Cur Deus Homo by St. Anselm of Canterbury - Book II: Chapters I - V

BOOK SECOND

CHAPTER I

How man was made holy by God, so as to be happy in the enjoyment of God.

Anselm. It ought not to be disputed that rational nature was made holy by God, in order to be happy in enjoying Him. For to this end is it rational, in order to discern justice and injustice, good and evil, and between the greater and the lesser good. Otherwise it was made rational in vain. But God made it not rational in vain. Wherefore, doubtless, it was made rational for this end. In like manner is it proved that the intelligent creature received the power of discernment for this purpose, that he might hate and shun evil, and love and choose good, and especially the greater good. For else in vain would God have given him that power of discernment, since man's discretion would be useless unless he loved and avoided according to it. But it does not befit God to give such power in vain. It is, therefore, established that rational nature was created for this end, viz., to love and choose the highest good supremely, for its own sake and nothing else; for if the highest good were chosen for any other reason, then something else and not itself would be the thing loved. But intelligent nature cannot fulfill this purpose without being holy. Therefore that it might not in vain be made rational, it was made, in order to fulfill this purpose, both rational and holy. Now, if it was made holy in order to choose and love the highest good, then it was made such in order to follow sometimes what it loved and chose, or else it was not. But if it were not made holy for this end, that it might follow what it loves and chooses, then in vain was it made to love and choose holiness; and there can be no reason why it should be ever bound to follow holiness. Therefore, as long as it will be holy in loving and choosing the supreme good, for which it was made, it will be miserable; because it will be impotent despite of its will, inasmuch as it does not have what it desires. But this is utterly absurd. Wherefore rational nature was made holy, in order to be happy in enjoying the supreme good, which is God. Therefore man, whose nature is rational, was made holy for this end, that he might be happy in enjoying God.

CHAPTER II


How man would never have died, unless he had sinned.

Anselm. Moreover, it is easily proved that man was so made as not to be necessarily subject to death; for, as we have already said, it is inconsistent with God's wisdom and justice to compel man to suffer death without fault, when he made him holy to enjoy eternal blessedness. It therefore follows that had man never sinned he never would have died.

CHAPTER III


How man will rise with the same body which he has in this world.

Anselm. From this the future resurrection of the dead is clearly proved. For if man is to be perfectly restored, the restoration should make him such as he would have been had he never sinned.

Boso. It must be so.

Anselm. Therefore, as man, had he not sinned, was to have been transferred with the same body to an immortal state, so when he shall be restored, it must properly be with his own body as he lived in this world.

Boso. But what shall we say to one who tells us that this is right enough with regard to those in whom humanity shall be perfectly restored, but is not necessary as respects the reprobate?

Anselm. We know of nothing more just or proper than this, that as man, had he continued in holiness, would have been perfectly happy for eternity, both in body and in soul; so, if he persevere in wickedness, he shall be likewise completely miserable forever.

Boso. You have promptly satisfied me in these matters.

CHAPTER IV


How God will complete, in respect to human nature, what he has begun.

Anselm. From these things, we can easily see that God will either complete what he has begun with regard to human nature, or else he has made to no end so lofty a nature, capable of so great good. Now if it be understood that God has made nothing more valuable than rational existence capable of enjoying him; it is altogether foreign from his character to suppose that he will suffer that rational existence utterly to perish.

Boso. No reasonable being can think otherwise.

Anselm. Therefore is it necessary for him to perfect in human nature what he has begun. But this, as we have already said, cannot be accomplished save by a complete expiation of sin, which no sinner can effect for himself.

Boso. I now understand it to be necessary for God to complete what he has begun, lest there be an unseemly falling off from his design.

CHAPTER V


How, although the thing may be necessary, God may not do it by a compulsory necessity; and what is the nature of that necessity which removes or lessens gratitude, and what necessity increases it.

Boso. But if it be so, then God seems as it were compelled, for the sake of avoiding what is unbecoming, to secure the salvation of man. How, then, can it be denied that he does it more on his own account than on ours? But if it be so, what thanks do we owe him for what he does for himself? How shall we attribute our salvation to his grace, if he saves us from necessity?

Anselm. There is a necessity which takes away or lessens our gratitude to a benefactor, and there is also a necessity by which the favor deserves still greater thanks. For when one does a benefit from a necessity to which he is unwillingly subjected, less thanks are due him, or none at all. But when he freely places himself under the necessity of benefiting another, and sustains that necessity without reluctance, then he certainly deserves greater thanks for the favor. For this should not be called necessity but grace, inasmuch as he undertook or maintains it, not with any constraint, but freely. For if that which to-day you promise of your own accord you will give to-morrow, you do give to-morrow with the same willingness; though it be necessary for you, if possible, to redeem your promise, or make yourself a liar; notwithstanding, the recipient of your favor is as much indebted for your precious gift as if you had not promised it, for you were not obliged to make yourself his debtor before the time of giving it: just so is it when one undertakes, by a vow, a design of holy living. For though after his vow he ought necessarily to perform, lest he suffer the judgment of an apostate, and, although he may be compelled to keep it even unwillingly, yet, if he keep his vow cheerfully, he is not less but more pleasing to God than if he had not vowed. For he has not only given up the life of the world, but also his personal liberty, for the sake of God; and he cannot be said to live a holy life of necessity, but with the same freedom with which he took the vow. Much more, therefore, do we owe all thanks to God for completing his intended favor to man; though, indeed, it would not be proper for him to fail in his good design, because wanting nothing in himself he begun it for our sake and not his own. For what man was about to do was not hidden from God at his creation; and yet by freely creating man, God as it were bound himself to complete the good which he had begun. In fine, God does nothing by necessity, since he is not compelled or restrained in anything. And when we say that God does anything to avoid dishonor, which he certainly does not fear, we must mean that God does this from the necessity of maintaining his honor; which necessity is after all no more than this, viz., the immutability of his honor, which belongs to him in himself, and is not derived from another; and therefore it is not properly called necessity. Yet we may say, although the whole work which God does for man is of grace, that it is necessary for God, on account of his unchangeable goodness, to complete the work which he has begun.

Boso. I grant it.

Dec 13 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 13TH


ON THE WONDERS OF GOD IN THE INCARNATION OF HIS SON

Consider first, how after the blessed Virgin's consent, and offering herself with a profound humility, with an entire obedience and a perfect conformity to the sacred will of God, by those words: 'Behold the handmaid of the lord, be it done to me according to thy word,' Luke i. 38, the greatest of all the wonders of God, and of all his works, was immediately effected: even a Man-God, the miracle of miracles. For a human body perfect in all its parts, was formed in an instant by the Holy Ghost, out of the purest blood of the blessed Virgin, and a most excellent rational soul was at the same time created; and this body and soul were joined with and assumed by the eternal Word, the second person of the most adorable Trinity. Thus God was made man, and man was made God; and the blessed Virgin was made mother of God. Thus in her womb was celebrated that sacred wedding of our human nature with the divine person of the Son of God, to the feast of which we are invited, Matt. xxii. Thus was our humanity exalted to the very highest elevation, by being united with, and subsisting by the person of, the eternal Word, and we all in consequence of this elevation of our human nature, have also been wonderfully dignified and exalted, by being raised up to a kindred with the most high God, who by taking to himself our nature, has made us all his brothers and sisters; and by assuming our humanity has made us in some measure partakers of his divinity. O my soul, stand thou astonished at these wonders, which will be a subject of the greatest astonishment both to men and angels for all eternity! O admire and adore, praise and love, with all thy power, and with all thy affections, that infinite goodness that has wrought all these wonders out of love to thee!



Consider 2ndly, the wonders of God in all those graces and excellences which he conferred on the soul of Christ and on his sacred humanity, in the first instance of his conception, in consequence of its being united with the divine person - graces and excellences which are all immense and incomprehensible, and which exceed, without any comparison, all the rest of the wondrous works of God, and all whatsoever he has done at any time in favour of any of his saints, or of all of them put together. For God did not give to this his Son his spirit by measure, (John iii. 34,) as to the rest of his saints, but gave all things into his hands, 'and of his fullness we all receive,' John i. 16, even all grace and truth, according to the measure of his giving it to us, Eph. iv. 7. Now these graces and excellences we may reduce under the following heads: 1. An immense purity from all manner of sin or imperfection whatsoever - not as by privilege but in his own right, as being the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sins of the world. 2. The grace of sanctity, incomparable exceeding that of all the angels and saints put together; from whence he is called the holy of holies, Dan. ix., that is, the saint of all saints - the Spirit of God resting on him with all his gifts, with an incomprehensible plenitude, Isaias ii. 3. The grace of the beatific vision of the divine essence, and that in the most consummate degree, with proportionable love of the deity and job in God. 4. All the treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God. 5. The power of working all kinds of miracle and of raising the dead to life by his own will, with a general command over all the elements and over all nature. 6. The power of excellency in forgiving sins, converting sinners, changing their hearts, ordaining sacraments and sacrifices, and distributing amongst men graces and super-natural gifts. 7. The grace of being the perpetual head of all the church, both of heaven and earth, and the source of all blessings, gifts, and graces that either have been, are at present, or shall at any time be bestowed upon this his mystical body, or any of its members. O what subject have we here, my soul, to bless and praise the eternal Father for all these excellent gifts and graces with which he has enriched his Son, the man Christ Jesus! How ought we also to rejoice and congratulate with the sacred humanity of our Saviour on this occasion, and to give thanks without ceasing for all that share or portion of divine grace we continually derive from this overflowing fountain!



