maria Magdalena. There she became a model of every virtue. Such was her purity that she ignored everything opposed to it. She received a command from God (which she fulfilled) of fasting on bread and water for five years, except on Sundays on which she might partake of a Lenten diet.

 

She mortified her body by a hair-shirt, discipline, cold, abstinence, watching, want and every kind of suffering. Such was the ardour of divine love that burned within her that, not being able to bear the heat, she was obliged to temper it by applying cold water to her breast. She was frequently in a state of rapture, and the wonderful ecstasies she had were almost daily. In these states she was permitted to penetrate into heavenly mysteries, and was favoured by God with extraordinary graces. Thus strengthened, she had to endure a long combat with the princes of darkness, and aridity and desolation of spirit, abandonment by all creatures, and various temptations: God so willed it that she might become a model of invincible patience and profound humility.

She was remarkable for her charity towards others. She would often sit up all night, doing the work of the Sisters or in waiting on the sick whose sores she sometimes healed by sucking their wounds. She wept bitterly over the perdition of infidels and sinners, and offered to suffer every sort of torment so that they might be saved.

Several years before her death she heroically besought Jesus to take from her the heavenly delights with which He favoured her, and was frequently heard saying, “To suffer, not to die.” Worn out by a long and painful illness, she died on the twenty-fifth of May in 1607 at the age of 41. Many miracles having been wrought by her merits, both before and after death, she was beatified by Pope Urban VIII and was canonised in 1669 by Pope Clement IX.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

Our Paschal Calendar gives us three illustrious virgins of the beautiful Italy. We have already kept the feast of the valiant Catherine of Siena. In a few days we will be honouring the memory of Angela de Merici, surrounded by her school-children. Today it is the fair lily of Florence, Magdalene de Pazzi, who embalms the whole Church with the fragrance of her name and intercession. She was the loving imitatrix of our Crucified Jesus. Was it not just that she should have some share in the joy of His Resurrection?

Magdalene de Pazzi was one of the brightest ornaments of the Order of Carmel, by her angelic purity, and by the ardour of her love for God. Like Saint Philip Neri, she was one of the grandest manifestations of the Divine Charity that is found in the true Church. Magdalene in her peaceful cloister, and Philip in his active labours for the salvation of souls — both made it their ambition to satisfy that desire expressed by our Jesus when He said: “I am come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be kindled” (Luke xii. 49).The life of this Spouse of Christ was one continued miracle. Her ecstasies and raptures were almost of every-day occurrence. The lights given to her regarding the mysteries were extraordinary, and in order to prepare her for those sublime communications, God would have her go through the severest trials of the spiritual life. She triumphed over them all and, her love having found its nourishment in them, she could not be happy without suffering, for nothing else seemed to satisfy the longings of the love that burned within her. At the same time, her heart was filled to overflowing with charity for her neighbour: she would have saved all mankind, and her charity to all, even for their temporal well-being, was something heroic. God blessed Florence on her account, and as to the city itself, she so endeared herself to its people by her admirable virtues that devotion to her, even to this day, which is more than [three] hundred years since her death, is as fervent as ever it was.

One of the most striking proofs of the divine origin and holiness of the Church is to be found in such privileged souls as Magdalene de Pazzi, on whom we see the mysteries of our salvation acting with such direct influence. “God so loved the world, as to give it His Only Begotten Son” (John iii. 16), and this Son of God deigns to love some of His creatures with such special affection, and to lavish on them such extraordinary favours, that all men may have some idea of the love with which His Sacred Heart is inflamed for this world, which He redeemed at the price of His Blood. Happy those Christians that appreciate and relish these instances of Jesus’ special love! Happy they that can give Him thanks for bestowing such gifts on some of our fellow-creatures! They have the true light, whereas they that have an unpleasant feeling at hearing of such things, and are angry at the thought that there can be an intimacy between God and any soul of which they are not worthy — this class of people prove that there is a great deal of darkness mixed up with their faith.

