{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38965/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38965","id":"gutenberg_38965","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38965","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint -- Meditations"],"text":"Produced by Karina Aleksandrova, JoAnn Greenwood and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n(This file was produced from images generously made\navailable by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n    MATER CHRISTI\n\n    MEDITATIONS ON OUR LADY\n\n\n\n\n_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_\n\nWith a Preface to each volume by the Rev. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.\n\n\n     SPONSA CHRISTI. Meditations on the Religious Life.\n\n     PASSIO CHRISTI. Meditations for Lent.\n\n     DONA CHRISTI. Meditations for Ascension-tide, Whitsun-tide,\n     and Corpus Christi.\n\n\nLONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n\nLONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS\n\n\n\n\n    MATER CHRISTI\n\n    MEDITATIONS ON OUR LADY\n\n    BY\n\n    MOTHER ST PAUL\n    HOUSE OF RETREATS, BIRMINGHAM\n    AUTHOR OF \"SPONSA CHRISTI,\" \"PASSIO CHRISTI,\" ETC.\n\n    WITH A PREFACE BY\n\n    REV. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.\n\n    _Mater Christi, ora pro nobis_\n\n    NEW IMPRESSION\n\n    LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.\n    39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON\n    FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET, NEW YORK\n    BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS\n\n    1920\n\n    All rights reserved\n\n\n\n\n    =Nihil obstat=\n\n        JOSEPHUS RICKABY, S.J.\n\n            _Censor deputatus._\n\n    =Imprimatur=\n\n        [+] EDUARDUS\n\n            _Archiep. Birmingamien._\n\n    _Die 31 Oct. 1918._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\n_JESUS CHRIST, yesterday and to-day, the same also for ever._ (Heb.\nxiii. 8.) His salvation extends to all generations. _My salvation shall\nendure for ever, and My righteousness shall not fail._ (Isaias li. 6.)\nAlso He says: _My words shall not pass away_. (Matt. xxiv. 35.) He is\nthe Teacher of all times, and that as well by His actions as by His\nwords, by what He said and by what He did. It was His _to do and to\nteach_. (Acts i. 1.) It is ours, ours in this twentieth century, to\nlisten to what He says, and to mark what He does. It is ours to hear Him\nand to see Him, spiritually. That we do by reading of His gospel, by\nlistening to sermons, and very particularly by meditation, or by what St\nIgnatius calls \"contemplation\" of the mysteries of His life. To\n\"contemplate\" in the Ignatian sense is to make yourself present at some\nscene of our Saviour's life and behold it all, as it were, re-enacted\nbefore your eyes. It is the process called in modern philosophy\n\"visualisation.\" These Meditations are composed on the Ignatian plan of\n_visualising_ what Our Lord did, said, and suffered. _Blessed are they\nwho hear the word of GOD and keep it._ (Luke xi. 28.) Blessed are they\nwho take pains thus to _hear_ what their Saviour _says_, to\n_contemplate_ and _visualise_ what He _does_. They are the persons most\nlikely, with Mary, to _keep all these words in their heart_ (Luke ii.\n51), and in their measure to fulfil the teaching of the _Teacher of all\nnations_. (Matt. xxviii. 19.)\n\n                                        JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J.\n\n    _20th October 1918._\n\n\n\n\n    _Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                                PAGE\n\n    Prayers before and after Meditation                            1\n\n    Meditations\n\n     1. Immaculate!                                                2\n\n     2. Mary's Birthday                                            6\n\n     3. Her Presentation in the Temple                             9\n\n     4. Her Marriage                                              14\n\n     5. Hail Mary!                                                18\n\n     6. Mary's First Word. (\"_How shall this be done?_\")          23\n\n     7. Her Second Word. (\"_Behold the Handmaid of the Lord_\")    27\n\n     8. Her Third Word. (Her Salutation to Elizabeth)             30\n\n     9. Her Fourth Word. (The _Magnificat_)                       35\n\n    10. Her Silence                                               38\n\n    11. Her Expectation                                           42\n\n    12. The Stable                                                45\n\n    13. The Circumcision of her Son                               49\n\n    14. Her Purification                                          52\n\n    15. Wise Men and Babes                                        56\n\n    16. Egypt                                                     60\n\n    17. Mary's Fifth Word. (\"_Son, why hast Thou done so to\n            us?_\")                                                65\n\n    18. Nazareth                                                  68\n\n    19. Mary's Sixth Word. (\"_They have no wine_\")                74\n\n    20. Her Seventh Word. (\"_Whatsoever He shall say to you,\n            do ye_\")                                              77\n\n    21. \"Who is My Mother?\"                                       80\n\n    22. The Fourth and Fifth Dolours. (_Meeting JESUS with His\n            Cross, and The Crucifixion_)                          84\n\n    23. The Sixth and Seventh Dolours. (_The Taking down from\n            the Cross and The Burial_)                            88\n\n    24. The First Glorious Mystery                                92\n\n    25. The Second and Third Glorious Mysteries                   95\n\n    26. Mary's Exile                                              99\n\n    27. Her Death                                                104\n\n    28. Her Tomb                                                 107\n\n    29. \"Who is She?\" (The Fourth Glorious Mystery)              110\n\n    30. Mary's Coronation. (The Fifth Glorious Mystery)          114\n\n    31. Salve Regina                                             118\n\n\n\n\nMATER CHRISTI\n\n\n\n\nPRAYERS\n\nBefore Meditation\n\n\nO Holy Ghost, give me a great devotion and a great attraction towards\nMary, Thy spouse; a great support in her maternal bosom, and an abiding\nrefuge in her mercy; so that in her and by her Thou mayest form in me\nJESUS Christ.\n\n                            (_Blessed Grignon de Montfort._)\n\n\nMemorare, O piissima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saeculo, quemquam ad\ntua currentem praesidia, tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia,\nesse derelictum. Ego, tali animatus confidentia, ad te Virgo virginum,\nMater, curro. Ad te venio; coram te gemens peccator assisto. Noli, Mater\nVerbi, verba mea despicere; sed audi propitia et exaudi. Amen.\n\nRemember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that\nanyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, and sought thy\nintercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to\nthee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To thee I come; before thee I\nstand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not\nmy petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.\n\n(_300 days, each time._)\n\n\nAfter Meditation\n\nMy Queen and my Mother, to thee I offer myself without reserve; and to\ngive thee a mark of my devotion, I consecrate to thee during this day,\nmy eyes, my ears, my mouth, my heart, and my whole person. Since then I\nbelong to thee, O my good Mother, preserve and defend me, as thy\nproperty and possession. Amen.\n\n(_100 days, once a day, if said morning and evening._)\n\nSub tuum praesidium confugimus, sancta Dei Genitrix! nostras\ndeprecationes ne despicias in necessitatibus nostris, sed a periculis\ncunctis, libera nos semper Virgo gloriosa et benedicta.\n\nWe fly to thy patronage, O holy Mother of GOD. Despise not our petitions\nin our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers, O glorious\nand blessed Virgin.\n\n\n\n\nImmaculate!\n\n     \"_Thy Holy Tabernacle which Thou hast prepared from, the\n     beginning._\" (Wisdom ix. 8.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture or medal of the Immaculate\n     Conception.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to understand.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE PREPARATION OF THE TABERNACLE\n\nWhy should Mary be called a Tabernacle? She tells us herself--for the\nChurch applies these words to Mary: \"He that created me rested in my\ntabernacle.\" (Ecclus. xxiv. 12.) He sojourned there for a time Who \"was\nmade flesh and dwelt (_tabernacled_ the Greek word means) among us.\"\nWhen did GOD begin to prepare His Tabernacle? Was it on the day of the\nHoly and Immaculate Conception? Was it when He spoke to our first\nparents of \"the seed of the woman\"? Was it just before the War in\nHeaven, when He revealed His plans to the first creatures of His Hands?\nLong, long before! \"From the beginning,\" the Holy Tabernacle was being\nprepared. And _He_ says this, Who had no beginning, with Whom is\n\"neither beginning of days nor end of life,\" (Heb. vii. 3), Who says of\nHimself: \"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.\" (Apoc. i.\n8.) From all Eternity, then, the Holy Tabernacle was being prepared in\nthe mind of GOD.\n\nWhat care GOD took in the preparation of Mary, because she was to be the\nMother of His Son! And what care He takes in His preparation of me! I,\ntoo, have always been in the mind of GOD. \"From the beginning\" He has\nprepared me to fulfil the end for which He created me. Here on earth we\nare very careful about the training of those who are destined to fill\ncertain offices, and the higher the office the more careful the\ntraining. How carefully are princes of royal blood trained! How careful\nis the preparation of a Priest, of a Religious! But GOD has been at work\nat the preparation long before we begin ours, and He is training for a\nmost important office, namely, the salvation of the soul--the end for\nwhich He created every single child of Adam. All the chequered picture\nof the life of GOD'S child forms a part of His preparation--all the ups\nand downs, and windings and turnings, and things that seemed at the\ntime, perhaps, so useless. Mistakes and failures--even sin itself, He\ncan, by means of the contrition which it causes, turn to good account,\nas He did in the cases of St Mary Magdalen, of St Peter, and of\ninnumerable others. He knows how to bring good out of evil, and to make\nall work together for good to those who love Him.\n\nWhat have I got to do, then, in the matter? Do as Mary did, prove my\nlove to Him by _co-operation_ in His plans for me. There must be no\ncomplaint about what He arranges. Faith must be strong enough to\nbelieve that, not only now in the present, all things are working\ntogether to enable me to fulfil the end for which GOD created me; but\nthat in the past, too--that past which I so often allow to disturb my\npeace--GOD was working, and preparing me step by step for what He\nintended me to be. It is want of faith, really, which is often at the\nbottom of all my problems and difficulties. I will not believe that He\nforgives and forgets and brings good out of the evil. This it is which\ninterferes in GOD'S preparation of me, and makes me unfit for the work\nfor which He has so patiently been preparing me. Let me think to-day of\nMary's perfect co-operation, and ask her to obtain for me more faith and\nmore love.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE HOLY TABERNACLE\n\nWhat was it? A human body and soul specially prepared by GOD to be the\nTabernacle where His Son should rest--a body, we may well believe, more\nthan usually beautiful, for that body from which He that was \"fairer\nthan the sons of men\" was to take flesh, must needs be fair too. \"Thou\nart _all_ fair.\" But it was the _soul_ which made the Tabernacle holy.\nHere the preparation had been special and unique. Mary's soul had a\nbeauty all its own, for neither original sin nor any of its effects had\never touched it. Not only was it sinless, as my soul was after Baptism,\nbut, instead of being prone to evil, it was upright, and ever aspiring\nafter good. Never once was there a wilful imperfection in Mary's soul.\nIt is probable, too, that her understanding was enlightened, and that\nshe had the full use of reason from the moment of her Conception, that\nis, from the moment when her body and soul were joined together. In her\nwill there was no weakness, it was in perfect conformity with GOD'S\nWill; and in her heart there was no concupiscence. Her body, too, shared\nin this wondrous liberty, for it knew neither sickness nor corruption.\n\nBut are we not making Mary almost equal with her Son? No, for the gulf\nbetween them is that between the Creator and the creature. Could any\ngulf be wider? Her Son was GOD, and was impeccable _by nature_. Mary was\nimpeccable _by grace_. Mary was sinless because GOD her Creator chose to\nmake her so, so that at the moment of her conception He was able to say:\n\"Thou art all fair--there is no spot in thee.\"\n\nSuch was \"the Holy Tabernacle prepared from the beginning.\"\n\nAnd Mary is my model! Does it seem impossible? Does it almost weary me\nto have such perfection given me to copy? Let me answer my question by\nanother: _Could_ GOD do otherwise? Would it be worthy of Himself if He\nwere to give me anything less than a _perfect_ copy? If for our pupils,\nwho are studying merely things of time, we seek ever the best models,\ncan we expect GOD, Who is training for eternity, to give His pupils a\ncopy that is less than perfect? And the task need not discourage us. GOD\nis not a hard master expecting to reap where He has not sown. He does\nnot expect more than He has given; He does not expect perfection; but He\ndoes expect generous efforts. He does expect fidelity, and\ncorrespondence to the grace He has given. It was her constant\nperseverance in these virtues which kept Mary always full of grace and\npleasing to GOD, not the privilege of her Immaculate Conception.\n\n\"O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.