Consider 3rdly, in all these graces and excellences conferred on the humanity of Christ in his incarnation, how that of the prophet was verified, Isaias ix. 6, 'A child is born to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.' Yes, Christians, these great titles here bestowed on your Saviour by the Spirit of God abundantly declare both the wonders that God wrought for him and those which, through his incarnation, he has wrought also for you in giving him to you; that he might be not only your Saviour, your redeemer, and your deliverer, but also your king, your lawgiver, your teacher, your model, your advocate, your physician, your friend, your high priest, and your victim, your father, and your head - in a word, the source of all your good; the way, the truth and the life, in your regard, by whom alone you can go to God. And do not all these great things, effected by the incarnation of the Son of God, show forth the power, the wisdom, the mercy, and goodness of God, with all the other divine attributes, infinitely more than any of the rest of the works of the Almighty!



Conclude to honour by a lively faith, by a serious and frequent meditation, and a sincere devotion, all those wonders of God, wrought, in the incarnation of his Son, both in favour of him and of us, and to lead henceforward such lives as become those who, by this mystery, have been so highly exalted, and brought so near to the very source of all grace and sanctity.

Dec 12 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 12TH

ON THE ANGELIC SALUTATION

Consider first, that after the blessed Virgin had been prepared by the purity of her conception and by the purity of her life, by the purity of her soul and of her body, of her heart and of her mind, and of all her actions and intentions, to conceive in her sacred womb the Son of God, whom she had long before conceived in her soul - the time appointed by our Lord being now come, the Archangel Gabriel was sent to her from heaven, upon the most solemn embassage that ever was: viz., to treat with this most humble maid, concerning the great work of the incarnation of the Eternal Word, by his taking flesh of her, in order to the redemption of mankind from Satan, sin, and hell, and reconciliation with God; and in order to establishment of a new law, a new and everlasting covenant, a kingdom of heaven upon earth by grace, in favour of all that should embrace this grace, and an eternal kingdom for them hereafter in glory. But give ear now, my soul, to the angel's address, and mark every work of it. The angel being come in, said to her: 'Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women,' Luke I. 28. He greeted her with the word Ave or Hail, a word of salutation or congratulation with her, for all that God had done and was about to do in her favour, and for his choosing her to be the happy instrument that should give birth to the source of all our good. O let heaven and earth join in this Ave of salutation and congratulation! as all heaven and earth are highly interested in the issue of this most sacred negotiation, which is to bring us innumerable benefits, both for time and eternity, by the incarnation of the Son of God! and see, my soul, thou never forget to testify thy grateful sense of the share designed for thee in these graces and benedictions, by daily joining with suitable devotion in this holy salutation and congratulation, as often as thou repeatest the Ave Maria

Consider 2ndly, how the angel, in his salutation, styles the blessed Virgin 'full of grace,' signify the supereminent degree of divine grace to which God elevated her soul, to prepare her to be the mother of his Son. For she was full of all that habitual grace which justifies and sanctifies the soul; full of faith and hope; full of divine charity, in both its branches; ever loving God with her whole heart, with her whole soul, with all her mind, and with all her strength, and loving her neighbour as herself; she was full of humility, meekness, patience, obedience, and all other moral virtues; she was full of wisdom, godliness, the fear of the Lord, and all other gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit; her memory was full of holy thoughts; words, and works; her works were all full, by the purity of intention, of the fervour and love with which she performed them all. Many saints have been full of grace; but none like this queen and mother of all the saints, whose grace was proportioned to the great designs that God had upon her, and to the supereminent dignity to which she was chosen, of being mother of God. O congratulate, my soul, with the blessed Virgin, for this her fullness of grace, which went on continually increasing for the whole time of her life, by the good use she continually made of all God's gifts; and beg through her intercession, that thou mayest, like her, faithfully correspond and diligently co-operate with every divine grace.

Consider 3rdly, how the angel adds in his salutation, 'the Lord is with thee;' to signify the source from which all her fullness of grace flowed, and the extraordinary manner of God's communicating himself and all his graces to this most highly favoured of all his creatures. For our Lord was not only with the blessed Virgin by his essence, his presence, and his power, as he is with all men; not only by his sanctifying grace, as he is with all the just; but in a most extraordinary manner, by a far more eminent grace, a closer union, and a higher sanctification. And therefore the angel adds, 'blessed art thou amongst women;' to express the super eminence of those graces and benedictions with which she was blessed from heaven, and should still be blessed more and more, as well as the innumerable blessings that should be communicated to all mankind, through the fruit of her womb, and the blessings and praise that should on that account be given her by all generations. For as one woman by disobedience, in hearkening to the suggestions of the infernal serpent, was the beginning of all the maledictions that fell upon all mankind, so one woman, by her humble obedience to the proposals brought her by an angel from heaven, was the beginning of all the benedictions that were to come upon all mankind, from the blessed fruit of her womb, by whom also she crushed that serpent's head who first brought sin and death amongst us. O see, thy soul, with what sentiments of devotion thou oughtest to join with the angel, and with the blessed St. Elizabeth and with the whole church of God, in this solemn address to the virgin lady: 'Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb,' Luke I. 24.

Conclude ever to keep up in thy soul a grateful remembrance of all the great things that God has done for the blessed Virgin and for us all, in the incarnation of his Son, by a frequent and devout repetition of the angelical salutation, always concluding it with that pious address of the church: 'Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen'. O how just it is that we should particularly crave the assistance of her prayers for that critical time when we can do the least for ourselves, and when all is at stake for eternity.

Dec 10 & 11 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 10TH

ON PURIFYING THE INTERIOR POWERS OF THE SOUL

Consider first, that as this spiritual conception and birth of Christ is to be perfected in our interior, so in order to dispose ourselves effectually for so great a happiness, and that it may continue with us into life everlasting, by our abiding always in Christ, and Christ's abiding always in us, we must be ever jealous of the purity of the interior powers of the soul. 'All the glory of the king's daughter (the Christian soul) is within,' Ps. xliv.; there is to be the residence of the Lord of glory; the beauty of the interior is to attract him thither; and this beauty depends upon keeping these inward powers of the soul in a proper state of purity. See then, Christians, if you desire to have Christ with you, that you take proper care: - 1. To purify your understanding from all its errors, false opinions, and affected ignorances, by obliging it to open its eyes to the light of divine truths, in the exercise of meditation and mental prayer; 2. To purify your memory from all its impertinent amusements, distractions, and evagations, by accustoming it to the remembrance of God, and a recollection of thought; 3. To purify your will from all its disorderly affections, by fixing your heart upon solid and eternal goods, but especially upon your sovereign good, which is God himself. Thus shall your whole souls be agreeable to him.

Consider 2ndly, that one of the greatest enemies to this interior purity, (which is so necessary to bring Christ into our souls, and to fix him there,) is that unhappy dissipation of mind, in which many Christians pass their days, always thinking, but very seldom thinking on anything to the purpose. Alas! 'tis too true that the minds of the generality of men are a constant thoroughfare of vain amusements, of empty, idle, impertinent thoughts, succeeding one another all the day long, and leaving little or no room for God, or the things of God and the soul, to come in, or to make any lasting impression. Thus the inward castle is left quite unguarded, and the enemy has free access to come and rifle, and even murder the soul at pleasure, by suggesting a variety of criminal thoughts, which are admitted without resistance, through the supine carelessness and licentiousness of the mind; whilst on the other hand, the divine grace is shut out from such souls, by their whole attention being engaged by these toys and trifles; so that when God would come, and would visit them, they are not at home for him, but are going gadding abroad after other impertinences. See, my soul, if this be not thy case; and if it be, seek a remedy without delay, or there will be no room for Christ in thee. Now, the only remedy is a recollection of spirit, and an attention to God in all thy ordinary actions and employments.

Consider 3rdly, that if it be so necessary, in order to conceive and to bring forth Christ in thy interior, to maintain the purity of thy mind, by recollection of thought, it must be no less necessary to maintain also the purity of thy heart, by banishing from thence all disorderly affections; for these are no less apt to disqualify the soul for this spiritual conception and birth of Christ in her; they are no less unclean and disagreeable in his eyes, and no less opposite to his reign. Neither can the purity of the mind and of the thought be maintained without the purity of the affection and of the heart, for the mind and the thought are generally bent upon such objects as the heart affects - we think most upon what we love most; and therefore if the affections of our heart are impure, our thoughts will also be impure; for where our treasure is, there both our hearts and our thoughts will be. Now that love alone is pure, which makes God its treasure; and all such affections are impure as take off the heart from God, and make it seek its treasure in something that is not God, or which at least divides the heart between God and the creature. And these are the disorderly affections that must be banished in order to dispose the soul for Christ.

Conclude to examine well, and to set thy interior in order, particularly with regard to these two branches of purity, viz.: the purity of the mind and the purity of the heart. For Christ will not come to be spiritually born in any soul, or to make his abode in any soul where he is not allowed to be sole master both of the mind and of the heart. Therefore the mind must be set free from the servitude of useless thoughts and impertinent amusements, and the heart from the servitude of misplaced affections, and every fond, sensual, worldly, or distracting love, to make place for the birth of Christ, and his reign in the soul. The soul that desires to have Christ with her, must endeavour to be like the spouse in the canticles, a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up. Dissipation of thought, and all disorderly affections, bring such company into the soul as the Son of God will not endure.