* * * * *

Your life here below, O Magdalene, resembled that of an Angel who was sent by God to assume our weak and fallen nature, and be subject to its laws. Your soul was ceaselessly aspiring to a life which was all heavenly, and your Jesus was ever giving you that thirst of love which can only be quenched at the waters of life everlasting. A heavenly light revealed to you such admirable mysteries, such treasures of truth and beauty, that your heart —unequal to the sweetness thus given to it by the Holy Ghost, sought relief in sacrifice and suffering. It seemed to you, as though there was but one way of making God a return for His favours — the annihilation of self. Seraphic lover of our God, how are we to imitate you? What is our love, when we compare it to yours? And yet, we can imitate you. The year of the Church’s Liturgy was your very life. Each of its Seasons did its work in you, and brought you new light and love. The divine Babe of Bethlehem, the bleeding Victim of the Cross, the glorious Conqueror of Death, the Holy Ghost radiant with His seven gifts — each of these great realities enraptured you and your soul, renewed by the annual succession of the mysteries, was transformed into Him who, that He might win our hearts, gives these sublime celebrations to His Church. Your love of souls was great during your sojourn here. It is more ardent now that you are in possession of the Sovereign Good. Obtain for us, Magdalene, light to see the riches which enraptured you, and love to love the treasures which enamoured you. O riches! Treasures! Is it possible that they are ours too?

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Aurelia, the birthday of St. Restitutus, martyr.

At Iconium, a town of Isauria, in the time of the emperor Aurelian, the martyrdom of the Saints Conon and his son, a child twelve years of age, who were laid on a grate over burning coals sprinkled with oil, were racked and exposed to the fire and finally, having their hands crushed with a mallet, they breathed their last.

The same day, in the time of the emperor Honorius, the birthday of the holy martyrs Sisinius, Martyrius and Alexander who were persecuted by the Gentiles of Anaunia and obtained the crown of martyrdom, as is related by Paulinus in the Life of St. Ambrose.

At Caesarea Philippi, the holy martyrs Theodosia, mother of the martyr St. Procopius, and twelve other noble matrons, who ended their life by decapitation in the persecution of Diocletian.

In Umbria, the passion of fifteen hundred and twenty-five holy martyrs.

At Treves, blessed Maximus, bishop and confessor, who received with honour the patriarch St. Athanasius banished by the Arian persecutors.

At Verona, St. Maximus, bishop.

At Arcanum, in Campania, St. Eleutherius, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

29 MAY – WEDNESDAY AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have not as yet reached the Feast of the divine Memorial, not until tomorrow will we have it in all its splendour. But this evening at first Vespers the Church will begin her acclamations to the Eternal Priest. And, although the Sovereign Pontiffs have not ordained that a Vigil, properly so called, will precede the Feast of Corpus Christi, yet have they granted indulgences to a voluntary fast practised on this its eve. Let us now resume the history of the Church’s worship of the great mystery.

We have already seen how the unity of the Church is based on the Eucharist. Our Lord Jesus Christ in that Sacrament is the corner-stone on which rises, in the harmony of its several parts, the temple of living stones built to the glory of God (Ephesians ii. 21). Jesus is the High Priest (Hebrews v. 1), ordained for men, Himself being Man, that He may present to God the homage of His brethren by offering to His and their Father a Sacrifice in the name of all. And, although this homage of regenerate mankind — this Sacrifice which is the highest expression of that homage — owes its whole worth to the infinite dignity of Him who is the Head of the Church — yet the Sacrifice is only complete when there is the union of the Members with the Head. The Head must have the Body. The Church is, as the Apostle tells us, the fullness, the completion, of Him who is filled in all (Ephesians i. 22, 23). The Church perfects the Sacrifice as an integral portion of the Victim who is offered on the altar. What is true of the Church is true, likewise, of each one of us who are Members of Christ. And we are really His Members, provided we be united in the great Action of the Sacrifice by that intimate union which makes one Body of many Members.