\"\nPray that I, who with all a child's love and admiration desire to copy\nmy Mother, may never be discouraged, but may go on, ever aiming at\nperfection, and never surprised at the want of it; full of faults and\nfailings always, but full, too, of love and confidence and conformity to\nGOD'S Will. So shall I one day, with my Mother's prayers and help, be\npresented \"spotless before the presence of His glory with exceeding\njoy.\" (Jude 24.)\n\n     _Colloquy._ \"O GOD, Who by the Immaculate Conception of a\n     Virgin didst prepare a worthy habitation for Thy Son, we\n     beseech Thee that Thou, Who through the foreseen death of Thy\n     same Son didst preserve her from all stain of sin, wouldst\n     grant also to us through her intercession to come pure to\n     Thee.\" (_Collect for the Feast of the Immaculate\n     Conception._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To strive to copy my model.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Be diligent, that ye may be found\n     undefiled and unspotted to Him in peace.\" (2 Peter iii. 14.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Birthday\n\n     \"_In me is all grace._\" (Ecclus. xxiv. 25.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of Our Lady's Nativity. St Anne is\n     holding up her babe, just swaddled, and offering it to GOD;\n     the nurse is waiting to put the little one in its cradle. St\n     Joachim is coming into the room. A Dove is hovering over the\n     babe's head. Angels are looking on.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to look on with the Angels, and try to\n     understand.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE ANGELS\n\nWhat does it all mean? Why are the Angels so full of interest? Was the\nbirth of this little one so different from any other? It was indeed\nmiraculous, but Joachim and Anne were by no means the only ones thus\nfavoured. No, there is something beyond this which is engaging the\ninterest of the Angels. They see in this little babe, whom Anne is\noffering to GOD, a sight to make them wonder and adore--they see a soul\nwhich has never been touched by original sin. They had seen Adam created\nin grace; they had seen Jeremias, and later would see John Baptist, both\nspotless from their birth, but spotless because they had been _cleansed_\nfrom original sin before birth. In these souls, however, they saw no\nmore than they see in each little soul as it leaves the baptismal font,\ngrace having taken the place of original sin. But in Mary they see a\nsight which they have never seen before--a soul whose sanctity surpasses\nthat of angels and of men, a soul which will glorify GOD more perfectly\nthan any other creature ever has done, or will do. No wonder the Angels\nare lost in admiration!\n\nThey have known about the Incarnation ever since the War in Heaven; now\nthey see one of the steps by which it was to be accomplished. They see\nthe \"tabernacle prepared,\" and at its side they will never cease to\nwonder and praise GOD, as long as that pure soul stays in this land of\nexile.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE BABE\n\nMary was born with an end to fulfil, just as I was. She was created to\npraise, reverence, and serve GOD, just as I was; created to save her\nsoul, just as I was. And because of her absolute purity, she understood\nher end perfectly from the first moment of her existence, and followed\nit always without swerving. While her mother was offering her to GOD,\nshe, with the full use of her reason (as many hold) offered herself to\nfulfil the end for which she had been created. She did not know what the\n_particular_ end was to be--GOD did not reveal to her till the day of\nthe Incarnation, that she was to be the Mother of GOD--but she offered\nherself to do what GOD wished, she put herself at His disposal.\n\nAnd this is what I must do every day of my life if I would fulfil the\nend for which GOD has created me. Here I am, Lord, to do Thy bidding, to\ndo whatever Thou didst intend me to do to-day. I may not know, any more\nthan did the Immaculate babe in her cradle, what the _particular_ end is\nfor which He has destined me; but that does not matter. If I am found\nfaithfully doing my duty of the moment, whatever it may be--doing it,\nthat is to say, for GOD, praising, reverencing, and serving Him in it--I\nshall not miss the important moment in my life when GOD calls me to the\nspecial work for which He has destined me. I can, if I will, do each\nlittle duty of my everyday life for GOD, with the pure motive of giving\nHim pleasure. It is the surest way of making myself indifferent as to\nwhether or not the duty gives _me_ pleasure! And it ensures that, from\none point of view, _all_ duties will be a pleasure. I was created by GOD\nto do this particular thing for Him at this particular moment, so I do\nit. What an uplifting thought! It puts me at once on to another\nplane--the supernatural plane--where the whole aspect is different. This\nis the truth, which the little one whose birthday I am thinking about\nto-day understood so perfectly. \"Behold the handmaid of the Lord,\" was\nher cry even then. It was because Mary understood the value of the\n\"Sacrament of the moment,\" as it has been called, that when _the_ moment\nof her life came, and her great end was revealed to her, she was able to\nsay: \"_Ecce ancilla Domini!_\" She was used to saying it; it was the most\nnatural thing for her to say. And so will it be for me, if only I will\npractise as Mary did. I shall bow to His Will in the _great_ crises of\nmy life--not naturally but supernaturally--because I have formed the\nhabit in all the _little_ things that make up my life.\n\n\n_Point III._--THE DOVE\n\nOvershadowing His spouse is the Holy Ghost. He it was Who filled her\nwith grace at the moment of the Immaculate Conception. He it is Who will\nkeep her \"full of grace\" at every moment of her life. Never for one\ninstant will He leave her. Never for one instant will she cease to be\nthe Temple of the Holy Ghost. (1 Cor. vi. 19.) Always will He be able to\nsay to her: \"Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in\nthee.\" (Cant. iv. 7.) Why? Because Mary will never \"_extinguish_ the\nHoly Spirit.\" (1 Thess. v. 19.) She will never \"_grieve_\" Him. (Eph. iv.\n30.) And not only will she never resist a single one of His\ninspirations, but she will never let _one_ pass by unnoticed. Her\ncorrespondence to grace will be perfect.\n\nOh, what need I have to turn to the little one in her cradle to-day, and\nsay: \"Pray for me _now_\"! Pray that I may never extinguish the Holy\nSpirit, but live always in a state of grace. Pray that I may never\ngrieve Him, Whose temple I am, by resisting His pleadings with me.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with the babe in her cradle.\n\n     _Resolution._ To make much of the \"Sacrament of the moment\"\n     to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"In me is all grace.\" (Ecclus. xxiv.\n     25.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Presentation in the Temple\n\n     \"_In the holy dwelling-place I have ministered before Him._\"\n     (Ecclus. xxiv. 14.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The child on the Temple steps.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to present myself to GOD.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY\n\nAt the age of three years, tradition tells us, Mary left her home to go\nand live in the Temple--not merely, as other little girls of her time,\nto attend the Temple school, but to dedicate herself to GOD, and to live\ncontinually under the shadow of His Presence, as Samuel of old had done.\nHer desire, even at that tender age, was to confirm her parents'\ndedication of her at her birth, by giving herself up entirely to GOD, to\nlive a hidden life with Him away from everything, however lawful, that\nmight disturb her union with Him. She waited only for His call, and as\nsoon as it was given, she left all and followed--even her parents must\ntake a second place.\n\nSo, joyously and eagerly, did Mary fulfil her end of the moment. GOD\ncalled her, and she went to Him. She did not know what He wanted her\nfor, nor did she seek to know. Sufficient for her that He wanted her,\nand was calling. At once she presented herself before Him as the little\nSamuel of old. \"Here am I, for Thou didst call me. Speak, for Thy\nservant heareth.\" (1 Kings iii. 9.) She was ready for anything that He\nmight want.\n\nAnd this should be the attitude of all who would serve Him--a constant\npresentation of themselves to Him for whatever He wants. This attitude\ncan only be arrived at by the spirit of sacrifice. To be always at\nliberty for GOD'S service, the soul must be disentangled from all else,\nfree from all that would hold it back. And this means sacrifice. Mary,\npresenting herself at the Temple, is specially, though not exclusively,\nthe model of those who are called to the Religious Life. But do not let\nus make any mistake--a Religious is not _free_ to give himself to GOD\nbecause he has left parents and home and possessions. He may go through\nall these preliminaries, and yet not be, by any means, at GOD'S service.\nThe great work of disentangling the soul and setting it free is done\n_inside_ the Cloister, while the Religious is learning that it is _self_\nwhich stands in the way, and that until _that_ is crushed, he is not\nable to render to GOD free and joyous service, such as Mary did. And\nthis lesson has to be learned by those outside the Cloister too, if they\nwould follow Mary in being always ready to answer GOD'S calls and do His\nbiddings. It is not their home and friends and possessions that they are\nasked to quit, but _themselves_. GOD will constantly want them in the\nmidst of their busy lives, and they will never be too much occupied or\nengrossed to answer His calls, if self is out of the question. \"Present\nyour bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto GOD, your reasonable\nservice.\" (Rom. xii. 1.) Present yourselves each day, each hour, each\nmoment, with each joy, each sorrow, each duty, each difficulty--present\nall as an offering to Him, Who expects your reasonable service. This is\nthe lesson which the child on the Temple steps teaches us to-day--the\nlesson of _self-sacrifice_.\n\n\n_Point II._--JOACHIM AND ANNE\n\nHer parents did not thwart her in her wish. They had made their\nsacrifice three years before, and they were not likely to take it back\nnow. They had probably told Mary the story of their long, childless\nyears; of their earnest prayers to GOD; and of their promise to give the\nchild back to Him should He bless them with one. They would have told\nher, too, that they had offered her to GOD at birth, and that, as soon\nas she was old enough, she would present herself in GOD'S Temple, as\nsomething dedicated to His service. And now, to-day, they accompany\ntheir little one to the \"holy dwelling-place\" where she is to \"minister\nbefore Him,\" and watch her climbing the Temple steps, at the top of\nwhich the Priest is waiting to receive her in GOD'S name. Desolate\nthough their home would now be, Joachim and Anne would rather have it so\nthan interfere in any way with the call of GOD to their child. They\nrecognised that GOD has _His_ rights, and that these must come first.\n\nWhat an honour GOD shows to parents, when He gives a vocation to a child\nof theirs; and what a blessing is thereby bestowed on the whole family!\nAnd surely, if there is merit laid up for the one who, in answer to\nGOD'S call, leaves father, mother, brother, sister, friend, to follow\nHim, there is merit also for those who make perhaps an equally great\nsacrifice, even if it is somewhat grudgingly made. GOD will not forget\nthe hearts and homes which have been made desolate because He has\nravished a heart there. He is never outdone in generosity. Those who\nhave given up their treasure on earth will find treasure in Heaven.\n\nChildren sometimes give themselves unnecessary pain by presuming too\nreadily that their parents' consent will be withheld. They will often\nfind their parents more ready than they think to make the sacrifice. It\nis not likely that GOD would give a vocation in a family without making\n_some_ sort of preparation there for it. His ways are not our ways, and\nso it happens that there are many surprises.\n\n\n_Point III._--MARY'S VOW\n\nIt is not known exactly when she made it--probably not on the day of her\nPresentation. She would take then the _Temporary_ Vow of Virginity, as\nall the pupils at the Temple school did till they left to be married.\nBut some time during her stay in the Temple, Mary, probably unknown to\nanyone but GOD, Who inspired her, took a vow of _Perpetual_ Virginity.\nShe could keep nothing back from GOD; He must have all. She presented\nherself \"wholly acceptable unto GOD.\"\n\nTo understand what a strange thing this Vow of Mary's was, we must\nremember that in those days _everyone_ married, even priests and High\nPriests, and everyone hoped--and especially now that the expectation was\ngetting keener--that his would be the favoured family in which the\nMessias was to be born. Mary had more reason to hope than many others,\nfor was she not of the tribe of Judah, and of the House of David? Yet\nshe took a vow which cut her off from all hope that this greatest of\nblessings would be hers. Why? Because her sacrifice of self was perfect.\nSelf was laid entirely on one side, and, as a consequence, her humility\nwas so great that she never thought it possible that the honour of being\nthe Mother of the Messias could be hers, and she cut herself off from\nall prospect of it. It was this very self-abnegation which was fitting\nMary for the destiny GOD intended for her. Her Vow of Virginity, made in\nresponse to GOD'S inspirations, was the necessary means for the carrying\nout of His plans. GOD'S ways are not our ways. \"Behold a _virgin_ shall\nconceive and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel.\" (Is.\nvii. 14.) But there were no virgins; and the fact that every Mother in\nIsrael was hoping to be the Mother of the Messias was a proof that this\n\"sign,\" which GOD Himself gave, was wholly ignored. It was contrary to\nthe spirit of the age. And this was GOD'S moment. Clearly He gave His\ncall: \"Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline thy ear, and forget thy\npeople and thy father's house; and the King shall greatly desire thy\nbeauty.