DECEMBER 11TH

ON THE PURITY OF OUR ACTIONS

Consider first, that this Christian purity, which is to prepare the way for Christ in us, and to dispose us to give him a proper entertainment, must not be confined to the interior powers of the soul, but ought to extend itself also to the whole body of our actions. As the tree ought to be pure, so ought the fruits also, for the tree is known by its fruits. Now, our fruits are our actions; so that these must be pure, or else we shall not be pure, not duly qualified for that happy union with Christ, which we are to aspire to at this approaching solemnity: for that which is impure cannot be in proper condition to be united with the sovereign purity. Now for our actions to be pure it is not enough that what we do be good in itself; it must also be good in all its circumstances, for any one vicious circumstance is enough to corrupt the whole. But that on which the purity of our actions principally depends is the purity of our intention, according to that of the gospel, Matt. vi. 22, 23, 'If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome; but if thy eye be evil, thy whole body shall be darksome.' For the eye of the soul is the intention, which is then single when the view of the soul is carried towards God in all that she does; but when the intention is turned off from God and looks at something else, the eye is evil and the work is darksome.

Consider 2ndly, that all Christian virtue depends upon this purity of intention: the meanest of our actions are ennobled by it, and the highest and the most esteemed by men are good for nothing in the sight of God without it. Now the perfection of this purity of intention is to act in all things from the motive of the love of God; for the greater glory of God, and in conformity to the will of God. This carries the soul up to God, and brings down God to the soul: this produces a happy union of the soul with her God. Christians, see here the shortest way to all good, and the sovereign means of arriving at the height of perfection. The practice of this requires - 1. That you should begin all your days and all your works with God, by offering them all up to him and to his service. 2. That you should consult his divine will in all things, and make it the rule of all you do. 3. That you should watch over yourselves, both in the beginning and in the progress of every work you take in hand, that you may exclude all by-motives, suggested by your self-love, human respect, interest, pleasure, or passion. 4. That you should often renew the directing of your attention to God, and should endeavour to season all your ordinary actions and employments with frequent aspirations or breathings of the soul towards him.

Consider 3rdly, that the two capital enemies of purity of intention, those which spiritual persons in particular have most occasion to guard against, are vainglory and pride. The difference between the two is, that vainglory consist in loving and desiring to be esteemed by others, whereas pride consist in a vain esteem of one's self; vainglory makes persons ever turn their eyes upon what others may say or think of their words or actions; it makes them perfect idolaters of a point of honour, of the esteem, reputation, and approbation of the world: but pride makes them full of themselves, measuring as it were themselves on every occasion, and their performances with those of others, and still giving themselves the preference before others, ever turning their eye upon their own excellence, building on their own lights, resolutions, strength, or capacity, and taking a secret complacency in themselves and in all the good they do. Both the one and the other are infinitely pernicious to the soul, by turning off her eyes from God, and consequently robbing her of all the fruit of her good works, and make them all rotten at heart, and good for nothing in the sight of God; they even pervert the best of her performances to her eternal condemnation, by shutting out God from them, and giving the preference to these devils of pride and vainglory before him. As long as these have possession of the soul there will be nothing but corruption there, and no room for the spiritual birth of Christ.

Conclude to aim at all times at a purity in all thy actions, by purifying thy intention from all pride and vainglory, and from every other thing that may turn off thy eye from God. Let God be the beginning and end of all thou doest; and take care to give to every action its full perfection, by doing all for God's greater glory, and our of the pure motive of his divine love, and the very meanest of thy daily actions will suffice to make thee a saint. Whereas, neither long prayers, nor large alms, nor converting millions of souls, nor working of miracles, nor giving thy body to the flames, will avail thee anything if thy intention be vitiated by pride or vainglory.

O JESU, VIVENS IN MARIA - O JESUS, WHO DOST LIVE IN MARY

O Jesu, vivens in Maria, veni et vive in famulis tuis, in Spiritus sanctitatis tuae, in plenitudine virtutis tuae, in veritate virtutum tuarum, in perfectione viarum tuarum, in communione mysteriorum tuorum, dominare omni adversae potestate in Spiritu tuo ad gloriam Patris. Amen.




O Jesus, who dost live in Mary, come and live in Thy servants, in the spirit of Thine own holiness, in the fulness of Thy power, in the reality of Thy virtues, in the perfection of Thy ways, in the communion of Thy mysteries, - have Thou dominion over every adverse power, in Thine own Spirit, to the glory of Thy Father. Amen.

Dec 9 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 9TH


ON THE PURITY WITH WHICH WE OUGHT TO PREPARE OUR SOULS FOR CHRIST

Consider first, that he who prepared the blessed Virgin to be the mother of his Son, by this early care to keep her pure in the very conception, would thereby give us to understand what dispositions he expects in us, in order to our being also qualified for the spiritual conception and birth of the same Lord in our souls. For as we could never have been happy if the Son of God had not been born into this world for us, so we never can be happy if he be not also spiritually received and born in us. No, my soul, we must put off the old man, and put on the new, which is Jesus Christ, before we can come to God; and this putting on the new man must be effected by his being spiritually conceived in our souls. Now he can never come to any soul, to be spiritually conceived or born there, if that soul be not clean; for though he humbled himself so far as to be born in a poor stable, yet he will not be born in an unclean soul, because such a soul is the habitation of unclean spirits, and therefore cannot be a proper place for his spiritual birth. It is then by cleanness of conscience and purity we must prepare the way of the Lord, if we hope to have a share in the happiness he offers us by his incarnation and birth; without this his coming will be to our condemnation.



Consider 2ndly, that this cleanness and purity, which is indispensably necessary for the spiritual conception and birth of Christ in our souls, must be, at least, exemption from all wilful and deadly sin. For wherever wilful and deadly sin resides, there is the seat of Satan; there he resides and reigns, and consequently there can be no room for the birth of Christ in such a soul. so that the first and most essential branch of Christian purity, without which God has no part in us, (Job xxxi. 2,) and we have no part in him, is a purity of conscience at least from mortal sin; joined with a fixed determination of the soul, for no consideration whatsoever; for no honour, interest, or pleasure; for no fear, or love, or human respect; for no promises or allurements on the one hand, or terrors and threats on the other; in fine, for nothing that the world can either give or take away, ever to consent, so much as in thought, to any such sin. Christians, what are your dispositions in this respect? Are your consciences either pure or clear from all deadly sin by innocence, or cleansed by penitence? Are your souls in a proper condition to welcome Christ? Are you in a settled resolution to give up the dominion of your souls to this great king, who desires to be born there and to live there? Are you willing to sacrifice to his will and pleasure all other loves that offer to oppose his reign, so as to be ready to part even with life itself, rather that with your allegiance to him? This is the purity of conscience he absolutely insists upon, and nothing less will satisfy him. If you are not in this disposition, you are none of his, and he will not be born in you.



Consider 3rdly, that to welcome Christ in a suitable manner, you must not content yourselves with having your consciences only cleansed from all mortal sin, or your souls only settled in a resolution of never more being guilty, upon any consideration, of such sins as may eternally separate you from your God, and cast you into hell; this is but a low degree of Christian purity, and those that aim no higher are in great danger of not even arriving so far. To make light of smaller sins; to be indifferent about Christian perfection; to pretend to no more than the avoiding hell; to indulge one's self in a negligent, lukewarm way of living, and in a variety of evil habits and known sins which one is willing to suppose are only venial, with little or no concern about the offence we commit against God, or any serious thought of amendment - so far from being a proper disposition to prepare the soul for the spiritual birth of Christ, is indeed the broad road to mortal sin, and too often ends in hell. A generous Christian, and one that is a true lover of his God, does not stand to inquire, whether the doing this or that will send his soul to hell or not. It is enough to determine him to avoid it with all his power, to know that it offends his God, whom he loves with his whole heart; and therefore he dreads more the doing anything that is displeasing in his eyes, than either death or hell itself. My soul, are these thy dispositions?



Conclude to make it thy business, now at least, to labour for this perfect purity of conscience, not only from all deadly sin, but also from all known deliberate venial sins; and much more from indulging thyself in the habit of any such sin. For how canst thou expect that infinite purity should be willing to take up his abode in thy soul, if thou art not careful to keep it clean, at least from all wilful and affected stains?

Dec 8 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 8TH


ON THE CONCEPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN

Tota pulchra es, Maria, es macula originalis non est in te.



Consider first, how man who was originally created in justice and sanctity - to be happy here in grace and innocence, and eternally happy hereafter in the enjoyment of his creator - having wretchedly fallen from God by sin, and forfeited his original justice with all the advantages annexed to it; and incurred at the same time all kinds of miseries, both for time and eternity; out of which it was not in his power to extricate himself, by anything that he could do of himself - the infinite goodness of God, out of pure pity and compassion, was pleased to decree that his own eternal Son should come down from heaven to be our Saviour; to redeem us from all our sins with his most precious blood; to bring along with him mercy, grace, and salvation to us, and by his death to open to us the gates of everlasting life. O Christians, it is this infinite goodness of our God that we must never forget. It calls aloud for all the return we are able to make of love and gratitude, of adoration, praise, and glory; and a total dedication of our whole being to the service of our great deliverer, for all our time, and for all eternity. O may all heaven and earth, with all the angels and saints, bless and glorify his mercy, bounty, and love for us!