In this consists the social influence of the Eucharist. The human family had been broken up by sin. It regains its lost unity by the Blood of the Lamb and the original intention which God had in creating the world is fulfilled. After all other beings, there came forth, out of nothing, the creature Man. He was to give a voice of praise to the whole of creation for, his own twofold nature, material and spiritual, made him the compendium of all other creatures. When he was restored by redemption he regained his position in the glorious choir of beings. The Eucharist, the Thanksgiving, the praise by excellence, is the sweet produce of the human race. The Eucharist — that grand hymn of divine Wisdom sung to the King of ages — ascends from this Earth of ours, blending the two harmonies into one: the ineffable harmony of the eternal Canticle, that is, the Word in the Father’s bosom— and the harmony of the new Canticle which is repeated by the choir of creatures to the glory of their Creator.

The Ages of Faith lived on this grand truth. They thoroughly understood the priceless worth of the gift bestowed by the Man-God upon His Church. Appreciating the honour thence accruing to our Earth, they felt themselves bound to respond to it, in the name of all creatures, by giving to the celebration of the sacred Mystery everything that ritual could impart of grandeur and solemnity. The Liturgy for the Christians of those times was exactly what is implied by the word: it was the public function, the social act, by excellence. And as such it claimed every sort of external pomp, and the presence of the whole people round the altar was looked upon as a matter of course. As to the lawfulness of what are called Private Masses, it would be easy to prove by most authentic facts of history that what the Catholic Church teaches regarding them was her teaching from the very commencement. And yet, practically, and as a general rule, the richness of ceremonial, the enthusiasm of sacred chant, the magnificence of sacred rites, were, for a long period, regarded as inseparable from the offering up of the Holy Sacrifice.

The solemnities of divine service as celebrated in any Catholic Cathedral on the greatest Feast in the Year are but a feeble image of the magnificent forms of the ancient Liturgies, such as we described them yesterday. The Church herself, whose desires for what is most perfect never vary, ever evinces a marked predilection for the remnants she has been able to keep up of her ancient forms of worship. But as far as the generality of her people is concerned, there can be no doubt of the existence of a growing feeling of indifference for the external pomp with which the Holy Sacrifice is so deservedly accompanied. Whatever demonstrations of Christian piety still exist are directed elsewhere. The cultus of the divine Presence in the Eucharist as developed in these our own times, is certainly a blow to the heresy which denies that Presence. It is, too, a joy to every Catholic who loves God. But care must be taken, lest a movement which is so profitable to individual souls, and so redounding to the glory of the Holy Sacrament, should be turned by the craft of the enemy against the Eucharist itself. Now, this might easily be the case if, in consequence of such devotion being ill-regulated, the very primary object of the Eucharistic dogma, which is Sacrifice, were permitted to lose its place, either in the appreciation, or in the practical religion, of the Faithful.

In the admirable connection existing throughout the whole body of Christian revelation, there can be no such thing as one dogma becoming a danger to another. Every new truth, or every truth presented under a new aspect, is a progress in the Church, and an acquisition for her children. But the progress is then only a true one when in its application, the new truth, or its new aspect, is not treated with such prominence as to throw a more important truth into the shade. Surely no family would ever count that gain of new property to be a boon, which would jeopardise or lessen the rich patrimony which past ages had secured. The principle is a self-evident one and must be borne in mind when studying the different phases of the history of any human society, and especially when the History of the Church is in question. If the Holy Spirit, who is ever urging the Church to what is best, incessantly adorning her for the eternal nuptial, and is decking her brow with a gradual increase of light, yet is it but too often the case that the human element of which she partakes through her members, her children, makes its weight tell upon the Bride of Christ. When that happens, she redoubles her maternal solicitude for these her children. They are too delicate to live on the summits and bear the bracing atmosphere to which their fore-fathers were accustomed. She herself continues her aspirations after what is most perfect, and approaches gradually nearer to heaven. But for the sake of her weakly children she quits the mountain paths she loved to tread in better times, for those paths kept her closer to her divine Spouse. She comes lower down, she is content to lose something of her external charms, she stoops that she may the better reach the children she has to save. This her condescension is admirable, but it certainly gives no right to the children who live in these less healthy times to think themselves better than their forefathers. Is a sick man better than the one who is in health, because the food which is indispensable for keeping up the little strength he has is given to him under new forms, and such as will suit his debilitated frame?