\" (Ps. xliv. 11, 12.) And as the little one, in answer to the\nappeal, joyously mounted the Temple steps, the Angels were already\nsaluting her as _Queen of Virgins_. She was the first; how many would\nfollow in her train! \"_After her_ shall virgins be brought to the King;\nher neighbours shall be brought to Thee; they shall be brought with\ngladness and rejoicing; they shall be brought into the Temple of the\nKing. Instead of thy fathers, sons shall be born unto thee.\" (Verses\n15-17.)\n\nMay there not be a warning here for those who, having, in imitation of\nMary, taken the Vow of Virginity, desire too ardently to be the\n\"spiritual Mothers of children\"? Mary had no such desires. Her whole\ndesire was for union with GOD--there was not a tinge of self in it. The\nsoul which thinks itself unworthy of being used is the one GOD uses, the\nsoul which is wrapped up in seeking after its own perfection, hiding\nitself in its interior life, living its life in solitude with GOD and\nfor GOD. Blessed are the Mothers of spiritual children! Yes, but rather\nblessed are they who hear the word of GOD and keep it. There should be\nno limit to our zeal for souls, but it should be covered up by an\nannihilation of self, and an unobtrusive humility--a humility which\nteaches us to _act_, not to talk, as if _we_ could never be the ones\nchosen by GOD to do His work. Humility, far from being an obstacle,\nalways makes it easier for GOD to carry out His plans.\n\n     _Colloquy._ \"O Mary, Queen of Virgins, grant that by thy\n     intercession we may deserve to be presented one day to the\n     Most High in the Temple of His glory.\" (_Collect for the\n     Feast of the Presentation, B.V.M., Nov. 21._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To present myself often to GOD to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Congratulate me, all ye that love the\n     Lord, because when I was a little one, I pleased the Most\n     High.\" (_Common Office of Our Lady._)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Marriage\n\n     \"_Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born JESUS, Who is\n     called Christ._\" (St Matt. i. 16.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Picture of the marriage of Our Lady and St\n     Joseph.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ The grace of confidence in GOD.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY\n\nTwelve years have passed since the little child mounted the Temple steps\nto present herself to GOD. Never, during that time, has she taken back\nthe smallest part of her offering. Always has she been presenting\nherself as a living sacrifice; always has she been _full_ of grace,\ndoing GOD'S will perfectly, glorifying Him by her every thought, word,\nand action, as no human creature had ever glorified Him. How much Mary\nadded during those twelve years to the Treasury of merits from which the\nChurch was to draw, through all time, in answer to the appeals of her\nchildren, who were anxious to make satisfaction for their sins! In\nreturn for a little Indulgenced Prayer, or Act, the Church unlocks the\nTreasury, and the superabundant merits of Mary, added to the infinite\nmerits of her Divine Son, are given to the suppliant, either to make\nsatisfaction for his own sins, or, if he will, to be applied to the\nsouls in Purgatory, and thus lessen the debt they owe to GOD, and\nshorten the distance that lies between them and the Beatific Vision, for\nwhich they so earnestly long.\n\nOh, blessed Treasury of merits! JESUS, Who poured into it His infinite\nmerits, has an interest in it. Mary, whose wondrous merits all went into\nit, has an interest in it. The Saints, whose superabundant satisfactions\nare stored up there, have an interest in it. The Holy Souls must watch\nwith the keenest interest for the moments when the Church, coming with\nthe keys, entreats from Him, Who alone has jurisdiction in Purgatory,\nthat her treasures may be handed to this or that particular soul; and\nHe, Whose justice, as well as His mercy, is infinite, will distribute\nthem as He will. And shall not I, too, take an interest in this wondrous\nTreasury? Let me never forget to make use of it; and let my prayer every\nmorning be a fervent and a heart-felt one: \"I desire to gain all the\nIndulgences that I can this day.\"\n\nBut the time came when Mary had to leave the seclusion of the Temple,\nand give herself in marriage. She was helpless to prevent this, for her\nVow was a secret, unknown even to her parents. All she could do was to\nleave the matter in GOD'S Hands. It was to Him she had offered her\nvirginity, and she trusted Him to guard it. How simple and child-like\nwas her trust! The path pointed out to her _appeared_ to be directly\nopposite to the one she had chosen, but it was pointed out by those whom\nGOD had chosen to represent Himself to her--the priests of the Temple,\nor her parents, or both. Her faith was great enough to believe that GOD\ncan make no mistakes, that He cannot call in two different directions,\nthat all will work together to fulfil His Will, if only His Will is put\n_first_. What a lesson for us! How often in my life has something\nhappened, some way opened, which seemed to cut at the very root of some\ncherished plan! And yet, on looking back, I see that had I not followed\nGOD'S call along the path which _seemed_ to be leading the wrong way, I\nshould never have been able to carry out that plan which I had made for\nHis glory. Why was Abraham called the friend of GOD? Was it not because\nof his confidence in GOD--confidence shown in his readiness to follow\nwherever GOD called--even when He called him to sacrifice the child of\nthe promises? GOD loves to lead us about, by circuitous paths, and thus\nto bring out our love and trust and obedience. Had Mary taken a line of\nher own, and refused to marry because of her Vow, she would have\nfrustrated GOD'S plans for the Incarnation.\n\nI do not want to frustrate His plans for me. Let me remember this the\nnext time I am tempted to turn a deaf ear to a call of His, which does\nnot fit in with my tastes and desires and hopes.\n\n\n_Point II._--JOSEPH\n\nThe husband, chosen by GOD for this most delicate and most responsible\nposition, was our dear St Joseph. He was the one man in all the world of\nwhom GOD could be sure. He was \"a just man,\" one who would put no\nobstacle to GOD'S designs, but would, by his silence, tact,\nself-sacrifice, and fidelity lend himself to further them.\n\nLet me dwell for a little while on these qualities--qualities which GOD\nvalues and looks for, when He wants someone to whom He can entrust His\nwork or His secrets; and perhaps I shall discover things which may help\nme to be more zealous in His service, to be less for self and more for\nHim.\n\nSome have thought that Mary confided her secret to Joseph; and that he\nshowed his sympathy, and readiness to enter into all her interests, by\ntaking the Vow of Virginity too, thus preparing himself to be the\nhusband of Mary and the foster-father of JESUS.\n\n\n_Point III._--THE MARRIAGE\n\nAnd so this most beautiful marriage took place; and the Holy Spirit, Who\nwas ever watching over His spouse, blessed and sanctified the union of\nthese two virgin souls. It was a union in which the body was\nforgotten--or rather, the spiritual life had reached such heights by\nmeans of the body, that is, of the senses, that the soul was able to\nlive entirely in those heights. The soul was helped upwards by the body,\nas GOD intended it to be. When the body is dead, the soul can grow no\nmore. The level of the spiritual life, at which I am found at death,\nwill be mine through all eternity. The converse of this truth is, that\nthe body is necessary for the growth of the spiritual life, and that the\nsoul grows in proportion to the help it gets from the body. These\nthoughts will help me to understand how much the chaste marriage of\nJoseph and Mary must have aided their spiritual life, and how the Angels\nmust have rejoiced at a union which savoured so much more of Heaven than\nof Earth.\n\nNow, all was ready. The Virgin who was to conceive and bear a child,\nWhose name was to be Emmanuel--GOD with us--had got a guardian. GOD\ncould work His stupendous miracle, and keep it hidden, as He willed it\nto be for the present, from the curious gaze of unbelievers. Mary, by\nher self-abandonment, was supplying GOD with all He needed, never\nthwarting Him, nor putting the least obstacle in His way.\n\nAnd so we leave her, doing the work of the little cottage at Nazareth,\nwhile her carpenter-husband labours to support her. Mary has changed her\nabode; her outward circumstances have altered; but her union with GOD\nsuffers no change; it remains unbroken, undisturbed; nothing has the\npower to disturb her thoughts of Him. And Mary is my model. What I have\nto aim at, too, is a union with GOD so real and so close that the\nchanges and chances of this mortal life have no power to interrupt it.\nThis blessed lot will be mine when I have faith enough to see GOD'S Hand\nin every circumstance of my life. If I know that He is there, why need I\ntrouble so much about the ups and downs? The sea of life is bound to\nhave waves. What I have to do is to see to it that my little barque\nrides on the top of them in the most perfect security and peace. The\nMaster is at the helm, and I am _with Him_ in the boat. My thoughts,\nsurely, will be fixed on Him rather than on the changes in the weather!\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Our Lady, asking her to get me more faith.\n\n     _Resolution._ To let nothing interrupt my union with GOD.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Sancta Virgo virginum, ora pro nobis.\"\n\n\n\n\nHail Mary!\n\n     \"_The Angel Gabriel was sent from GOD into a city of Galilee,\n     called Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was\n     Joseph, of the house of David; and the Virgin's name was\n     Mary. And the Angel, being come in, said unto her: Hail! full\n     of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among\n     women!_\" (St Luke i. 26-28.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Gabriel saying the first _Hail Mary_.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to say my _Hail Maries_ well.\n\n\nWhen all was ready and GOD'S moment had arrived--\"when the fulness of\nthe time was come\" (Gal. iv. 4)--heaven opened, and one of GOD'S\nmessengers, Gabriel, an Archangel, was sent to Nazareth on a secret\nerrand to Mary. He knew her well, and he expressed his knowledge in the\nfirst _Hail Mary_ that was ever said. Let us meditate on these familiar\nwords, and try to find a few thoughts which may help us to say our _Hail\nMaries_ better.\n\n\n_Point I._--HAIL!\n\nReverently he salutes her; for though she is not yet the Mother of GOD,\nshe is immaculate, and worthy of all honour; besides, he is in the\nsecret, and knows GOD'S designs. \"Hail! full of grace.\"\n\nWhat does it mean--this word \"_Ave_,\" _Hail!_ with which Gabriel begins\nhis message? It is an expression of respect, honour, and reverence. It\nwas the salutation always given to the Roman Emperor: _Ave! Caesar\nImperator._ But it is not only a form of greeting; it implies also that\nhe who uses it is anxious to attract attention because he has something\nto say or some favour to ask.\n\nHow often I say it!--_Hail Mary!_ What do I mean by it? I ought to mean\nthat I am saluting the Queen of Heaven with all respect, honour, and\nreverence; and also that I, her child, am calling my Mother's attention.\nWhen she hears my _Hail!_ she expects that I have something to say to\nher, or that I want something. Is it so? And if Mary turned and said:\n\"Yes, my child, what is it?\" should I know?\n\nMy _Hail!_ should be also to call my Mother's attention to the fact that\nI am there if _she_ has anything to say to me, or if she wants anything.\nHail Mary! Your child is here, ready to do anything for you. When she\nturns at my _Hail!_ to ask me for something, does she always get it? Or\nis she disappointed to find that her child's thoughts are not really\nwith her at all?\n\nWhat shall I do, for I know that I stand convicted; and much though I\nshould like each _Hail Mary_ that I say to mean all this, I know that it\ndoes _not_? Would it be better not to say it at all, than to risk any\nwant of respect to that Mother whom I love so dearly?\n\nOh no. Does not a mother love to hear the voice of her babe in its\ncradle, even though the sounds it makes are quite inarticulate, and it\ncannot say what it wants? She always understands, and is able to\ninterpret the baby language, and will give it what is good for it,\nthough it may be all unconscious of its needs. None but the mother would\nrecognise that the babe was calling her attention--not even the babe\nitself. Is not this something like my _Hail Maries_ carelessly and\nlightly said? I say them because I am Mary's child; it is the most\nnatural thing to do; and she will interpret them as her Mother's heart\nknows how. And, like the babe in its cradle, I love to feel that she is\nat my side, because I have attracted her attention, even though I may\nhave done it almost from habit, and may not know exactly why.\n\nHail Mary! I will say the blest words as often as I can, putting into\nthem all the meaning and fervour of which I am capable, and leaving it\nto my Mother to make up all deficiencies.\n\n\n_Point II._--FULL OF GRACE\n\nHow is Mary full of grace?\n\n1. Because she was conceived without sin: that is, her soul was full of\ngrace instead of original sin. She was full of grace always--even before\nshe was the Mother of the Author of grace.\n\n2. Because of her correspondence to grace. She was always faithful to\ngrace. She never let one single opportunity pass by her unused. The more\nfaithful I am to the inspirations of grace, the fuller shall I be of\ngrace. It is a question of my fidelity, not of GOD'S generosity. He\nnever fails--the grace is always there waiting for me.\n\n3. Because she was always meriting grace. Each correspondence to grace\nentitled her to more, as it does me. It is by virtue of her merits that\nshe can obtain from her Divine Son all the grace that her children need.