Consider 2ndly, that God, having thus decreed to give us his only Son for our Saviour, was pleased to reveal this great mystery from the very beginning to our first parents; and afterwards from time to time to the patriarchs and prophets, and others his servants; to the end that this might be in all ages the capital object of the faith of all true believers; and that as non could ever attain to eternal salvation but through the merits of the Son of God made man for us, so all might approach to God, for mercy and grace, through faith in him. In the meantime the divine wisdom, which had created the world in six days, was pleased to employ full four thousand years in preparing the world for this great redeemer. All the most remarkable passages of sacred history, recorded in holy writ, have all some relation to him or his church; all the most eminent servants of God and deliverers of his people, were so many figures and forerunners of him: the whole law, with all its sacrifices and ceremonies, alluded to him, and to the great sacrifice he was to offer. The writings of the prophets and the psalms are full of him. Now, when the time of his coming drew near, God, who had done great things long before for the whole people of the Hebrews in general and for that family in particular of which he would have his Son to be born into the world, was pleased to do still greater things in favour of her whom he had chosen, in his eternal decrees, to bring forth this Lord of glory and Saviour of the world. These great things wrought for her, even in her very conception, we celebrate in the festival of this day; to glorify him that wrought them; and to honour her for whom they were wrought. Our Lord, in taking her for his mother, and us for his brethren, has authorized us to consider her as our mother also; to have recourse to her as such; and to rejoice in all her advantages. We cannot love the Son of God, and be indifferent in what relates to the honour of his mother.



Consider 3rdly, that the Son of God, making choice of this blessed Virgin to be his mother, was pleased to prepare her for this near alliance with him, by that extraordinary grace of keeping her ever pure from sin, either original or actual, mortal or venial; for so it was becoming that she who was to bear in her womb, and to bring forth to the world purity itself, should never be defiled with any spot or stain of sin. Learn from hence, Christian souls, the care you ought to take to keep yourselves pure, if you hope to be agreeable to the eyes of this same Lord. Learn to purify yourselves from all sin, as often as you approach to him, to receive him in the sacred mysteries: an as the particular devotion of this holy time of Advent should be to prepare yourselves in such manner for worthily celebrating the birth of Christ, as that you also be partakers in this great mystery by his coming to you, and being spiritually born in you - see you make it your business now to dispose yourselves for so great a happiness, by purifying yourselves from all defilement either of the flesh or of the spirit, and thus preparing a proper place within you for the Lord of glory to be born in.



Conclude to honour the immaculate conception of the blessed Virgin, by a perpetual love of purity in all its branches; and an imitation of her purity, as far as thy frailty and corruption will admit of: thus mayest thou hope that the fountain of all purity will come also to thee, and be spiritually born in thee.

The little way of the infant Jesus by Caryll Houselander

WOOD OF THE CRADLE, WOOD OF THE CROSS


The little way of the infant Jesus

Caryll Houselander

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The Infant

It is of absolute necessity for our peace that we surrender ourselves wholly to God. Most people want to do this, but they do not because they are afraid.



If, in their rasher moments of fervor, they have made heroic self-offerings, they go about their business afterwards distinctly uneasy, fearful that some catastrophe will overtake them in order to detach them from the earthly affections which they suppose to be hindering their perfection.



If, to seek reassurance, they turn to those saints who are said to have sanctified themselves through leading "ordinary" lives, they are even more perturbed by the extraordinary way in which they did so.



To give one example, the very thought of the hourly, even momentary, little sacrifices made by St. Theresa of Lisieux, opens up a terrifying prospect, all the more so because such lives are secret and without even the encouragement of friends. To think of oneself going on and on, denying self, giving up all the tidbits, refusing oneself the relief of a little complaining or a little flattery, spending one's life in small coin down to the last penny: this is beyond the power of human nature - or at least of our human nature.



Both these anxieties can be put to rest by a little thought about God's approach to us, His way with human beings.



It is not a way of detachment but of attachment; not a way of indifference but of love. He approaches not by catastrophes, but by gentleness; not demanding our surrender but winning it, if we put no obstacle, almost before we realize who it is that sues for our love.



An obstacle would be a refusal of any love, a shutting of the door on those who want to come into our life. To put no obstacle is to have the door always open to everyone who has any need of us. "Behold!" our Lord says, "I stand at the door and knock.45 An obstacle to surrendering to Him would simply be not to open the door. If we opened it and saw who it is that knocks, we should not find it a difficult or a frightening thing to give Him what He asks of us.



The Old Testament, which many imagine to be the revelation of a terrifying God, is full of the gentleness of His approach. He comes as a "still, small voice";46 He covers His face, lest it should wither away the light of a man's eyes by its majesty. He is compared to the coming of morning light and to rain falling upon the thirsty earth: "We shall know and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. His going forth is prepared as the morning light, and He will come to Us as the early and the latter rain to the earth.47



Sometimes, indeed very often, His approach to us coincides with a catastrophe and is in the midst of it, and for that reason is hardly noticed. We are too intent on the din of the disaster to hear the "still, small voice," or we drown it with noisy tears. Disasters are not God's will; they are the result of sin and opposed to God's will; but in His mercy He does allow the suffering resulting from them, although never the sin that caused them, to be caught up into His love and do good. Thus Christ's first coming on earth was in the midst of the disaster of the world's suffering caused by sin, and it was precisely to take hold of this suffering and transform it by love that He came.



How small and gentle His coming was! He came as an infant. The night in which He came was noisy and crowded; it is unlikely that, in the traffic of the travelers to Bethlehem, the tiny wail of the newly born could be heard.



God approaches gently, often secretly, always in love, never through violence and fear. He comes to us, as He Himself has told us, in those whom we know in our own lives. Very often we do not recognize Him. He comes in many people we do not like, in all who need what we can give, in all who have something to give us, and for our great Comfort. He comes in those we love, in our fathers and mothers, our brothers and sisters, our friends and our children. Because this is so, we must not be content ever to love with only natural love. We must also love everyone with a supernatural, sacramental love. We must love Christ in them with Christ's love in us. It would be well if those seeking perfection ceased trying so painstakingly to learn how not to love and learned instead how to love well.



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That other hindrance to surrender to God, the fearful prospect of abandoning ourselves to the pursuit of perfection even if we dared, can only be overcome by experiment; for those who live heroically through small things have already surrendered to God. Their perseverance is not, as it seems to us, a continual strain; on the contrary, it is the repeated relief of giving spontaneous expression to a love that is too great to be endured without it.



Knowing that God supplies all our necessities, and that one of our necessities is that we surrender to Him, we should not be, surprised that He comes to us as an infant; for surrender to an infant, any infant, is easy. Surely never did God receive more fully what is due to Him from man than when He was an infant. Every infant demands and receives the most complete self-giving that we are capable of. The perfection of surrender to God is Mary with the infant Christ.



There is nothing more mysterious than infancy, nothing so small and yet so imperious. The infancy of Christ has opened a way to us by which we can surrender self to Him absolutely, without putting too much pressure on our weak human nature.



Before a child is born the question which everyone asks is "What can I give him?" When he is born, he rejects every gift that is not the gift of self, everything that is not disinterested love. He rejects everything but that because that is the only thing he can receive: disinterested love - not one-sided love. One-sided love is never a consummated love, never a communion. It is a disintegrating, destructive thing; but disinterested love, objective love without conscious self-interest, is as near to perfection as anything human can be.



The first giving of this love to a newly born child is the reshaping of our whole life, in its large essentials and in its every detail, in our environment, our habits, ourselves. The infant demands everything and, trivial though everything may seem when set out and tabulated, the demand is all the more searching because it seizes upon our daily lives and every detail of which they are built up.



The sound of our voice must be modulated - the words that we use considered, our movements restrained, slowed down, and trained to be both decisive and gentle.



Our rooms must be rearranged; everything that is superfluous and of no use to the infant must be thrown out; only what is simple and necessary to him must remain, and what remains must be placed in the best position, not for us, but for him. The temperature of the room, the warmth, and the air must be adjusted to his fragile body, the light shaded for the eyes that have always been in darkness.



There must be a new timing of our lives, a more holy ordering of our time, which is no longer to be ruled by our impulses and caprice, but by the rhythm of the little child. We must learn to sleep lightly, aware of the moonlight and the stars, conscious even in our deepest sleep of a whimper from the infant and ready to respond to it. We must learn the saving habit of rising with, or a little before, dawn.



The rhythm of our own bodies must be brought into harmony with his. They must become part of the ordered procession of his day and night, his waking and feeding and sleeping. Our lives, because of his and like his, must include periods of silence and rest. We must return with him and through him to the lost rhythm of the stars and the seed.



All our senses must be given to him, and we must give him our hands. We must give him our hands, tending his needs and washing his clothes. In his service we must overcome all delicacy and fastidiousness.



For years I have been haunted by a single line in an unpublished poem which seems to me to be very close to a definition of sanctity: "Hands that will dip in any water."48 I have seen the hands of a foster-mother chapped and bleeding from continually being dipped in hard water in frosty weather, and have thought to myself that the stigmata are not, after all, reserved for a few rare mystics.