Because, in these our days, a certain increase of devotion towards the divine Host who dwells in our tabernacles has been observed in some souls, and the external demonstration of this devotion is under a new form, it has been asserted, that “no age ever equalled our own in the cultus of the Most Holy Sacrament!” And because of this holy enthusiasm [the nineteenth] century, which, with its restless activity, has opened out so many new methods of devotion, has been called by a certain writer, “the great age of the Eucharist!” Would to God these assertions were correct, for it is quite true, and history is rich in bearing testimony to the fact “that an age is more or less glorious according to its devotion towards the adorable Eucharist.” But it is no less true that if the different centuries be compared with each other for devotion towards the Sacrament of Love — which, at all times, is the very life of the Church — there can be no doubt but that that ought to be counted as the golden age in which our Lord’s intentions in instituting the divine Mystery were the best understood and carried out, and not that in which individual devotion was busiest.

Now leaving aside for the present all principles connected with dogma, and which will find their place more appropriately a few days later, we have history to bear witness to this fact that, so long as the western nations kept up their faith and fervour, the Church, who is the faithful and sure interpreter of her Jesus’ intentions, maintained the discipline observed in the worship practised towards the Eucharist during the early ages. After her two-fold victory over the pagan persecutions and the obstinate dogmatism of the Emperors of Byzantium, the Church, the noble depository of the New Testament, was in possession of a freedom greater than she has had at any other period. Her children, too, made it their perfection to follow her every wish. Thus free to act as she knew was best and sure to be obeyed, she kept to the way of Eucharistic worship which her Martyrs had followed and her Doctors had so enthusiastically developed in their writings: that is, she took the energies of the new children she had received by the conversion of barbarian nations, and centred them in the Sacrifice, that is, in the holy fatigues of solemn Mass, and the Canonical Hours, which are but a natural irradiation of the Sacrifice.

Nothing in those times was more Catholic, nothing less individual and private, than the Eucharistic worship thus based on the social character which pertains to the Sacrifice. It was the uppermost idea even in such of the Faithful as, through sickness or other personal reasons, were obliged to communicate, of the universal Victim, separate from the rest of the people. It was the one leading thought which made them turn their hearts and their adorations towards the gilded dove, or the ivory tower, in which were conserved, under the mysterious integrity of the Sacrament, the precious remnants of the Sacrifice. Faith in the Real Presence, a faith quite as animated and deep as any that can be witnessed in our own times, was the soul of the whole Liturgy. It was the basis of the entire system of the Church’s rites and ceremonies, all of which are unmeaning if you take away the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist. This dogma was admitted by all the children of the Church as a principle beyond discussion. It was their dearest treasure. It was a truth which was both foundation stone and roofing of the House built among men by Eternal Wisdom. To a superficial observer it might seem as though the Faithful of those early ages were less intent upon it than we now are: but is it not always the case that the rock which supports the edifice, and the timber which roofs it, call for less solicitude when the building is under no risk, either from the indifference of its inmates, or from the attacks of enemies outside?

The Church herself cannot grow decrepit, but it is a law in history that, even within her fold, and in spite of the vitality she imparts to nations, no society ever maintains itself long at its highest pitch of perfection. Men are like stars in this, that their apogee marks the period of their decline. They only seem to mount on high that they may speedily descend: and, after the fullest vigour of age, we gradually approach the impotency of the old man. So was it to be with Christendom itself, with that grand confederation which had been established by the Church in the strong unity of unfeigned charity, and of faith unalloyed by error. The Crusades were for a second time rousing the world to holy enterprise. The preaching of Saint Bernard was stirring mankind to zeal for the cause of God. The impulse was so immense that it seemed as though the event marked the culminating point of Christ’s reign on Earth, and secured perpetuity to the power of the Church. And yet, that was the very period when old signs of decay returned, and with fresh intensity. The heroic Pontiff Saint Gregory VII had stemmed the evil for a considerable time, but at the period we speak of, a relapse set in and advanced with its work of ravage till it brought about the great revolt of the fifteenth century and the general apostasy of nations.