\nConfidently may they appeal to her, for she is the \"Mother of Divine\nGrace.\"\n\n\"_In me is all grace of the way._\" (Ecclus. xxiv. 25.) So Mary says to\nher children, and she has all I need for the way--that is, for my\njourney through life. The way is hard--it is the Highway of the Cross,\nthe way that JESUS trod before me. Let me never attempt to tread it\nalone--not for a single hour, for the pitfalls are many; but let me ask\nMary to accompany me--Mary with her never-failing supply of grace. It\nwas JESUS Himself Who gave me His Mother, and He gave her also all the\ngrace that He knew I should need for the way. What a provision He has\nmade for me! If I drew upon my stores more confidently, I should be much\nfuller of grace than I am.\n\n_Hail Mary! full of grace_, thou art my Mother. Let me put my hands in\nthine and keep close to thee. So shall the way have no terrors for me,\nand so shall I be able to tread in the Footsteps of thy Son, along His\nOwn Highway of the Cross.\n\n\n_Point III._--THE LORD IS WITH THEE. BLESSED ART THOU AMONG WOMEN\n\n_The Lord is with thee._ These words were often said of or to those to\nwhom GOD was about to entrust some special work. He was \"with Joseph\"\nwhile he was in Putiphar's prison, preparing him for the great work of\nserving the nation during the famine. (Gen. xxxix. 21.) \"I will be with\nthee,\" GOD said to Moses at the burning bush, when He told him that it\nwas he who was to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. (Ex. iii.\n12.) And to Josue, who had to bring the chosen people into the promised\nland, He said: \"As I have been with Moses, so I will be with thee. Fear\nnot, and be not dismayed: because the Lord thy GOD is with thee in all\nthings whatsoever thou shalt go to.\" (Jos. i. 5-9.) \"The Lord is with\nthee, O most valiant of men.\" This was the message the angel brought to\nGedeon at the threshing floor, for he was to leave his wheat and go to\ndeliver GOD'S people from idolatry and from their enemies. (Jud. vi.\n12.)\n\nAnd now when Mary is being singled out for the greatest work that was\never entrusted to any child of Adam--that of being the Mother of Him Who\nwas to save not one nation only, but the whole world, GOD sends an\nArchangel and bids him say to her: _The Lord is with thee_. GOD was with\nMary always; but now all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity are to be\nwith her in a very special way, to enable her to co-operate with GOD'S\ndesigns for her. But the message goes further: \"Blessed art thou among\nwomen.\" Gabriel tells her that GOD'S message to her is that she is\nblessed, and more blessed than all other women! It is praise indeed, and\npraise from GOD Himself. But GOD can trust Mary with praise. She is full\nof humility, for she is full of grace; and GOD knows that she will look\nat things from His point of view--not from her own.\n\nI may get some consolation from these words for myself. GOD sometimes\ngives me work to do for Him. How blessed I am to be picked out and\nchosen by Him! And I may be quite sure that He is _with me_ for it. It\nis His own work, and He will look after it Himself; but He needs an\ninstrument. The workman is never far from his tools, unless he has\nthrown them on one side as useless. \"The Lord is with thee.\" If I see to\nit that I am an instrument fit and ready for His service, I need have no\nother anxiety. He will use me when He wants me; the responsibility of\nthe work will be all His, and He will be with me, doing His work by\nmeans of me.\n\nO Mary, my Mother, help me to see things from GOD'S point of view, as\nthou didst. Obtain for me the grace to be full of confidence about any\nwork with which GOD may entrust me. And while I rejoice to be amongst\nthose _blessed_ ones whom He picks out to do His work, obtain for me the\ngrace of humility. And if the Workman should allow any words of praise\nto be given to the instrument, may it be because He can count on the\nhumility of His instrument--because He knows that the praise will all be\npassed on to Himself.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with my Mother as we walk along \"the way\"\n     together--a colloquy about correspondence to grace, about\n     being never alone in my work, about the blessedness of being\n     chosen by Him, about humility.\n\n     _Resolution._ To let my Rosary recall some of these thoughts\n     to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Among the blessed she shall be\n     blessed.\" (Ecclus. xxiv. 4.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's First Word\n\n     \"_And Mary said to the Angel: How shall this be done, because\n     I know not man?_\" (St Luke i. 34.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of the Annunciation.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ That my love for GOD may be great enough to\n     separate me from all else.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S SILENCE\n\nWe do not know what Mary was doing when the heavenly visitor arrived\nwith his message. She is generally represented as kneeling in\ncontemplation. She may have been: or she may have been about her work.\nIn any case, she was engaged in prayer, for Mary's heart and mind were\never lifted up to GOD; and that is prayer. And GOD can reveal His\nsecrets just as easily to those who are working as to those who are\ngiven up to contemplation.\n\nNo wonder Mary's attention is arrested, for not only does she see one of\nGOD'S Archangels, but it is to _her_ that he has come, to _her_ that he\nis showing such reverence and honour, to _her_ that he is now delivering\nhis message: \"Hail! ... full of grace; the Lord is with thee.... Blessed\nart thou among women.\" Each sentence of the message seems more wonderful\nand startling than the last. Mary does not speak, but she is _troubled_,\nas she thinks within herself what manner of salutation this is. Her\nintelligence is perfect, and she knows at once what the message means.\nIt means that she, the one woman who has cut herself off from every\nprospect of being the Mother of the Messias; that she, who has felt\nherself so utterly unworthy that legend tells us she used to pray that\nshe might be His Mother's _servant_; that _she_ has been singled out by\nGOD as the one who was to be blessed among women. And she is _troubled_.\nIt is not the presence of the Angel nor the dignity of his message which\nis disquieting her--her trouble goes deeper; but still she does not\nspeak--she waits in silence for GOD to explain Himself or to direct her.\n\nHow much wiser in _most_ cases it would be for me, if I kept silence,\nfor a time at any rate, when I am face to face with trouble, or\ndifficulty, or perplexity. Of one thing I may be sure--that the trouble\nis a message from GOD, and if I wait patiently, He will reveal more to\nme, and throw light upon what seems so obscure. Nothing is gained by\nmaking complaints, and losing my calm and self-possession. Much is\ngained by silence; for silence to man, at such times, generally means\nconverse with GOD, and to obtain this more intimate union with my heart\nis one of His chief reasons for sending me His messages.\n\nGabriel, seeing that she is troubled, hastens to reassure her: \"Fear\nnot, Mary.\" He is GOD'S messenger, and he is giving GOD'S consolation,\nso he calls her by her name. Consolation is never far off when it is to\nGOD alone that we turn for it. Gabriel then tells her quite plainly what\nare GOD'S intentions concerning her, if she gives her consent and\nco-operation--that she is indeed to be the Mother of the Messias; that\nshe is to call Him JESUS; that her Son is to be great, and is to be\ncalled the Son of the Most High; that GOD will give Him a throne and a\nkingdom; and that of His kingdom there shall be no end.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S FIRST WORD\n\nShe has pondered in her heart, and now she speaks: \"_How shall this be\ndone?_\" St Bernardine, who calls the seven recorded words of Our Lady,\n\"_Seven Flames of Love_,\" calls this first word \"A Flame of _Separating_\nLove\" (_flamma amoris separantis_). Let us try to find out why.\n\n\"How shall this be done?\" Her question shows clearly what is the cause\nof her trouble. It is the thought of her vow of virginity--that precious\noffering which, as a little child, she had made to GOD. This it is which\nforces Mary, who so values silence, to speak. \"How shall this be done,\"\nand yet my vow be left intact? To it at any cost I must be faithful.\nMary, by her first word, shows that her love for GOD is so intense that\nit separates her from all else besides. It was out of love for Him that\nshe made that vow. It was a flame of separating love that burnt within\nher, making a clear division between GOD and anything, however lawful\nand even desirable in itself, which might hinder her union with Him. And\nit is the same flame of love which now impels her to speak: \"How shall\nthis be done?\" seeing that I am separated, consecrated to GOD. Her love\nso detaches her from all else that even the honour of being singled out\nto be the Mother of GOD has no attraction for her in comparison with\nkeeping that contract made with GOD, by which she promised to be wholly\nHis.\n\nAm I, like Mary, absolutely faithful to any contract that I may have\nmade with GOD? Do I say: \"How can this be done?\" seeing I have made that\npromise, seeing I am a Christian, seeing I have been to Holy Communion,\nseeing I have taken certain vows. All these are so many cords of love\nwhich should separate me from the world. My contract with GOD must come\nbefore everything else--all turns upon my fidelity to it. Mary was\ntroubled because she feared her vow was in danger; and her trouble was\npleasing to GOD.\n\nMary's separating love for GOD was the outcome of GOD'S separating love\nfor Mary. Her very vow of virginity, which, humanly speaking, made it\nimpossible for her to be the Mother of the Messias, was part of GOD'S\nplan, separating her from the rest of the world for this honour. When\nGOD wants something done, He separates the soul which He has chosen to\ndo it, though at the moment the soul may be wholly unconscious of the\nreasons for the process which gives it so much pain. The separation may\nbe one of place, or family, or affections, or cherished hopes and plans.\nGOD'S separating love takes various forms: but in some way or other He\nmust and will separate from self those whom He intends to use for His\nservice. St Paul says of himself that GOD separated him from his\nearliest infancy. (Gal. i. 15.) None would have guessed that he was\nseparated when he was haling the Christians to death and persecuting the\nChurch of GOD beyond measure. We understand so little of GOD'S plans,\nand of His preparation of souls for His service. St Paul tells us that\nlater he was \"separated unto the Gospel of GOD.\" (Rom. i. 1.) And when\nOur Lord wanted him for a special mission, the order went forth to the\nChurch: \"Separate me Saul and Barnabas for the work whereunto I have\ntaken them.\"\n\nHelp me, my Mother, to co-operate with grace, lest I hinder GOD'S\ndesigns for me; and while _His_ love is a separating one, may mine be\nthe same--a love strong enough to separate me from all but His Will.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, asking her to obtain for me the grace\n     to say with her: \"How shall this be done?\" whenever the\n     least thing comes between me and my duty to GOD.\n\n     _Resolution._ To let nothing to-day separate me from the love\n     of GOD. (Rom. viii. 39.)\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"How shall this be done?\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Second Word\n\n     \"_The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the\n     Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy,\n     which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of GOD.\n     And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to\n     me according to Thy word._\" (St Luke i. 35, 38.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Picture of the Annunciation.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to meditate more deeply on the _First\n     Joyful Mystery_.\n\n\n_Point I._--GABRIEL'S EXPLANATION\n\nIn answer to Mary's question, the Angel explains quite simply how GOD'S\nplans are to be brought about. \"_The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee._\"\nNo prophecy had ever said a word of this; the agency of the Holy Ghost\nhad never been hinted at till the Angel made it known to Mary to quiet\nher legitimate trouble. And as soon as Mary knew that it was to be the\nwork of the Holy Ghost, she was at rest--all trouble disappeared. Do I\nfollow my Mother's example in this? As soon as I know that whatever is\nbeing asked of me is the Holy Spirit's doing, am I at rest? Is there no\nmore trouble, no more indecision, no more questioning, even though the\ninspiration may seem to be going to upset my plans, and may be contrary\nto all that has hitherto seemed right? It is not necessary to\n_understand_ GOD'S dealings with me, but as soon as I know that they are\nHis dealings, it _is_ necessary to co-operate at whatever\ncost--otherwise there will be trouble in my soul. The co-operation with\nthe work of the Holy Spirit will produce a calm and a peace which no\nexterior things, however changed they may be, will have the power to\ndisturb.\n\nAnd then the Angel tells her about her cousin Elizabeth and the\nmiraculous things which are happening to her, in order to prove to Mary\nthat \"no word is impossible with GOD\"--that He, the GOD of nature, has\npower over nature's laws--that when he makes such promises as she has\njust heard, \"the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the\nSon of GOD,\" all will be fulfilled.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S SECOND WORD\n\nThen Mary speaks again: \"Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to\nme according to Thy word.\" She gives her consent, shows herself ready to\nco-operate with GOD; and at the same moment, the Word is made Flesh;\nGabriel adores the GOD-Man, as he had pledged himself to do at the time\nof the War in Heaven, and, his mission accomplished, departs from her.\n\nSt Bernadine calls this second word: \"A flame of _transforming_ love\"\n(_flamma amoris transformantis_). It was certainly _love_ that prompted\nthe word, but in what sense was it a _transforming_ love?