Our hands are one medium of the communion that must come about between us and the infant. They are fumbling and clumsy, yet they become acutely sensitive to every quiver of his body, to his dumb necessities. He teaches them by being himself. In continual contact with his defenseless sensitivity, our hands grow sensitive; they carry messages from the depths of his wordless consciousness through our fingertips to our brain. Yet we remain aware of our clumsiness and the fallibility of our touch. Our hands only become really sensitive to his needs when we have so mingled our life in his that his pulses beat in ours, his blood flows in ours, and his little bones are in the marrow of our bones.



Our clumsy hands remind us that we ourselves are in the hands of God. Our hands seek like a blind man's to learn an unknown world of consciousness through their fingertips. In spite of our loving will, our touch can hurt; but God's hands touch and hold with infallible love. He turns us this way and that, disposes us thus and thus, lifts us up and puts us down in infinite power and infinite pity and infinite knowledge. Every fiber of our being is known to Him, because His being is our being.



In this reordering of our life, this resetting of it to the pace of the infant's life and the new simplicity imposed on it, we ourselves are made new; we are restored to the lost wonder of childhood. We begin to respond again to morning and evening: to wake with the coming of light, to receive the stillness of the night in a draught of peace when darkness comes. We wake and sleep with birds and flowers and animals. We no longer contradict the sun; we no longer violate the stars. In and through a little child we become as little children, and while still on earth we enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.



In the service of the infant we are made whole. Every detail of our life is set by it into a single pattern and ordered by a single purpose. We are integrated by the singleness of one compelling love.



It is this wholeness which alone makes possible the complete surrender to God in which is the secret of our peace.



It demands of us voluntary poverty, the giving up of self, which is holy poverty. As long as we have something else to give, we always cling to self; but the infant lays his minute hand on that and rejects everything else.



This love, austere, childlike, and poor, is life-giving love. I do not use the constantly abused and hackneyed word creative because nothing of ours is creative, neither our love, nor our genius. God only can create; He only is Creator. But this love sustains life; that is its meaning and its purpose.



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This is the point at which contemplation through our love of an infant begins.



Christ's immemorial plan is that His life shall survive until the end of time, as it began in Bethlehem, not in the great and powerful but in the lowliest and least: "He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble."49



For two thousand years Christ has seized upon, inhabited, and survived in the littlest and frailest.



The fostering of an infant's life is a thing of terror as well as of beauty. We are face-to-face with life at its most precious, housed in its frailest. That life depends for its survival upon us, upon the intelligence, the skill, the perseverance, the unceasing, untiring vigilance of our love.



It requires of us a love that is as strong as the worn and hollowed rock, and as delicate as the dew that trembles within it.



We stand on one side of the cradle, death stands on the other. The new life is still a spark, a spark that we kneel to fan with the warm breath of our own life, a spark that death could blow out so easily.



So is it with the Christ-life in each of us and in the world. It is lodged in little ones, in the weakest and puniest, and love and death stand over it face-to-face. In the mysterious period of natural life between birth and babyhood, there is a parable of the Christ-life in the soul.



Infancy is something complete in itself. It is a mysterious growth from darkness to light. Once again, we are reminded of the seed, of the thrust of the frail sapling life through the darkness and through the hard crust of the earth into the light.



In time, when the infant has become an established baby, the world will approach him from outside himself. Every new sound and sight and touch will be a new experience, not of himself alone, but of the world and himself.



But while he is an infant, the human creature works his own way from inside his own darkness and aloneness outward. He comes out of a world of darkness and silence and warmth into a world of painful light and noise and cold, of sensation and of pain.



He is alone for a long time even in his mother's hands; the communion between them is not yet realized. He cannot yet respond, and no skill of hers can reach his deepest being in its primal darkness. He is here, in the room, in his little cot, yet he is away and aloof, just as the dying, whose cold hands we chafe with ours, are with us and yet are aeons and aeons away.



Both for the infant and the mother this time has an element of sorrow; for he is fighting his way through to the consciousness which is the beginning equally of joy and grief, of pleasure and pain, of life and death, and the way is a journey alone through darkness.



In the infant's first struggle to lay hold of his life, we can see in embryo the passion of man, the passion that recurs all through his life. Later it will be disguised, hidden by the grown man's reserve, but now it is naked, defenseless. The beginning of every life is a lonely fight with death, a dim shadow and showing of the Man who is in all men coming back from the tomb.



Our life in Christ is the risen life. We live in the life of One who has overcome death, who has come back from the dead and laid hold of the world again with wounded hands, who has taken hold of its soil with wounded feet and loved it with the heart which it has already betrayed and broken and pierced.



Volumes of sentimentality are written about a baby's first smile. If we share the neurotic world's fear of sentiment, we shall miss its significance. It is the "Consummatum est"50 of the naked showing of the Passion of Christ in man, which is at the heart of the mystery of infancy. The fight between life and death is consummated. The infant gives place to the baby, and he lays hold of the life of the risen Christ.



Gradually the uncertain hands that served the infant have brought him security; gradually the face that has so often leaned over him in the night has become known by him. On that face there has been a smile, a smile which no anxiety, no awareness of the fierce, suffering quality of life could prevent, because it is the smile of joy that a man has been born into this world.



The child's first smile is a reflection. It is his and yet not his; it is the reflection of the mother's joy in his life, given back to her.



Birth and resurrection in their countless manifestations in the Body of Christ on earth bear a striking resemblance to His historical birth and Resurrection.



The life of the baby following the life of the infant has a quality of reassuring ordinariness.



This quality of ordinariness in the risen life is an age-long reassurance: this risen Jesus is no ghost, no apparition of terror and judgment bringing the frozen air of the grave with Him. This is a man of flesh and blood, and this is God, endowing all that He touches with life, but touching what is ordinary, the substance of our life; making life supernatural, but living our natural daily life; eating and drinking with us, bidding us touch His wounds, not to reproach us with them, but to convince us that He is still the same Christ, who overcame death by dying. He is still the Word made flesh, who has lived all our lives, who has been wounded with all our wounds, and who has died all our deaths, and who has risen from the dead, a living man of flesh and blood still, to live in us and to live our ordinary lives.



Now the baby, too, has become ordinary; the Christ-life that was almost visible in him has become hidden; his own personality is already a disguise. The elemental miracle is not seen any more.



The mystery of the night is over; the procession through the darkness is accomplished; the peculiar beauty of infancy has gone forever, and with it the minute face of sorrow, and the helplessness of the beautiful hands that were like sea anemones floating gently upward in shallow water.



The spark of life that we fanned with our breath burns the single tiny flame that can enkindle the whole earth: the flame of resurrection, the Lumen Christi - the "Light of Christ."



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The service of the infant is a thing of love, therefore of joy. There is joy even in the saddest love, and the love of an infant, even when it has a quality of tragedy as in our days it too often has, is fundamentally joyful. It must be so, for it is the purest love of the purest life.



Think back for a minute to the fear that the ordinary sinful human creature experiences in considering the saint's life of daily and momentary self-surrender to God. We have already reflected that for them such a life is not one of hardship and repression but of joy and relief.



So is it with ordinary people who foster the Christ-life in their souls, just as they would foster the life of an infant, housed in its human frailty, were such a thing asked of them.



No one, having received a little child, could count the cost. They could not list what must be done and given and given up for an infant. Every twenty-four hours could not be a period of trial made up from ceaseless small tortures.



But if anyone in such circumstances did count the cost in that way, turning the focus on self, their life would become insufferable; there would be that in it of which they must either rid themselves or else they would be broken by it. But if the focus is on the infant, there is no hardship the life of the mother, like the life of the saint, is not a life of repression but of the spontaneous, necessary expression of love.



If, in fostering the little seed of light which is Christ's life in us, the concentration is on self, on what we are giving and what we are suffering, then, indeed, we put ourselves into the place of the mother who is not a mother, the woman who counts the cost of loving her own child, and we force ourselves to face the choice of giving up the life in us, or of destroying ourselves in conflict between self and the life that has been given to us.



Christ came, and comes now, that we should have life and have it in its fullness, that we should be wholly human, wholly natural, wholly supernatural, that in all our loves He should be our life. If our mind and heart and eye are fixed not on self, but on the Christ-life in us, we shall realize the wonder of truth in His words "My yoke is sweet and my burden is light."51



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Yet we know that of ourselves we can do nothing; how then can we hope to save this life that is housed in our own weakness?



Many times every day we make the Sign of the Cross. Possibly we make it without considering what it means, beginning with the words "In the name of the Father" but without reflecting on their meaning.



"In the name of the Father": in the name - that is, in the power - of the Father, we cherish the Christ-life in us.



More truly, it is the Father Himself who cherishes it. We must put the infant Christ in our souls into the Father's arms. We must trust Him to hold us in His hands, to put us wherever we should be, to arrange the environment that is best for us, to rock us to sleep when we should sleep, to wake us when we should wake, to ease our pain when our pain should be eased, to feed us when we should be fed, to lift us up and to put us down according to the wisdom of everlasting love.



Everything felt for an infant by everyone in whom human nature is not dead is a dim reflection of God's love for the world. All that grace and miracle of sustaining love in us is His shadow in our soul. We are made in His image and likeness, but we have almost obliterated, almost effaced, His image in us by the grotesque travesties with which we have overlaid it. In the presence of infancy man is restored to the image of God.



Now, most wonderfully, we can learn God's care for us, by searching our own hearts.