The celebrated prophetess of the Middle Ages, Saint Hildegard, was then scanning with her eagle eye the miseries of her own day, and the still more sombre threats of the future. She that was used to write the messages of God to Pontiffs and Kings, penned these words in a Letter to Werner and his brother Priests of Kircheim. They had written to Hildegard and solicited her reply:

“It was while lying for a long time on a bed of sickness in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation one thousand one hundred and seventy, that I saw, wakeful both in body and mind, a most beautiful image having a woman’s appearance: she was all perfect in her suavity, and most dear in the charms of her beauty which was such as that the human mind could in no wise comprehend it. Her stature was so great that it reached from earth even up to Heaven. Her face, too, beamed with exceeding brightness, and her eye was fixed on Heaven. She was clad in a spotless garment, made of white silk. The mantle which covered her was adorned with most precious stones, of emerald, sapphire and likewise of beads and pearls. The shoes on her feet were of onyx. But her face was covered with dust, and her garment was rent on the right side, and her mantle had lost its elegant beauty, and her shoes were dimmed. And she, with a loud and plaintive voice, cried out towards the high heavens: ‘Hearken, Heaven, that my face is defiled! And wail, Earth, that my garment is rent! And you, abyss, tremble, because my shoes are dimmed. Foxes have holes and birds of the air nests (Matthew viii. 20), but I have not helper or comforter, nor staff on which to lean, and by which to have support... They that should have adorned me in every way have in all these things, abandoned me. For it is they that besmear my face by dragging the Body and Blood of my Spouse into the great uncleanness of the impurity of their living, and the great filth of their fornications and adulteries; and by buying and selling holy things, defiling them, as a child would be, were he put down in mire before swine... The wounds of Christ my Spouse are contaminated... Princes and a headlong people will rush on you, priests! They will cast you forth, and put you to flight, and will take your riches away from you...They will say: Let us cast out from the Church these adulterers, and extortioners, and men that are full of all wickedness! And in doing this, they will have it that they do a service to God because they say that it is by you that the Church is defiled.... By God’s permission, many nations will begin to rage against you in their judgements, and many people will devise vain things concerning you, for they will count as nothing your priestly office and your consecration. Kings of the earth will assist these in your overthrow, and they will thirst after the earthly things you possess; and the Princes in whose dominions you live will make a convention in this one plan — that they may drive you out of their territories, because you, by your most wicked deeds, have driven away the innocent Lamb from your midst. And I heard a voice from heaven, saying: This image is the Church!’”

What a fearful description of the evils brought on the Church in the twelfth century! What a prophecy of its far off results! These miseries were in keeping with the way in which the august Mystery of the Altar was treated. It has always been so. The disorders of the sanctuary necessarily brought about relaxation in the people. They grew wearied of receiving the heavenly food from hands that were but too often unworthy ones. The guests at the banquet of divine Wisdom became rare, so rare indeed that in 1215 a General Council, the Fourth of Lateran, passed the well-known law which obliges, under the severest penalties, the Faithful of both sexes to receive Communion at least once in the year. The evil became so great that the legislation of Councils and the genius of Innocent III, the last of the great Popes of the Middle Ages, would not have sufficed to arrest it, had not God given to His Church the two Saints, Dominic and Francis: they reclaimed the Priesthood and for a time brought back the people to the practice of Christian piety.