\n\n(1) _It was a transformation for Mary._ Her first word _separated_ her\nfor Him Who loved her; her second word _transformed_ her into Him Who\nloved her. It made them for ever one. \"Behold the handmaid of the Lord.\"\nHere I am for Thee to do whatever Thou wilt with me. I put no obstacle\nin Thy way. _Fiat._ \"Be it done to me according to Thy word.\" This word\nwas not only the outcome and the proof of her perfect union with GOD, it\nwas also the turning point of her life--and not only of her life but of\nthe life of the whole world. Heaven--and earth too, though\nunconsciously--was waiting for this word of Mary's, a word which she\ncould have withheld. The word was spoken, and by it she lent herself to\nGOD as His co-worker; by it she was transformed from a maid into a\nmother, and in that moment of transformation she saw all that it\nmeant--she saw Calvary, and she said _Fiat_. \"Be it done to me.\" She saw\nherself transformed into the image of Christ (2 Cor. iii. 18) by pain\nand suffering, and yet she would not withhold her _Fiat_. Why? Because\nshe _loved_, and from that moment the transforming process was ever\ngoing on in her soul; and the flame of transforming love was ever\nburning more brightly, showing her the way to greater heights and deeper\ndepths of the love of GOD, and so transforming her at each further step,\nthat she shrank from nothing.\n\n(2) _It was a transformation for the world._ This word of Mary's, by\nwhich she gave her consent to GOD'S plan of Redemption, changed the face\nof the whole world. It began a new era--A.D. instead of B.C. It settled\nthe moment of the arrival of the \"fulness of time\" (Gal. iv. 4)--of\nGOD'S time. As a result of it, GOD was already tabernacling among men.\nThe leaven of the Gospel, which was to leaven the whole world, was\nalready beginning to work. Mary's word produced a transformation in the\nworld, and though it \"knew Him not,\" it was never the same world again.\n\n(3) This word is a _transformation for the soul_ which makes it its own.\nAny soul which really says: \"Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it done\nto me according to Thy word,\" is transformed, for it is \"made\nconformable to the image of His Son.\" (Rom. viii. 29.) Nothing but love\nhas the power to bring about this transformation in the soul, for it\nmeans the effacement of self; it means a readiness to do GOD'S will at\nwhatever cost; it means a holy indifference to one's own plans and\ntheories and even judgment--it means what it says: \"_Fiat_,\" for\neverything that GOD arranges. When this is so there is a complete\ntransformation; the selfish soul becomes selfless; the weak, strong; the\ntimid, courageous; the hesitating, decided; the doubting, confident; the\nagitated, peaceful and calm. Heaven has already begun in the soul.\nLove--GOD'S love for it first, and then its love for GOD--has\ntransformed it.\n\nAre these great things possible for me? Yes, quite possible. How was\nMary transformed? By Christ dwelling within her. How was the world\ntransformed? By Christ dwelling within it. And this is how I am to be\ntransformed, by Christ dwelling within me. Each Communion should be to\nme a \"flame of transforming love.\" It is then that, in answer to the\nappeal: \"My child, give Me thy heart,\" I say to Him: \"Be it done to me\naccording to Thy word,\" and He comes to do what He will in my heart; and\nif only I put no obstacles in His way, His love will transform me into\nall that He wants me to be.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Our Lady, asking her to get me the grace of\n     submission, which alone can transform me.\n\n     _Resolution._ To do nothing to-day to hinder the transforming\n     process in me.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariae et\n     concepit de Spiritu Sancto.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Third Word\n\n     \"_And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted\n     Elizabeth._\" (St Luke i. 40.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Mary saluting Elizabeth.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ The grace of Charity.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S CHARITY\n\nWhen the Angel left her, Mary's thoughts seem to have been fixed, not,\nas we should have expected, on the part of the heavenly message which\nconcerned herself, but on what had been incidentally revealed to her\nabout her cousin Elizabeth. What a total oblivion of self there is in\nMary and what charity! She picks out just the little bit of the message\nthat concerns somebody else, decides that it is not for nothing that she\nhas been told this--it may be that her cousin has need of her; and so,\ninstead of giving herself up to dwelling on the great things that have\nbeen said and done to her, she rises up in those days and goes into the\nhill country, with haste, to pay a visit of charity. And she takes JESUS\nwith her.\n\nMary is my model, and I can surely find some lessons to study here. One\nis that charity passes before everything, even sometimes before\nspiritual exercises and contemplation and meditation, going to Mass and\nBenediction. I see too that though I must be ever mindful of GOD'S\nbenefits, I need not dwell too much--if at all--on the interior graces\nHe has given to my soul; on any words of praise--though they may have\ncome almost directly from Himself; on any piece of work that He has\neffected through my instrumentality. It is far more wholesome to be\nrising up to go to the next duty, starting forth into the hill country\nof difficulties, if need be, and thus taking my thoughts off myself by\ndoing something for somebody else. I shall not, by thus acting, lose any\nof the graces or any of the sweetness, for I shall take JESUS with me,\nand together we shall face the difficulties of the next bit of life's\njourney.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S SALUTATION\n\nShe _saluted_ Elizabeth. We are not told what this salutation was, but\nwe know that words were spoken, because Elizabeth _heard_ them. \"The\nvoice of thy salutation sounded in my ears,\" she says. It was probably\njust the form of salutation customary among the Jews: \"The Lord is with\nyou!\" But what a different meaning the words have on Mary's lips! She,\nthe Mother of the Word Incarnate, has brought Him with her to the house\nof Zachary. The Lord Himself is indeed there in a way that He has never\nbeen before. John the Baptist, yet unborn, understands the salutation,\nand leaps to adore his GOD; and at that moment JESUS, Whose work on\nearth has already begun, cleanses His Forerunner from the stain of\noriginal sin. Elizabeth also understands in what sense the words are\nspoken; for the Holy Ghost, Who has been doing great things for her too,\nhas communicated to her the heavenly secret about the Mother and the\nChild. She is expectant and ready for her Visitors, and when Mary gives\nher wondrous salutation: \"The Lord is with you,\" filled with the Holy\nGhost she answers: \"Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the\nFruit of thy womb\"; and then she thinks of the great honour which GOD is\nshowing to her home by permitting Mary with her Child to visit it.\n\"Whence is this to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?\"\nNext she tells Mary of the joy that has been caused within her, and\nadds: \"Blessed art thou that hast believed, for all that the Lord hath\nspoken about the Child will now be accomplished.\"\n\nThus Mary receives the blessed assurance that all is true--not that she\ndoubted, and not that she needed any confirmation, but it must,\nnevertheless, have been a comfort to her to hear herself called \"The\nMother of my Lord,\" and that by one who had not heard the news from any\nhuman lips.\n\nIt was because Elizabeth was \"filled with the Holy Ghost\" that she saw\nall so clearly and believed that Mary was indeed the Mother of GOD. It\nis a truth which many people in the twentieth century have not yet\ngrasped. The reason is that they have not yet grasped the meaning of the\nIncarnation.\n\n\"_Nos cum prole pia benedicat Virgo Maria._\" (\"May Mary the Virgin bless\nus with her Holy Child.\")\n\n\n_Point III._--MARY'S THIRD WORD\n\nSt Bernardine describes this third word as a \"flame of _communicating_\nlove\" (_flamma amoris communicantis_.) No sooner has Mary become \"the\nMother of fair love\" than she wants to communicate that love to\nothers--not to communicate her secret--no, of that she does not\nspeak--but to let the flame of love, which is burning within her, reach\nothers also. So it is not Mary only, but JESUS within her, Who \"makes\nhaste\" to go into the \"hill country.\" He is in a hurry to begin His\nwork. It is JESUS, Divine Love, Who enters into the house of Zachary and\nsalutes Elizabeth. It is the Heart of JESUS, burning already with love\nfor sinners, which speaks to the heart of John. It is because GOD, Who\nfor love of us men became incarnate, is communicating that love to her,\nthat Elizabeth is able to grasp so clearly the mysteries by which she is\nsurrounded. Ah, yes, Mary's third word is indeed one of communicating\nlove, because she communicates to all around her, JESUS, Who is love.\n\nO Mother of fair love, why do the poor banished children of Eve so\ncontinually turn to thee? Is it not just because of this flame of\ncommunicating love? Is it not because they know that to go to Mary is to\ngo to JESUS; that when they appeal to the heart of Mary it is the Heart\nof JESUS which answers through her; that her chief work is to\ncommunicate His love to them?\n\nThree months Mary abode in Zachary's house, and all that time the flame\nof communicating love abode there too, burning ever more brightly within\nher. What a privilege for the house of Zachary! We read in Sacred\nHistory that once \"the Ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom\nthe Gethite for three months; and the Lord blessed Obededom and all his\nhousehold.\" (2 Kings vi. 11.) What then must have been the blessings\nbestowed on Zachary's household, while Mary the \"Ark of the Covenant\"\nabode there! \"_Foederis arca, ora pro nobis._\" Pray that we too may get\nthe blessings of those who receive thee as their constant guest.\n\nBut Mary is my example. Is there anything in which I can copy her in her\nvisit to her cousin Elizabeth? Let me make a self-examination on a few\npoints suggested by this meditation.\n\nAm I in _haste_ to perform acts of charity, especially when the request\nfor them comes at inconvenient moments?\n\nDo I always take JESUS with me when I go to visit my friends?\n\nDo those whom I visit feel that I create an atmosphere--an atmosphere\nwhich makes them more ready to bless JESUS and Mary?\n\nThese things can only be so by my having a flame of communicating love\nwithin me. Where can I get it? At each communion, when JESUS comes to me\nin the Sacrament of His Love. And if I put no hindrance in His way, He\nwill communicate Himself to others through me. Let me, then, aim at\nbeing a Christ-bearer. \"Glorify and bear Christ in your body.\" (1 Cor.\nvi. 20.) It is often through His children that JESUS does His work in\nthe world, and communicates His love to others.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with our Lady.\n\n     _Resolution._ To be a Christ-bearer to all whom I greet,\n     remembering that even a little act of politeness may turn the\n     scale in the conversion of a soul. A visit paid, a word\n     dropped in conversation, may be a necessary part of GOD'S\n     plans.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Flamma amoris communicantis.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Fourth Word\n\n     _And Mary said: \"My soul doth magnify the Lord.\"_\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Mary saying the _Magnificat_.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to catch something of the spirit in\n     which she said it.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE MAGNIFICAT\n\nAs soon as Elizabeth has finished \"crying out with a loud voice\" her\npraise of Mary and of JESUS, and of the benefits GOD has wrought for\nherself and her son, Mary speaks, and in the longest of her recorded\n\"words\" gives vent to the thoughts pent up in her breast. She at once\ncloses the door against any praise given to herself: \"My soul doth\nmagnify the _Lord_\"--He it is Whom we must praise and make much of--\"and\nmy spirit hath rejoiced in GOD my Saviour.\" Mary understands what it is\nthat is making her so full of joy. It is the presence of JESUS her\n_Saviour_. She has Him within her, Who has saved her from the stain of\noriginal sin, and Who will save her each moment that she lives from\nactual sin. Well may her spirit rejoice!\n\nShe goes on to explain more fully the cause of her joy and exultation.\nIt is because GOD has done such great things for her. He has regarded\nthe humility of His handmaid. The word used means _humiliation_ rather\nthan humility. Mary is too humble to speak of her humility. She is\nreferring rather to her humble circumstances, her low estate. The same\nword is translated in St James i. 9 as \"low condition.\" He whose name is\nHoly has regarded _me_! And His mercy is not only for me, but for all\nthat fear Him. It is because of the great things He has done to me that\n\"all generations shall call me blessed.\" Mary passes on all the praise\nand honour to GOD. She speaks of herself only to recall her low\nestate--only to let her littleness magnify GOD'S greatness in the eyes\nof others--only that in calling her blessed they may be lifted up to\n\"the GOD and Father of our Lord JESUS Christ, Who is blessed for ever.\"\n(2 Cor. xi. 31.)\n\nGabriel stands at the head of \"all generations.\" When he was delivering\nGOD'S message he called her blessed. Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy\nGhost, did the same. And yet there are those to-day (and their name is\nlegion!) who think it would defile their lips to speak of the _Blessed_\nVirgin Mary! Can it be that they do not believe that GOD did great\nthings for her? Can it be that they _prefer_ to be among the proud whom\nHe scatters in the conceit of their heart, among the mighty whom He puts\ndown from their seat, among the rich whom He sends away empty? Can it be\nthat they refuse to listen to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Who\ntells them that Mary is blessed among women? And yet they sing the\n_Magnificat_, which tells them how ready GOD is to \"exalt the humble\"\nand to \"fill the hungry with good things.