The father and mother within us is only the faint image of the Father and Mother in God. He is the Father and Mother whose heart never sleeps, whose hands never lift from their works that they have made. He is the One who has numbered the hairs on our heads.52 In His humanity we are clothed as in a warm woolen garment. In Him we live as in our home. He is our food and our drink, our shade in the heat, our comfort in sorrow, our healing when we are wounded, our light in darkness.



The Christ-life in us, the infant Christ of our soul, is the only-begotten Son in the hands of God.



It is His creative love that has given us life, that sustains life, that is our life. He it is who says,



"Can a woman forget her infant, so as not to have pity on the son of her womb? And if she should forget, yet will I not forget thee."53







NOTES:



45. Rev. 3:20.

46. 3 Kings 19:12 (RSV = 1 Kings 19:12.

47. The Liturgy for Good Friday (Cf. Hos. 6:3).

48. An unpublished poem by John Bartlett.

49. Luke 1:52.

50. John 19:30: "It is finished."

51. Matt. 11:30.

52. Matt. 10:30; Luke 12:7

53. Isa. 49:15.

Dec. 7 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 7TH


ON OUR LORD'S GIVING SIGHT TO THE BLIND, AND RAISING THE DEAD TO LIFE

Consider first, that our Lord, during his mortal life, often restored the sight of the light of this world to them that were corporally blind; but oftener by far, both then and ever since, has by his great mercy opened the eyes of them that were spiritually blind, to see the light of God, and his eternal truths. He gave sight to him that was born blind, (John ix.,) by spreading clay upon his eyes, and ordering him to wash in the pool of Siloe; (which is interpreted 'sent' to instruct us that we who, according to the soul, are all born blind, by original sin, must have our eyes opened to the light of truth by the application of this mystical clay, of self-knowledge, to our inward eyes; and by being washed in him, who was sent from God, to be the true light of the world. In the supplication we make to him, for the obtaining the sight of this divine light, we must, like the blind men of Jericho, show ourselves quite in earnest, by the fervour and importunity of our prayer; and not be discouraged by the opposition we meet with from the crowd of distractions, &c., that rebukes us, as it were, and seeks to stop our mouths; but cry out so much the more for mercy, even as they did, Matt. xx. 31, and our Lord will not fail to show us the mercy we call for, and to enlighten the eyes of our souls.



Consider 2ndly, that in the gospel we read of three whom our Saviour raised from death to life: one was the daughter of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, a girl of twelve years old; another was a young man, the son of a widow of the city of Nain; the third was Lazarus of Bethania, the brother of Martha and Mary. The first was but just then dead, and was raised to life by our Lord with two words: 'Talitha cumi;' that is, Girl, arise. The second was carried out in order to be buried; and for the raising of him to life, something more was done; for our Lord came near, and touched the bier, and stopped them that carried it; and then said to the deceased, 'Young man, I say to thee, arise; and he that was dead sat up and began to speak,' &c. But Lazarus had been dead and buried four days; and before our Lord restored him to life we read, John xi., that 'he groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself,' verse 33; that he went to the sepulchre, and wept, verses 34, 35; that he 'groaned again in himself,' and ordered the stone to be taken away, verses 38, 39; that 'He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and prayed to his Father, and then cried, with a loud voice, Lazarus come forth,' verses 41, 42, 43. The first of these represents such souls as have but just now fallen into sin; who by a timely and fervent application to our Lord, who alone can raise the dead to life, may more easily be recovered out of the jaws of death and hell, and brought back to the life of grace. The second represents such souls as are not only fallen into the death of sin, but are already laid upon the bier and carried towards the sepulchre of a sinful habit, by repeated acts of sin. For the raising of these to life, stronger graces are required; signified by our Lord's touching the bier and causing the bearers of it, that is the criminal passions, which are hurrying the poor sinner to his grave, to stop and stand still. But Lazarus represents the more dismal condition of such as are already buried in inveterate habits of mortal sin; whose case requires still more extraordinary graces, signified by tears. groans, prayers, and the loud cry of the Son of God. O! Christians, let us dread the death of sin above all other evils; but much more the being buried in the grave of sinful habits; from which we shall not be raised again, without a greater miracle than even that by which Lazarus was called out of his monument. And who shall dare to be so presumptuous as to go on in his sins, flattering himself with the expectation of such a miracle being wrought in his favour?



Consider 3rdly, that in these miracles wrought by our Lord, in raising the dead to life, we find he was pleased to let himself be moved by the tears of the living, as in the case of the widow's son, and of Lazarus: to encourage us to present to him our prayers and tears, for poor sinners dead and buried in sin; with an humble confidence, that in his great mercy he will have pity on them, (who, alas! have no pity on themselves,) and restore them to life. O what a happiness will it be for a Christian to be instrumental in this manner of bringing back any one from death to life! How agreeable will such prayers and tears be to our good Lord, which deliver a soul from sin and hell; and how beneficial to ourselves in covering a multitude of sins! But mark well the care our Lord took, for the future well-being of those men whom he raised to life. He ordered that they should give to eat to he daughter of Jairus, as soon as her soul was returned into her body, Luke viii. 56; to signify, that the sovereign means to keep her soul in life, and to recover her strength and health, is a frequent and worthy participation of the blessed sacrament. He had no sooner given life to the widow's son, in consideration of her tears, but he delivered him to his mother, Luke vii. 15; to signify the special care he expects from the church, the common mother of all the faithful, of all these her children, whom by his grace he brings back from the death of sin, at the intercession of her prayers and tears. And with regard to Lazarus, whom he called out of his monument, bound feet and hands with winding bands, &c., he immediately ordered that they should 'loose him, an let him go,' John xi. 44; to signify the necessity of discharging the bands of the affections and occasions of sin, in order to maintain a new life in such as were buried a little while before in bad habits; and to the end they may be qualified henceforward to go; that is, to begin and to continue the great journey they are to make to the mountain of eternity.



Conclude, from the consideration of these miracles of our Saviour, to have recourse to him on all occasions, with a humble confidence in his mercy and goodness, for obtaining of light, life and all other good, both for thyself and thy neighbours. Thou canst not do him a greater pleasure, nor thyself a greater service.

Dec 6 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 6TH


ON THE LESSONS THAT ARE TO BE LEARNT ROM OTHER MIRACLES OF OUR LORD

Consider first, that the miracles of our Lord were generally wrought in favour of such as applied to him with a lively faith and profound humility, or by the means of earnest prayer; to teach us the great efficacy of faith, of humility, and of fervent prayer, and to encourage us to seek the cure of our souls with the like dispositions. Thus the woman that had laboured for twelve years under the issue of blood, humbly coming behind our Lord, in the crowd, and touching the hem of his garment, was instantly healed in reward of her faith, as our Lord himself assured her, Luke viii 48. Thus the centurion, by his faith and humility, obtained of our Lord the immediate cure of his servant by those words: 'Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof: speak only the word, and my servant shall be healed,' Matt. viii 8. Thus the woman of Canaan, by her pious importunity, accompanied with the like faith and humility, obtained the cure of her daughter, Matt. xv. 28. And so in many other cases. Whilst at other times those that have only presented themselves before our Saviour, without presuming either to touch him or his garments, or even so much as to speak to him - by the silent eloquence of their humility have obtained their cure, as in the case of the man that had the dropsy, Luke xiv. O let us learn this kind of eloquence!



Consider 2ndly, the particular lessons we may learn from the miraculous cure of the paralytic, (Matt. ix. and Luke v.) Our Lord was teaching in a house, surrounded by a great crowd of people, so that there was no coming in through the door, when behold, men brought in a bed a man that had the palsy, desiring to present him before him, but not finding by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went up upon the roof of the house, which was flat, and uncovering it let him down through the tiles, with his bed, by ropes, into the midst before Jesus. See here what pains were taken by these men to come to the heavenly physician, from whom they expected the cure of their friend. Who would have thought of men going up to the roof of another person's house, and uncovering it, and letting down a sick man in a bed, over the heads of a crowd? Nothing but a strong faith on the one hand, and an earnest desire of a cure on the other, could ever have suggested such an extraordinary proceeding, which loudly condemns the indolence or indifference of so many Christians nowadays, who lying ill of palsy, which disables them in all their limbs, and threatens them with the approaches of an everlasting death, suffer themselves to be kept off from Christ by every trifling obstacle or apprehension of difficulty. O Christians, where is your faith? Where is your concern for eternity? Why will you not be much more solicitous about the health and welfare of your immortal souls than about those worldly toys, or those carcasses of yours, that must quickly be the food of worms?



Consider 3rdly, how our Lord upon this occasion was pleased to begin the cure of the sick man by first healing his soul from sin: 'Son', said he, 'thy sins are forgiven thee;' to give us to understand that our corporal maladies are oftentimes sent in punishment of our sins, and that the first thing we have to do when visited with sickness is to apply for the remission of our sins by repentance and confession; and then we may expect that the scourge may be removed when the cause is removed. The Scribes and Pharisees took occasion from those words of our Saviour to charge him with blasphemy in their minds; but he, that knew their secret thoughts, publicly confuted them by working so great and evident a miracle, in proof of his power of forgiving sins, as to restore upon the spot both health and strength to the man sick of the palsy, with only these words: 'Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house;' upon which the paralytic 'immediately rising up before him, took up the bed on which he lay, and went away to his own house, glorifying God.' See here, my soul, that thou hast a physician in the person of thy redeemer, who is both able and willing to heal all thy infirmities; but see also that he expects of all such as apply to him for their cure that they should lie no longer in their beds, by continuing on in the habits or immediate occasions of their sins, but that they should arise without delay, and take up their beds, by bearing with courage the labour and conflicts of a penitential life, and should make the best of their way, by the exercises of solid virtue, to their true home, glorifying all the way they go, both by their words and by their lives, their great deliverer.