But the ancient forms of the Liturgy had perished during the interval of the crisis. The oblation in common which supposed that all communicated in the divine Victim, had given place to private foundations, and to honoraries or stipendium. In themselves they were quite lawful, but they had been so considerably increased by the introduction of the mendicant Orders that a change in the Liturgy was the consequence. Private Masses for special intentions were multiplied in order to satisfy obligations which had been contracted with individual donors, and by a necessary consequence the imposing rite of con-celebration maintained in Rome till the thirteenth century entirely disappeared in the Western Church. The Sacrifice of the Mass was no longer brought before the Faithful with the majestic ceremonial which in former times had secured to it a preponderance over the whole religion and life of the Christian people. The Holy Eucharist soon began to be given out of the time of Mass, and for reasons which were not always serious ones. More than one scholastic theologian encouraged the practice. If this scholastic had not true learning on his side, he had his sharp definitions and categorical divisions, and Communion seemed to become, in the minds of some men, a something distinct by itself in the institution of the Eucharist. This was a forerunner of what we so often find practised in our own times: Communions made isolated and furtively on principle, that is, in accordance with an ideal of spirituality which has a dread of a crowd, and a repugnance to the excitement of the Church’s ceremonies!

The notion, then, of the Sacrifice which includes the chief motive of the Presence of the Incarnate Word in the Eucharist was no longer brought before the people with the emphatic pre-eminence of former ages. As a counter result of this, the truth of this Presence of our God under the Eucharistic species gained an ascendancy over the soul in a more exclusive, and therefore, in a more impressive and direct way. It was at this period that, out of a spirit of holy fear, and from a feeling of respect, a feeling which can never be too great, several ancient usages began to be discontinued. Usages which were established at first with a view the better to realise or express the application of the Sacrifice, were afterwards suppressed as exposing the sacred species to involuntary irreverence. It was thus that the custom of giving the chalice to the laity, and communion to infants, fell into desuetude.

An immense ritual change then was brought about. The Church accepted it, although she was aware of its being, in more than one point, a degeneracy as compared with former ages. The time had come when the grand social forms of the Liturgy requiring, as they did, the strong union of Christian nations for the basis, would be but unrealities. The jealous mistrust of States against the Church, that is, against the power which was the sole bond of mutual union between the several nations, was ever on the increase and only waited for an occasion to break out into open hostility. Diplomacy became a system of rupture between one country and another, just as the Church had been the framer and maintainer of their union.

If the evil from within was thus great, still greater were the dangers to which the Faithful were exposed by the onslaughts of heresy. And yet, it is precisely in such a time as this, that is most manifested the superhuman prudence of the Church. In defence of that which is the essential element of her existence here below — in defence, that is, of Faith — she formed a rampart out of the very ruins caused by the liturgical revolution he had been compelled to accept. She sanctioned with her authority what was worthy of sanction, and thereby controlled the movement. She took advantage of the increase of devotion to the Real Presence which the movement had excited. She gave a fresh direction to her Liturgy by substituting a ceaseless expression of the dogma for the less precise, though not less complete and far grander, forms of the earlier period. It was a reply to heresy, all the stronger because of its being more direct. We have already seen how, in consequence of the covert attacks of false doctrine, there was an evident reason felt in the thirteenth century for instituting a special Feast in honour of the Eucharist as the Mystery of Faith. That reason became sheer necessity at the approach, foreseen by God alone, of the bold triumph of the sacramentarian heresy. It was necessary to forestall the attack, and by so doing to render the coming assault less hurtful to the Christian world, and less injurious to that Lord who is present in the Sacrament of His Love. The means for efficaciously realising these two ends was the development of exterior devotion to the Real Presence. The Church would thus proclaim her unshaken faith in the dogma, and the adorable Sacrament would receive, by the renewed fervour of faithful souls, a compensation for the indifference and insults of others.

Established throughout the world by the authority of the Roman Pontiffs, the Feast of Corpus Christi was therefore both in itself and in its developments, as we were observing yesterday, the commencement of a new phase in the Catholic worship of the holy Eucharist. Once the Feast was instituted, there followed Processions, Benedictions, Forty-Hours, Expositions, Watchings in adoration, each of which was an additional affirmation of the Church’s belief in the Real Presence. The piety of her children was rekindled, and to that Lord who, for our sakes, dwells under the sacramental species, there was offered that tribute of homage which is so justly His due.