\" O Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother\nof GOD, pray for all those who honour thee by singing thy _Magnificat_,\nthat they may honour thee also by understanding it. Grant that they too\nmay fulfil thy prophecy--\"All generations shall call me blessed\"--and\nget in return the blessings thou art so ready to bestow on thy children.\n\nBefore I go on, let me ask myself to what extent I am copying my Mother\nin at once passing on to GOD all praise that may come to me? He it is\nWho does all for me, and in me, and by me; and the more He gives, the\nmore He ought to get. He knew it would be so with Mary, and therefore He\ncould trust her with \"great things.\" He knew that He would have all the\nglory. Let me see how much I take into account GOD'S glory. Is it my\nfirst motive and object? If He gives me some little thing--for example,\nan \"original\" thought, a happy idea, a solution to a problem, some word\nto help another--is my first thought to thank Him and to praise Him\nbecause this will bring glory to Him? Is it not rather to go and tell\nit to someone else--to quote my words and deeds--not with the object of\nedifying others (Satan, to quiet my conscience, tells me that this is\nthe reason), but of gaining glory and praise for myself out of something\nthat is not mine at all? Thus do I rob GOD of His glory, deliberately\ntaking for myself what belongs to Him! Oh, my Mother, teach thy child\nwhat real humility means, and that _all_ praise belongs of right to GOD.\n\n\n_Point II._--A FLAME OF JOYFUL LOVE\n\nThis is the name that St Bernardine gives to Mary's fourth\nword--\"_Flamma amoris jubilantis_.\" Her love for GOD was so strong that\nit made her burst out into this joyful song of praise. She could no\nlonger keep to herself all that GOD had done to her; she must tell\nothers; she was so full of joy that she must sing GOD'S praises. And all\nher love and joy found expression in the _Magnificat_--a song of\nthanksgiving for the Incarnation--a song which showed clearly that\nMary's joy was caused by the glory that was given to GOD by the\nIncarnation.\n\nAll through those blessed three months during which Mary abode with\nZachary and Elizabeth, she was singing _Magnificat_. All through her\nlife she sang _Magnificat_, even though she was the Mother of Sorrows,\nfor the thought of GOD'S glory ever lifted her out of herself and made\nher praise Him for all He did. It was because Mary had said her _Fiat_\nthat she could say her _Magnificat_.\n\nWhat do I know of this flame of joyful love? If it is caused by the\ngreat things GOD has done, surely it ought to be burning in me. Surely\nHe has done enough for me to make my love so great that it is a flame of\n_joy_ within me. Is it so? Does the joy that is in my heart show itself\nin my countenance, in my manner, in my actions, and sometimes perhaps in\nmy words? Does my happiness, even in the midst of trial, make others\nunderstand what great things GOD _can_ do for those who love Him? If\nso, I am praising Him and obtaining praise and glory for Him.\n\nOh, my Mother, look upon thy child, so often discontented, sad,\ndistrustful, murmuring, and obtain for me \"the oil of joy for mourning,\nand a garment of praise for the spirit of grief.\" (Isaias lxi. 3.) Teach\nme to say my _Fiat_ for everything, and out of it will spring a joyful\n_Magnificat_. Teach me to love GOD'S will, and to praise Him for all He\ndoes.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Our Lady.\n\n     _Resolution._ To let others see my joy to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Our Lady sings _Magnificat_ in songs\n     surpassing sweet.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Silence\n\n     \"_Mary abode with Elizabeth about three months, and she\n     returned to her own house._\" (St Luke i. 56.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A statue of Our Lady.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to leave all that concerns me in GOD'S\n     Hands.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S RETURN\n\nWe know nothing of what went on during those three months, but we may\npresume that things continued as they began. It is not likely that\nElizabeth said her \"_Ave_\" only once, and only once spoke of the honour\nshe considered it to have the Mother of GOD in her house. It is not\nlikely that the unborn Forerunner never again saluted His Master, in\nWhose presence he so continually was. It is impossible to conceive that\nMary sang GOD'S praises and her own unworthiness no more during those\nthree months. And what about JESUS? These were the first three months of\nHis life on earth, and grace was surely going out from Him to His\nBlessed Mother first, and then to all who knew the secret. And we must\nnot forget the head of the household, Zachary. He, at any rate after the\nbirth of his son, knew the secret too, for he spoke in his song of\npraise of the \"_Orient_ from on High (which) hath visited us.\" (St Luke\ni. 78.) \"Dumb\" he had been and \"unable to speak,\" but Mary with her Son\nhad been sojourning in his house, with the result that his doubts had\nall disappeared, and that he understood already something of the \"joy\nand gladness\" which Gabriel had promised should be his (verse 14), and\nunderstood also how it came to pass that his son was \"filled with the\nHoly Ghost, even from his mother's womb.\" (verse 15.)\n\nBut the time comes when Mary has to leave this highly favoured household\nand go home. Her work of charity is over. Elizabeth no longer needs her,\nand her thoughts turn to Joseph, her husband, and to Nazareth--to the\nspot where Gabriel had visited her, and where the Holy Ghost had wrought\nsuch great things in her.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S SILENCE TO ST JOSEPH\n\nWhen last we thought about St Joseph, he was abandoning himself to a\nlife of self-sacrifice by his vow of virginity. Since then he has made\nthe sacrifice of sparing Mary from their little home to go and do an act\nof charity for her kinswoman, and now that that is over, it is probably\nJoseph himself who goes to fetch her home again. Of the visit of the\nArchangel to his wife Joseph knows nothing, and Mary keeps the secret\nlocked within her heart. She has not revealed it to anyone. (It was the\nHoly Ghost who told Elizabeth, and JESUS Himself who saluted John.) But\ntrouble is in store for those two faithful souls. This is natural. It\nwould be strange if GOD did not take us at our word when we make the\nsacrifice of ourselves to Him! It would look as if He did not believe\nus. \"Mary was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Whereupon Joseph her\nhusband, being a just man and not willing publicly to expose her, was\nminded to put her away privately.\" (St Matt. i. 18, 19.) How much is\ntold in those few simple words! What anguish of soul do they cover! How\ncould Joseph bear to have suspicions of his wife, whom he considered to\nbe purity itself, and whom he loved so tenderly? And yet he was forced\nto suspect, and as a just man was obliged to keep the law--namely, write\na bill of divorce, give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.\n(Deut. xxiv. 1.) He made up his mind to do this as _privately_ as\npossible, shielding her secret from everyone except the two witnesses\nwho were necessary for the bill of divorce. How nobly Joseph acted! He\nwas ready, for the sake of right, to sacrifice what was most dear to\nhim, to crush at one blow his most cherished affections! No wonder the\nHoly Spirit calls him a just man! No wonder that he was the one in all\nthe world whom GOD could trust to co-operate with Himself!\n\nAnd if Joseph suffered, how much more did Mary in seeing him thus\ntroubled, and knowing that she was the cause of his distress. One word\nfrom her would have been sufficient to clear away all the\ndifficulties--and it almost seemed as if it would be for the glory of\nGOD to say the word--at any rate it would have justified her, put an end\nto Joseph's trouble, and saved her from suspicion, and even perhaps\nshame and humiliation. But Mary has made her sacrifice--has said her\n_Fiat_--and this is her first great trial, caused entirely by the fact\nof her nearness to JESUS, and of the union between her life and His. And\nso she does not say the word--she does not take back her sacrifice, but\nmeets it generously. It is not for her to publish GOD'S secrets. His\ndealings with her are for herself, and are not to be shared even with\none as dear to her as is St Joseph, unless GOD bids her. Mary is silent\nand abandons herself and her trouble and all that concerns her to GOD.\n\nAnd this is GOD'S moment--when the need is at its height, when both His\nchildren have proved their fidelity, and their readiness to abandon\nthemselves to Him and His Will, cost what it may. In his sleep an Angel\nappears to Joseph and reveals the secret to him, and his sorrow is\nchanged to an unspeakable joy.\n\nIf I am striving to tread the way trodden by Mary and the Saints, I\nshall do well to let self-justification alone. I am not likely to be put\nto as great a test as were Mary and Joseph, but there are sure to be\nmany little occasions in my life when it is left to my choice either to\nclear myself of suspicion or to leave the matter in GOD'S Hands, and out\nof love to Him keep silence, and thus sacrifice a little of my\nself-love. It is a difficult question, perhaps, when to keep silence and\nwhen to speak; but at any rate I need not be in such a hurry to excuse\nmyself and shield myself from blame as I generally am. Nothing will be\nlost by _waiting_. Mary and Joseph _waited_, with the result that GOD\nHimself cleared things up for them and brought them consolation. If\nJoseph had questioned Mary, or if Mary had allayed Joseph's suspicions,\nboth would have acted in a most natural way; but GOD would not have been\nglorified, and they would have missed the consolation which He reserves\nfor those who are generous in their sacrifices to Him.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary.\n\n     _Resolution._ To be silent the next time fault is found with\n     me.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Fear not, Joseph.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Expectation\n\n     \"_His left hand is under my head, and His right hand shall\n     embrace me._\" (Cant. ii. 6.)\n\n     \"_My Beloved to me and I to Him._\" (verse 16.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Mary and Joseph waiting.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to believe that GOD'S plans are the\n     best.\n\n\n_Point I._--AT NAZARETH\n\nWe should like to penetrate into those remaining six months, which Mary\nand Joseph spent together, before the birth of the Holy Child. Scripture\nis silent about them, but it is not difficult for a sanctified\nimagination to picture something of what was taking place. Perhaps the\nthought of the Altar of Repose on Maundy Thursday will bring the\nrealities home to us better than anything else could. Though He is\nhidden from our sight, all know that He is there. Angels are in constant\nadoration, and the faithful do not forget Him. All try to get near and\nto hold silent communion with Him; and all are expecting the great day\nwhen He will rise again and show Himself to them. And He is spending the\ntime in giving His blessing and His grace to all who, by faith, seek\nHim. The house at Nazareth was in very deed GOD'S Sanctuary, containing\nthe Altar of Repose, where the Saviour of the world was resting. Angels\nwere in constant adoration before their King. The faithful consisted of\nMary and Joseph, whose thought and conversation could be about nothing\nelse but the Child Who was coming into the world. And who shall measure\nthe graces and blessings, which that Child was showering upon Mary and\nher faithful spouse, during those months of waiting and prayer and holy\nconverse, while they planned and arranged with such care and minuteness,\nas parents are wont to do, every detail connected with the birth of the\nfirstborn?\n\nBut man proposes and GOD disposes. GOD, Who \"ordereth all things\nsweetly,\" (Wisdom viii. 1), was stirring up the whole civilised world so\nthat the Scripture might be fulfilled which said: \"And thou, _Bethlehem_\nEphrata, ... out of _thee_ shall He come forth to me, that is to be the\nRuler in Israel; and His going forth is from the beginning, from the\ndays of eternity.\" (Micheas v. 2.) It was in _Bethlehem_--not at\n_Nazareth_, that the Child was to be born. And to effect this, \"in those\ndays there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world\nshould be enrolled.... And all went to be enrolled, every one into his\nown city. And Joseph also went ... out of the city of Nazareth ... to\nthe city of David, which is called Bethlehem (because he was of the\nhouse and family of David), to be enrolled with Mary his espoused wife.\"\n(St Luke ii. 1-5.) What a trial this order must have been to Mary! To\nleave home, to forego all her plans, to take a long journey, to\ninterrupt her days of solitude and calm and peace--and all at the\nbidding of a heathen Emperor. But Mary knew how to take her trials.\n_Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum._ \"Be it done to me according to Thy\nword.\" For her there were no second causes. It was ever GOD Who was\nordering \"all things sweetly\" for her, and she had nothing to say but\n\"_Ecce ancilla--fiat_.\" She waited for nothing but GOD'S will. And as\n_He_ arranged it, she could spend her time of waiting just as well on\nthe public highway to Bethlehem as in the seclusion of Nazareth.\n\nOh, my Mother, teach me this lesson too: if I could only learn it, how\ndifferent my life would be! My life--every detail of it--is in GOD'S\nHands. He is \"ordering it sweetly,\" and I _complain_! How little is my\nfaith! When my faith is great enough, I shall take all things, as\nsweetly as GOD orders them, even though they may upset my most cherished\nplans.