Conclude to spare no means to come to Christ, in order to be healed by him of all thy spiritual diseases; but remember to carry along with thee a lively faith and a profound humility: these will not fail of introducing thee to him, and obtaining of him all thou desirest.

Dec 5 - DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 5TH

ON OUR LORD'S STILLING THE STORM AT SEA AND FEEDING THE MULTITUDE

Consider first, the lessons we are to learn from the miracle of Christ's stilling the storm at sea by his word, Matt. viii. 23, &c., 'He entered into a ship, and his disciples followed him. And behold a great storm arose at sea, so that the ship was covered with the waves; but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awakened him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And Jesus said to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up, he commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm.' Christians, we are all embarked as it were in a ship during our mortal life, in order to sail towards the haven of a blessed eternity. And for our comfort we have on board with us not only the disciples of Christ, that is, the pastors of the church, the successors of the apostles but also our Lord himself, according to his promise, Matt xxviii. 20, 'Lo, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.' In this voyage we are often exposed to storms, which threaten sometimes the whole church - as in cases of grievous persecutions, heresies, or other more general evils; at other times we are in danger from temptations and tribulations, from which, more or less, no one can expect to be exempted in the midst of the winds and waves of the boisterous ocean of this world. But we have Christ on board with us, and therefore we have nothing to fear if we will but have proper recourse to him, with a lively faith and confidence in him. And though he oftentimes seems to sleep, and defers his aid, for a trial of our faith, and to make us more sensible of the necessity we have of him, and more earnest in praying to him, he will not fail in his good time, (if we continue, like his disciples, calling out to him, 'Lord, save us: we perish,') to rise up, and to command the winds and the sea, and restore a calm.



Consider 2ndly, the lessons we are also to learn from the miracles of our Saviour's feeding at one time five thousand men with five loaves, and at another time four thousand with seven loaves. Our Lord himself has taught us, upon occasion of the former of these miracles, John vi. 26, 27, that we are not to seek or to follow him for the sake of the loaves - that is, for procuring a corporal livelihood or any temporal advantage - for this would be but catching at the shadow and losing the substance - that 'we are not to labour for the meat that perisheth, but for that,' said he, 'which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man will give you.' So that the great lesson he would have us to learn from his feeding the multitude is, that we should have recourse to him for the food and nourishment of our souls unto everlasting life; for that he himself is the living and life-giving bread, which, without any consumption or diminution, he distributes to all those that come to him, seeking from him the refreshment of their souls, either by communicating himself to them really in the holy sacrament, or spiritually by a communion of faith and love.



Consider 3rdly, in the miracles of our Lord's feeding the multitude, what other lessons may be learnt from the circumstances in which he wrought these wonders. 'I have compassion,' said he, 'on the multitude; for behold, they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat; and if I sent them away fasting to their own houses they will faint on the way, for some of them came from afar off,' Mark viii. 2, 3. The people whom he favoured with these miracles had followed him into the desert; they had preferred the attending upon him, and the hearing of his divine word, before all other occupations or recreations; they had continued with him for three whole days, without taking any thought for their bodily nourishment; and therefore our Lord, after feeding their souls with the word of life, and healing all that stood in need of cure, was pleased to provide also for their corporal sustenance, according to what he promised, Matt vi. 33, 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things (that is, meat, drink, and clothes,) shall be added unto you.' Learn from hence, Christians, what wonders your Saviour is disposed to work In favour of those that follow him into the wilderness by a spiritual retreat - that is, by retiring from the noise and hurry of the world to attend upon him; that are not quickly wearied with his company, but continue diligently with him, (notwithstanding the difficulties and oppositions they meet with from the world, the flesh, and the devil,) and that gladly hearken to his divine word. O! such as these will not fail of being refreshed by him.



Conclude to follow Christ into the wilderness by making at least a little wilderness for him in thy own soul, and there frequently attending upon him by recollection and mental prayer, assure thyself that he will never send thee away fasting, but will have compassion of thee, and frequently feed thee with his hidden manna, lest thou faint in the way; for thou hast as yet a great way to go before thou canst reach thy eternal home.

Dec 4 -DAILY MEDITATIONS BY BISHOP CHALLONER

DECEMBER 4TH

ON OUR LORD'S CLEANSING THE LEPERS

Consider first, that the cleansing the leprosy is one of those miracles of our Lord which is more particularly instructive, because the leprosy was an emblem or figure of sin. Hence we find so many prescriptions in the Levitical law, (Lev. xiii. and xiv.,) with regard to such as had contracted the leprosy; and the judgment that was to be made of them by the priest, to whose inspection they were committed by the law; and the rites and sacrifices by which they were to be cleansed; which were all figurative and expressive of what was to be done by, or for them, who had contracted the spiritual leprosy of sin. The first mentioned to have been cleansed by our Lord of his leprosy, was he that came (after our Saviour's coming down from the mountain, Matt. viii. 2, 3) And worshipped him, saying: 'Lord if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying: I will: be thou made clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.' See Christians, by this example, in what manner you are to apply to your Lord, if you desire to be cleansed of your spiritual leprosy. See with what a strong and lively faith, accompanied with a profound humility, this leper presents himself before our Saviour; and learn to imitate him. Faith and humility are very efficacious with your heavenly physician. It was appointed, Levit. xiii. 44, &c., that whosoever was defiled with the leprosy, and separated by the judgment of the priest, should keep a respectful distance, with regard to the rest of the faithful; and should both by his outward habit, and by the cry of his voice, declare aloud, that he was defiled and unclean, to signify the humble dispositions which are necessary in the case of the spiritual leprosy before we can expect to meet with a cure.



Consider 2ndly, how our Lord having cleansed the leper, to teach us to avoid all ostentation and vain glory in doing good, said to him: 'See thou tell no man: but go show thyself to the priest and offer the gift which Moses commanded, for a testimony to him.' Our Lord sent those whom he cleansed from the leprosy to the priest, to conform to the prescription of the law of Moses; and at the same time, to give us to understand that even when, by the grace of a perfect contrition, he cleanses souls from the leprosy of sin, he still expects that they should show themselves to his priest, by a sincere confession of their sins; in consequence of his divine law, by which he has given to his priest the inspection and judgment of the leprosy of the soul; with the power of binding and loosing forgiving and retaining sins; and the dispensation of all the mysteries and sacraments. The person that was cleansed from the leprosy, and sent to the priest, was ordered to offer the the gift which Moses commanded, and consequently to observe the other prescriptions of the law (Levit. xii.). He was, in order to his purification, to be sprinkled seven times with the blood of a bird, immolated over living waters; he was to wash all his clothes; he was to shave all his hair; and to be washed himself all over with water; and then after seven days he was to offer a burnt offering, and a sin offering; and to be fully cleansed and expiated by the blood of the lamb, offered for sin, and by the oil of the sacrifice, that had been sprinkled seven times before the Lord; to signify to us, by these mysterious ceremonies, that such as desire to be thoroughly cleansed from the spiritual leprosy of sin, must by repeated washings of their consciences with the waters of compunction, by frequently sprinkling their souls with the blood of the Lamb of God, and by the applying to the the unction of their sevenfold grace of the Holy Ghost, attain to this perfect purification.



Consider 3rdly, what we read, Luke xvii., of ten other lepers, who applied to our Lord for their cure: 'they stood afar off, and lifted up their voices, saying: Jesus, O master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said, Go show yourselves to the priest. And it came to pass, that as they went, they were cleansed.' See, my soul, how quickly thy Lord is moved to show mercy to them that with a loud cry call for mercy; that is with a loud cry of fervent prayer, joined with a profound humility, and a true sense of their own misery and unworthiness; expressed in the case of these men by their standing afar off, as not daring to come nearer to our Lord, by reason of their uncleanness. O let us learn to apply to our Saviour for the cure of our spiritual leprosy, with the like fervour and humility! But then mark also what follows: 'And one of them, when he saw that he was cleansed, went back, and with a loud voice glorified God: and he fell on his face before his feet, giving thanks, and this man was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering, said, Were there not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return, and to give glory to God, but this stranger.' O Christians, let us learn by this example the sentiments of love and gratitude, devotion and humility with which we ought to praise and glorify God, after being cleansed by his mercy from the unhappy leprosy of sin; the great value also we ought to set upon the grace of our purification and reconciliation to his divine majesty; and the care we ought to take never more to incur this worst of all uncleanness and of evils. alas! where these sentiments are wanting in penitents, it is much to be apprehended, that they are not far off from relapsing again into their former leprosy, and that in a worse degree than before.



Conclude to dread and to fly from the spiritual leprosy of sin more than from any other evil; but if at any time you have reason to apprehend that you have incurred this dreadful uncleanness, learn from the foregoing considerations to whom, and in what manner, you are to apply for your cure, and how you are to behave after having found this mercy.

Practice During Advent from THE LITURGICAL YEAR BY THE VERY REV. DOM PROSPER GUÉRANGER, ABBOT OF SOLESMES

CHAPTER THE THIRD

PRACTICE DURING ADVENT

If our holy mother the Church spends the time of Advent in this solemn preparation for the threefold coming of Jesus Christ; if, after the example of the prudent virgins, she keeps her lamp lit ready for the coming of the Bridegroom; we, being her members and her children, ought to enter into her spirit, and apply to ourselves this warning of our Saviour: ‘Let your loins be girt, and lamps burning in your hands, and ye yourselves be like unto men who wait for their Lord!’ [St. Luke xii. 35, 36]. The Church and we have, in reality, the same hopes. Each one of us is, on the part of God, an object of mercy and care, as is the Church herself. If she is the temple of God, it is because she is built of living stones; if she is the bride, it is because she consists of all the souls which are invited to eternal union with God. If it is written that the Saviour hath purchased the Church with His own Blood [Acts xx. 28], may not each one of us say of himself those words of St. Paul, ‘Christ hath loved me, and hath delivered Himself up for me’ [Gal. ii. 20]. Our destiny being the same, then, as that of the Church, we should endeavour during Advent, to enter into the spirit of preparation, which is, as we have seen, that of the Church herself.



And firstly, it is our duty to join with the saints of the old Law in asking for the Messias, and thus pay the debt which the whole human race owes to the divine mercy. In order to fulfil this duty with fervour, let us go back in thought to those four thousand years, represented by the four weeks of Advent, and reflect on the darkness and crime which filled the world before our Saviour’s coming. Let our hearts be filled with lively gratitude towards Him who saved His creature man from death, and who came down from heaven that He might know our miseries by Himself experiencing them, yes, all of them excepting sin. Let us cry to Him with confidence from the depths of our misery; for, notwithstanding His having saved the work of His hands, He still wishes us to beseech Him to save us. Let therefore our desires and our confidence have their free utterance in the ardent supplications of the ancient prophets, which the Church puts on our lips during these days of expectation; let us give our closest attention to the sentiments which they express.



This first duty complied with, we must next turn our minds to the coming which our Saviour wishes to accomplish in our own hearts. It is, as we have seen, a coming full of sweetness and mystery, and a consequence of the first; for the good Shepherd comes not only to visit the flock in general, but He extends His solicitude to each one of the sheep, even to the hundredth which is lost. Now, in order to appreciate the whole of this ineffable mystery, we must remember that, since we can be pleasing to our heavenly Father only inasmuch as He sees within us His Son Jesus Christ, this amiable Saviour deigns to come into each one of us, and transform us, if we will but consent, into Himself, so that henceforth we may live, not we, but He in us. This is, in reality, the one grand aim of the Christian religion, to make man divine through Jesus Christ: it is the task which God has given to His Church to do, and she says to the faithful what St. Paul said to his Galatians: ‘My little children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed within you!’ [Gal. iv. 19].



But as, on His entering into this world, our divine Saviour first showed Himself under the form of a weak Babe, before attaining the fulness of the age of manhood, and this to the end that nothing might be wanting to His sacrifice, so does He intend to do in us; there is to be a progress in His growth within us. Now, it is at the feast of Christmas that He delights to be born in our souls, and that He pours out over the whole Church a grace of being born, to which, however, not all are faithful.



For this glorious solemnity, as often as it comes round, finds three classes of men. The first, and the smallest number, are those who live, in all its plenitude, the life of Jesus who is within them, and aspire incessantly after the increase of this life. The second class of souls is more numerous; they are living, it is true, because Jesus is in them; but they are sick and weakly, because they care not to grow in this divine life; their charity has become cold! [Apoc. ii. 4]. The rest of men make up the third division, and are they that have no part of this life in them, and are dead; for Christ has said: ‘I am the Life.’ [St. John xiv.6].



Now, during the season of Advent, our Lord knocks at the door of all men’s hearts, at one time so forcibly that they must needs notice Him; at another, so softly that it requires attention to know that Jesus is asking admission. He comes to ask them if they have room for Him, for He wishes to be born in their house. The house indeed is His, for he built it and preserves it; yet He complains that His own refused to receive Him [Ibid. i. 11]; at least the greater number did. ‘But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, born not or blood, nor of the flesh, but of God.’ [Ibid. 12, 13].



He will be. born, then, with more beauty and lustre and might than you have hitherto seen in Him, O ye faithful ones, who hold Him within you as your only treasure, and who have long lived no other life than His, shaping your thoughts and works on the model of His. You will feel the necessity of words to suit and express your love; such words as He delights to hear you speak to Him. You will find them in the holy liturgy.



You, who have had Him within you without knowing Him, and have possessed Him without relishing the sweetness of His presence, open your hearts to welcome Him, this time, with more care and love. He repeats His visit of this year with an untiring tenderness; He has forgotten your past slights; He would ‘that all things be new.’ [Apoc. xxi. 5]. Make room for the divine Infant, for He desires to grow within your soul. The time of His coming is close at hand: let your heart, then, be on the watch; and lest you should slumber when He arrives, watch and pray, yea, sing. The words of the liturgy are intended also for your use: they speak of darkness, which only God can enlighten; of wounds, which only His mercy can heal; of a faintness, which can be braced only by His divine energy.



And you, Christians, for whom the good tidings are as things that are not, because you are dead in sin, lo! He who is very life is coming among you. Yes, whether this death of sin has held you as its slave for long years, or has but freshly inflicted on you the wound which made you its victim, Jesus, your Life, is coming: ‘why, then, will you die? He desireth not the death of the sinner, but rather that he be converted and live.’ [Ezechiel xviii. 31, 32]. The grand feast of His birth will be a day of mercy for the whole world; at least, for all who will give Him admission into their hearts: they will rise to life again in Him, their past life will be destroyed, and where sin abounded, there grace will more abound. [Rom. v. 20].



But, if the tenderness and the attractiveness of this mysterious coming make no impression on you, because your heart is too weighed down to be able to rise to confidence, and because, having so long drunk sin like water, you know not what it is to long with love for the caresses of a Father whom you have slighted - then turn your thoughts to that other coming, which is full of terror, and is to follow the silent one of grace that is now offered. Think within yourselves, how this earth of ours will tremble at the approach of the dread Judge; how the heavens will flee from before His face, and fold up as a book [Apoc vi. 14]; how man will wince under His angry look; how the creature will wither away with fear, as the two-edged sword, which comes from the mouth of his Creator [Ibid. i. 16], pierces him; and how sinners will cry out, ‘Ye mountains, fall on us! ye rocks, cover us!’ [St. Luke xxiii. 30]. Those unhappy souls who would not know the time of their visitation [Ibid. xix. 44], shall then vainly wish to hide themselves from the face of Jesus. They shut their hearts against this Man-God who, in His excessive love for them, wept over them: therefore, on the day of judgement they will descend alive into those everlasting fires, whose flame devoureth the earth with her increase, and burneth the foundations of the mountains [Deut. xxxii. 22]. The worm that never dieth [St. Mark ix. 43], the useless eternal repentance, will gnaw them for ever.



Let those, then, who are not touched by the tidings of the coming of the heavenly Physician and the good Shepherd who giveth His life for His sheep, meditate during Advent on the awful yet certain truth, that so many render the redemption unavailable to themselves by refusing to co-operate in their own salvation. They may treat the Child who is to be born [Is. ix. 6] with disdain; but He is also the mighty God, and do they think they can withstand Him on that day, when He is to come, not to save, as now, but to judge? Would that they knew more of this divine Judge, before whom the very saints tremble! Let these, also, use the liturgy of this season, and they will there learn how much He is to be feared by sinners.



We would not imply by this that only sinners need to fear; no, every Christian ought to fear. Fear, when there is no nobler sentiment with it, makes man a slave; when it accompanies love, it is a feeling which fills the heart of a child who has offended his father, yet seeks for pardon; when, at length, love casteth out fear [1 St. John iv. 18], even then this holy fear will sometimes come, and, like a flash of lightning, pervade the deepest recesses of the soul. It does the soul good. She wakes up afresh to a keener sense of her own misery and of the unmerited mercy of her Redeemer. Let no one, therefore, think that he may safely pass his Advent without taking any share in the holy fear which animates the Church. She, though so beloved by God, prays to Him to give her this fear; and in her Office of Sext, she thus cries out to Him: ‘Pierce my flesh with Thy fear.’ It is, however, to those who are beginning a good life, that this part of the Advent liturgy will be peculiarly serviceable.



It is evident, from what we have said, that Advent is a season specially devoted to the exercises of what is called the purgative life, which is implied in that expression of St. John, so continually repeated by the Church during this holy time: Prepare ye the way of the Lord! Let all, therefore, strive earnestly to make straight the path by which Jesus will enter into their souls. Let the just, agreeably to the teaching of the apostle, forget the things that are behind [Phil. iii. 13], and labour to acquire fresh merit. Let sinners begin at once and break the chains which now enslave them. Let them give up those bad habits which they have contracted. Let them weaken the flesh, and enter upon the hard work of subjecting it to the spirit. Let them, above all things, pray with the Church. And when our Lord comes, they may hope that He will not pass them by, but that He will enter and dwell within them; for He spoke of all when He said these words: ‘Behold I stand at the gate and knock: if any man shall hear My voice will open to Me the door, I will come in unto him.’ [Apoc. ii. 20].