\n\n\n_Point II._--ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM\n\nAnd so, in obedience to the command, Mary and Joseph leave the calm and\nquiet and solitude of their little home, and go to face poverty and\ndifficulties and the unknown. But JESUS is with them, and this makes\nthem independent of exterior circumstances--their calm and quiet are\nunbroken, and they can find solitude even in the busy thoroughfares.\nMary is communing with her Child, and is peaceful with the peace He\ngives. Joy, too, fills her heart as she thinks how fast the time is\napproaching when she will see His face.\n\nOh, how I should love to be allowed to go with them on this journey! At\nmy request, Mary readily consents to take me as her servant, and I am so\nglad to be in that blessed company that I forego everything else--I know\nthat the Family I have come to live with is _poor_, and I am determined\nnot to ask them to get any special things for _me_. The table has the\nbarest necessities--perhaps hardly these, for true poverty consists in\nthe want of necessities; but it is the company that I care about, and\nnothing else matters. I can see that all sorts of inconveniences and\nprivations and hardships will be mine, but I cannot be an exception in\nthat Family; and somehow, now that I am so close to the Blessed Mother,\nI do not wish to be. My great desire is to be like her, and to share all\nwith her and her Son.\n\nAt Bethlehem Joseph begins his weary and anxious search for a lodging;\nbut all in vain--no one wants the Holy Family. How Joseph suffers at\neach refusal--not for himself but for Mary! Mary is too much taken up\nwith her joy to heed the suffering. And the servant--does she regret\nthat she is not in one of the big hotels, as she might have been, or\ndoes she turn with joy to follow the Holy Family to the cave, saying:\nWith JESUS and Mary I have all I want, and I love every hardship and\nevery privation which comes to me, because I have made myself one with\nthem?\n\nOh, my Mother, I thank thee for allowing me to be thy servant; I thank\nthee for bringing me into such close contact with thy Son; I thank thee\nfor every privation, every difficulty, every hardship, every\ninconvenience, every crossing of my own will which has come to me,\nbecause I chose to be in thy company and in that of thy Son. Help me to\npersevere bravely, thinking all worth while for the sake of the company.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, asking her to get me grace to be always\n     joyous, because I am living my life with her and her Blessed\n     Son.\n\n     _Resolution._ To show myself worthy of the company I am in,\n     by the way I face the little difficulties of my everyday\n     life.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"I am Thy servant and the son of Thy\n     handmaid.\" (Ps. cxv. 16.)\n\n\n\n\nThe Stable\n\n     \"_Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart._\"\n     (St Luke ii. 19.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Mary and Joseph, and the Infant lying in the\n     manger.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to ponder with Mary\n\n\n_Point I._--THE BIRTH OF HER SON\n\n\"She brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him up in swaddling\nclothes and laid Him in a manger.\" She has seen His face at last; she\nhas folded Him in her arms and pressed Him to her bosom--her Son and her\nGOD. And she ponders--she meditates--she cannot tell her thoughts to any\nhuman soul--but she can tell them to her Son. _Dico ego opera mea Regi._\nI will speak of my works to the King. (Ps. xliv. 2.) Many works had\nbeen wrought in and through Mary by the Holy Ghost, but they were all\nthe King's secrets, and she pondered over them, speaking of them to Him\nalone. There was her vow of virginity, which she did not even speak of\nto her parents; there was the visit of the King's messenger, of which\nshe spoke to no one--not to Elizabeth, nor even to St Joseph; there was\nthe painful journey to Bethlehem, and the difficulty about finding a\nlodging. She might have told St Luke all about it, and had it all\nwritten down in the Gospel--but no, there is not a word except the mere\nfact that they went to Bethlehem, and that there was no room for them in\nthe inn. Her sufferings were those of the King, and she shared them with\nHim alone.\n\nAnd now that she has got her JESUS, she spends her time in pondering--in\ntelling Him her thoughts and her secrets, which are His too.\n\nHow much I should gain if I could be a little more like my Mother in\nthis!--if, instead of being so ready to go and talk of all the things\nthat have been said and done to me, or of what I have said or done, or\nof what I have had to suffer, I were just to speak to my King about\nit--let it be something between us which nobody else knows anything\nabout. It may often be my duty to speak, as it was Mary's later on, when\nshe was obliged, for example, to tell St Luke all about the Angel's\nvisit and what he said to her, because GOD wanted that piece of\nrevelation to be written. But this was later. She did not go at once and\ntell Elizabeth all about it. Let us learn from Mary to let our _first_\nwords, at any rate, be for our King; and, if this is so, it is probable\nthat in many cases the matter will go no further, and others as well as\nourselves will be saved from the miseries which so often follow from our\nbeing too ready to talk. _Dico ego opera mea Regi._ To _Him_ I can never\nsay too much, and He loves those silent heart-to-heart colloquies. He\nloves the things which are talked over with Him only--the King's\nsecrets.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE SHEPHERDS\n\n\"They came with haste, and they found Mary and Joseph, and the Infant\nlying in a manger.\" And during their visit they \"understood,\" and went\naway to tell the good news to wondering listeners, leaving Mary still\npondering. Each moment of her Son's life on earth brings her fresh\nmatter for meditation. She has scarcely time to think of the miraculous\nbirth before she hears \"a multitude of the Heavenly Army\" proclaiming\nthe birth, praising GOD, and telling of the glory that is being given to\nHim, and of the peace that is being brought to earth. And Mary realises\nthat she no longer has her Babe all to herself, that Heaven and earth\nclaim Him. Then the Shepherds arrive; and after they have adored the\nSaviour Who is born to them, they tell His Mother of all the wonders of\nthat night: of the Angel of the Lord who suddenly stood by them in the\nnight watches; of the \"brightness of GOD\"; of how they feared; of how\nthe Angel bid them: \"Fear not\"; of the good tidings that he brought, and\nof the great joy which was to be for everyone; that the Angel had\nactually told them that the Child was the Messias, and that he had given\nthem the strangest sign by which they could know Him--He will be wrapped\nin swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger! And lastly, how they had\ncome in haste, as soon as the Angels had gone back to Heaven, and had\nfound it all to be true. What joy this beautiful, simple, story must\nhave brought to the Mother's heart! What fresh subjects for meditation\nnow were hers! What a tender welcome she would give to these simple\nshepherds, whom GOD had picked out for such signal favours, and had\nallowed to be the first worshippers of her Son! How she would realise\nall the \"great things\" that GOD was doing now that she heard them from\nthe mouths of these \"little ones\" to whom GOD had revealed them! (St\nMatt. xi. 25.) How graciously she would accept the poor offerings of\nthese poor men to her Child Who had chosen to be poor! And how proud she\nwould be that she, as His Mother, had the right to lift that little\nHand, to convey the blessing which His Heart was giving to those who\nwere going to be His first witnesses and apostles.\n\n\"Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart.\" How easy\nmeditation was to Mary! Why? Because she lived always in the closest\npossible union with JESUS. If I find my meditations difficult, let me\nexamine myself, and see whether the cause may not be that my union with\nHim is not so close as it was, that I have let something come between\nus, that I am not telling all my secrets to the King. If this is so, let\nme hasten to put things right with Him; and then I shall find again that\nmy most precious moments are those in which I can devote my thoughts\nentirely to my King and ponder over the simple stories told of Him and\nHis Blessed Mother.\n\n     _Colloquy._ _The Alma Redemptoris Mater_:--\"Sweet Mother of\n     our Redeemer, gate whereby we enter Heaven, and star of the\n     sea, help us, we fall; yet do we long to rise. Nature looked\n     upon thee with admiration when thou didst give birth to thy\n     Divine Creator, thyself remaining before and after it a pure\n     Virgin. Gabriel spoke his _Hail_ to thee; we sinners crave\n     thy pity.\" (_Anthem from Advent to the Purification._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To ponder more and speak less.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Dico ego opera mea Regi.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Circumcision of Mary's Son\n\n     \"_And after eight days were accomplished that the child\n     should be circumcised, His name was called JESUS, which was\n     called by the Angel before He was conceived._\" (St Luke ii.\n     21.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Mary with her Child.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to learn more about them both.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE CIRCUMCISION\n\nAfter one week of peace and joy, Mary is called upon to suffer with, and\non account of, her Son. The Law of GOD is clear. \"On the eighth day, the\ninfant shall be circumcised.\" (Lev. xii. 3.) And there is no doubt in\nthe minds of Mary and Joseph, that, though the Holy Child has no need of\nthe rite which probably cleansed away original sin, He must nevertheless\nsubmit to it, as being part of His Father's law, every jot and tittle of\nwhich He has come to fulfil. So JESUS, of His own free will, classes\nHimself with sinners, and offers to GOD the firstfruits of that Blood\nwhich He will shed for them on Calvary.\n\nThe Circumcision of her Son means much to Mary; she sees Him suffer; she\nhears His cry of pain; she sees the Blood flow; and she understands that\nto be the Mother of GOD means being the _Mater Dolorosa_; and now she\nhas fresh matter for her Meditations. Her Son is to be the Victim for\nsin, and she unites her sacrifice to His.\n\nThe rite of Circumcision was to the Jew a sign of the Covenant that GOD\nhad made with his nation--it marked him out as one of GOD'S own people;\nit was a mark of his dependence on GOD, and also of his slavery to sin\ntill GOD set him free.\n\n\"Circumcision is that of the heart,\" St Paul tells us, \"in the spirit,\nnot in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of GOD.\" (Rom. ii.\n29.) By assisting with Mary at the Circumcision of her Son, I mean that\nI want to understand something of this circumcision of the\n_heart_--understand, that is, that GOD has made a covenant with me, that\nI belong to Him, and am dependent on Him; I mean that I am ready with\nthe knife of mortification to cut away all that prevents me from being a\ngood servant, ready to \"resist unto blood,\" if need be, but, at any\nrate, ready to make myself a victim with JESUS, as Mary did, willing to\nsuffer anything which He calls upon me to suffer.\n\n\n_Point II._--HIS NAME--JESUS\n\nHis Name was chosen by His Heavenly Father, and revealed both to Mary\nand Joseph before His birth--to Mary by the Angel Gabriel at the\nAnnunciation, and to Joseph by the Angel who was sent to allay his\nsuspicions about his wife. JESUS--the \"name which is above every name\"!\nGOD gave it Him because \"He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto\ndeath--even the death of the cross.\" (Phil. ii. 8.) He earned His Name\nby the Cross, and it was given Him at the moment when He shed the first\ndrops of His Precious Blood. He could have allowed this first shedding\nof His Blood to redeem the world, had He so willed. He could have made\nit the _redeeming_ Blood, but it was not yet His Will; His time had not\nyet come; He wished to live and to suffer long years on earth before He\nshed the Blood which He intended to be efficacious for the Redemption of\nthe world. \"Thou shalt call His Name JESUS, for He shall save His people\nfrom their sins.\" (St Matt. i. 21.) And when at length He did shed His\nredeeming Blood on Calvary, there was a title nailed to the Cross,\nproclaiming His Name to all: \"This is JESUS,\" the Saviour. He is saving\nHis people from their sins.\n\nIt cost Him much to be the Saviour, and it cost Mary much to be the\nMother of the Saviour; but both cheerfully made the sacrifice in\nadvance--both entered into GOD'S plan for my salvation. JESUS had come\nto do His Father's will--He was content to do it--and His Mother was\ncontent to be identified in everything with her Son, and to say her\n_Fiat_. If my salvation cost JESUS and Mary so much, ought it not to\ncost me something too? Would it be fair if all were easy and smooth for\nme? Surely not. Surely, if I have a part in the Saviour, I ought to have\na part in His Cross. Let the thought of the Holy Babe shedding His first\ndrops of Blood on His Mother's knee brace me up to meet suffering, of\nwhatever kind GOD chooses for me; let it hush my murmurs and my\ndiscontent; let it make me not only willing but anxious to suffer, and\nthus to have an opportunity of being like Him, Who was in such a hurry\nto shed His Blood, that it seemed as though it were too long for Him to\nwait till Calvary. He must make the sacrifice in advance, and offer at\nany rate the firstfruits of His Blood to His Father.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, who is identifying herself with the\n     sufferings, intentions, and desires of her Son. Teach me, my\n     Mother, not only to expect but to appreciate suffering. How\n     can I be like JESUS, and a child of thine without it? I want\n     to look upon it always as a sign of love, as a sign that I am\n     recognised as one of the Holy Family.\n\n     _Resolution._ To understand that my very existence on earth\n     means suffering, and that my identification with JESUS and\n     Mary means suffering willingly and cheerfully.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"I come to do Thy Will, O my GOD.\"\n\n\n\n\nHer Purification\n\n     \"_They carried Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord._\"\n\n     _1st Prelude._ JESUS, Mary, and Joseph going to the Temple.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to go too, and learn the lessons.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S PURIFICATION\n\nIt is the fortieth day after the birth of her Son, the day when it is\nMary's turn to keep the legal observances, and so to identify herself in\nall things with her Son. There is no need for her to be purified, before\nshe is allowed to enter GOD'S Temple; neither is there any need for her\nto present her Firstborn in the Temple and pay the ransom money for Him,\nfor His Name is Saviour and He is Himself the Ransom for His people.\nThere is no _need_; but Mary gladly does both, that she may enter more\nclosely into the spirit of her Son, Who had undergone the rite of\ncircumcision.\n\nHow many unnecessary humiliations and unpleasant duties do I undertake\njust for the sake of identifying myself with JESUS and Mary, and sharing\ntheir spirit?\n\nWe may imagine the Holy Family quietly setting out for their two hours'\nwalk to the Temple, attracting no more notice than was usually attached\nto an event so common. Passing remarks were probably made as to its\nbeing the first time she was out; as to the disparity in their age; as\nto their poverty, for Joseph was carrying two doves, the offering of the\npoor, to be offered by Mary for her Purification.\n\nAh, how little the world sees! Extraordinary things are going on, though\nthey are hidden, as is ever GOD'S wont, under things most ordinary.\nMary, the purest of creatures, the Virgin of virgins, the Queen of\nHeaven, of Angels and of men, is bearing in her arms the Lord of glory,\nWho is on His way to visit His Temple for the first time, and thus to\nfill it with a greater glory than ever Solomon's Temple had possessed.\nAngels are worshipping and adoring at every step of that journey, and\npresently they will throw open wide the gate of the Temple to let the\nKing of Glory in. And the humble and silent Joseph is playing a part\nwhich no Jew before or since has ever played; for though the verdict of\nthe world is that he is too poor to afford to take a lamb, in reality he\nis too rich to need one, for is he not bringing to the Temple the Lamb\nof GOD--an offering which no one has ever been rich enough to make\nbefore? Let us try to see things and judge them from GOD'S point of\nview--not from the world's.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE PRESENTATION OF HER SON\n\nThis involved three sacrifices.\n\n(1) The sacrifice made by JESUS. _Ecce Venio._ \"Lo, I come to do Thy\nwill, O my GOD.\" He has come to the Temple to offer Himself as a\nsweet-smelling sacrifice to His Father. This is the morning\nsacrifice--the evening sacrifice will be on Calvary. This is like the\n_Offertory_ at Mass, when the Priest offers to GOD the Bread and Wine\nwhich He will use presently to accomplish the sacrifice at the\nConsecration. He is the \"Firstborn amongst many brethren,\" (Rom. viii.\n29), that is why He must be presented in the Temple. He is our Elder\nBrother. He represents us all, and answers to GOD for all those who are\nunited to Him. He offers Himself as a Ransom that all the rest of the\nfamily may go free.\n\nAm I prepared to ratify this offering that my Elder Brother made in my\nname? Have I any right to claim the privileges? Yes, if I am united with\nHim, identified with Him; if I am saying as He did: \"Behold, I come to\ndo Thy Will,\" and this in the little sacrifices of my everyday life.\n\n(2) The sacrifice made by Mary. _Ecce ancilla._ \"Behold the handmaid of\nthe Lord.\" Mary knows perfectly well what she is doing when she puts\nher JESUS into the arms of the Priest. She knows that she is offering to\nGOD the firstfruits--the earnest of what is to come; and she makes her\nsacrifice whole-heartedly, zealously, lovingly. She said her _Fiat_ at\nthe Incarnation, and she will never take it back. She is His Mother--it\nis with Blood drawn from her veins that He will one day redeem the\nworld; and she offers to GOD now, not only the Victim Who is to be the\nRedeemer, but herself as a co-victim--herself to suffer with Him.\n\"Behold the Handmaid of the Lord\"--ready to give Him all that He\nrequires. How perfectly Mary identifies herself with JESUS! It is her\nintense love which enables her to copy so exactly.\n\n(3) The sacrifice made by Joseph. _Ecce adsum._ \"Behold, I am here too,\nready for any sacrifice.\" Joseph is so closely connected with JESUS and\nMary that he must share their spirit and do what they do. But his\nsacrifice is made in the dark, as ours are for the most part. He does\nnot know what JESUS and Mary are doing. He cannot gauge the extent of\ntheir sacrifices--enough for him to unite his intention with theirs, and\nto offer with perfect detachment his two treasures to GOD, begging Him\nto use them as He will. Am I ready to make my sacrifice--even a blind\none--ready to say: _Ecce adsum_--\"Behold, here I am\"--and to trust where\nI cannot understand?\n\n\n_Point III._--THE FIRST DOLOUR\n\nThe sacrifice was no sooner made than GOD took Mary at her word. Simeon,\nholding \"the Christ of the Lord\" in his arms, called Him \"the\n_salvation_ which Thou hast prepared; a light to the revelation of the\nGentiles and the glory of Thy people Israel.\" And while His father and\nmother were wondering at these things which were spoken concerning Him,\nSimeon addressed himself to \"Mary His Mother,\" and spoke in no hidden\nlanguage of the Passion; and the sword pierced her soul, for though she\nknew it all, it was the first time she had heard it from the lips of\nanother. It was the first of the _Seven Dolours_. She heard that her\nChild was to be:--\n\n1. \"... _for the fall of many_\": that is, the _ruin_ of many. What a\nlifelong sorrow for the heart of Mary to know that for many her Son's\nPassion would be in vain--that He was to be the \"touchstone,\" with the\nresult that, in many cases, He would be \"rejected of men\"!\n\n2. \"... _for a sign which shall be contradicted_.\" War was to be waged\nagainst Him in all places, and that to the end of time. This was the\ntreatment He, Who had come to be the Saviour and the Light of the World,\nwas to receive.\n\nAnd then Simeon added: \"_Thy own soul a sword shall pierce_.\" He\nidentified Mary with her Son, and spoke not only of His Passion but of\nher Compassion. The Queen of Sorrows was now on her throne; there was no\nlonger any doubt about it. GOD had accepted her sacrifice. JESUS was the\nVictim, and she was His Mother--the Mater Dolorosa.\n\nBut Simeon's prophecy was not the last word that Mary was to hear before\nshe left the Temple courts, which she loved so well. GOD, Who in His\nlove had permitted the wound, had provided also some balm to be poured\ninto it. A little act of courtesy was waiting for Mary to do before she\nwas free to ponder over all that had happened in the Temple, and\nespecially over the new revelation which had stabbed her to the quick.\nWell did old Anna, the Prophetess, know the maiden whose happy childhood\nhad been spent in the Temple! How gladly Mary went up to her and renewed\nher friendship with her! How proud she was to show her little Son to\nher! Mary was wondering how much Anna knew; but she did not speak, she\nrevealed nothing. Soon she found out that the holy old woman had been\nrewarded for her fasting and prayers and vigils, by a special\nrevelation, in consequence of which she \"confessed to the Lord and spoke\nof Him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel.\" And Mary heard,\nand balm was poured into that first sword-wound.\n\nCan I, sweet Mother of Sorrows, pour balm into that terrible wound? I\ncannot bear to think of thee going home, pressing thy Babe against thy\naching heart. Let me accompany thee; I will keep close to thee, and I\nwill speak continually of thy Child. Never will I speak against Him--to\nme, at least, He shall not be a contradiction, but a resurrection from\nall from which He has come to save me.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, about the _Fourth Joyful Mystery_, and\n     the _First Dolour_.\n\n     _Resolution._ To throw in my lot with JESUS and Mary.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Ecce adsum.\"\n\n\n\n\nWise Men and Babes\n\n     \"_Thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged when the strength of\n     the Gentiles shall come to Thee._\" (Isaias lx. 5.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of the Wise Men.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to understand that nearness to JESUS and\n     Mary means the Cross.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE WISE MEN\n\nMary had much to meditate about as she turned her steps homewards to\nBethlehem. She knew, for the Angels had said so at His birth, that her\nSon was to be the Saviour for \"all the people\"; but Simeon in his song\nof praise had gone further, and said that He was to be for \"all\npeoples,\" emphasising the fact that He was to be \"a light to the\nrevelation of the _Gentiles_.\" And so the subjects to ponder over were\never increasing, and Mary's heart was ever enlarging. She had now to\npray for the great world outside, as well as for GOD'S chosen people.\nThus was her heart being prepared to receive the next worshippers at the\nshrine of the Infant GOD, and it may be that when they arrived--perhaps\nsoon after the first anniversary of her Son's birth--it was no surprise\nto her that they were _Gentiles_. \"Gentiles shall walk in Thy light, and\nkings in the brightness of Thy rising; they shall come from afar,\nbringing gold and frankincense and showing forth praise to the Lord.\"\n(Isaias lx. 3-6.) All this was fulfilled in the little house at\nBethlehem. The Wise Men, firstfruits of the Gentile world, had had faith\nenough to overcome every obstacle, and during their journey of, perhaps,\nsome months, had had but one idea--namely, to follow the star which GOD\nhad put in the heavens for them, and by its means to find the new King,\nWho was to be their Saviour. Mary's prayers had no doubt helped them to\nmake light of their many difficulties, and when their star had brought\nthem right to the house which they sought, \"they entered in and found\nthe Child with Mary, His Mother.\" They were quite at home at once; their\nfaith was so strong, that the unexpected surroundings and the poverty\ndid not strike them as incongruous. They had found what they sought, and\ntheir joy and satisfaction were complete. As soon as they were in the\nReal Presence their conversion was an accomplished fact. Mary showed\nthem her Child, \"and falling down they adored Him.\" It was to _Mary_\nthat they offered their gifts out of gratitude for all that the Holy\nChild, to Whom they felt that they now belonged, had done for them. It\nwas _Mary_ whom they thanked for her gracious hospitality. It was _Mary_\nwho guided the little Hand to bless them ere they took their departure.\nIt was to _Mary_ that they explained that from henceforth their lives\nwould be devoted to the service of the new King and the spreading of His\nkingdom among the Gentiles. It was _Mary_, the Mother of the Way, who\nbade them Godspeed on their journey. How interested she was in those\nfirst great converts from the Gentiles! How their visit widened her\noutlook, and enlarged her maternal heart!\n\nShe is not less interested now in converts than she was then. She has\nbeen praying for them ever since. \"Mary's prayers shall bring them\nback.\" Let us remember this when we are dealing with them; we are not\nworking alone. Mary, the great advocate, is pleading with Her Son. Let\nus bring them, as often as we can, into the Real Presence--they may be\nall unconscious, but _He_ is not. He will act upon them. Virtue will go\nout of Him to them: they will not go empty away, for it is impossible\nfor them to be under the direct rays of His Presence without being\ninfluenced.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE BABY MARTYRS\n\nTheir visit over, the three Kings took leave of the Holy Child and His\nMother, and, warned by GOD not to go and give their good news to Herod,\nthey returned to their country by another way. This so exasperated Herod\nthat he gave an order which plunged not only Bethlehem but all the\nneighbourhood into the most profound grief and desolation. How the heart\nof Mary went out in sympathy to the bereaved mothers! How big her heart\nfelt as it dilated to take them all in! She understood now what it meant\nto be the Mother of Sorrows, and that only by having this title could\nshe have the other--_Consolatrix afflictorum_ (Consoler of the\nafflicted). How quickly Simeon's prophecy was being fulfilled! Her Son\nwas already a sign being contradicted, in those Hebrew mothers and their\ninnocent babes. Each mother was sacrificing her babe that Mary might not\nhave to sacrifice hers. Each babe was giving its life to save the life\nof JESUS. Their sufferings were all because of JESUS and Mary. How the\nsword pierced Mary's heart as she heard the bitter cries of mothers and\nchildren! \"Poor banished children of Eve,\" born to sorrow and trouble!\nBut from henceforth their cause will be espoused by a \"most gracious\nAdvocate,\" who will take a special interest in all troubles and\nsufferings that come to her children on account of the sacrifices that\nthey make for her Son, or which are caused by their nearness to Him. At\nthat moment of anguish the Jewish mothers _were_ making a sacrifice,\nthough it was an unwilling one and made in ignorance. GOD, in His mercy,\nrewards even such. Had their children lived, they might have been among\nthe murderers of JESUS; now they are saved from all sin, they escape\nPurgatory, and, the first to give their lives for Him, they will follow\nthe Lamb for ever. Happy little Innocents! Happy those who have the\nhonour to be their mothers! Happy all those who make the least sacrifice\nfor Him! And happy, thrice happy, the Queen of Martyrs, who is now\nentering into the possession of her new kingdom!\n\nThe more closely I am identified with JESUS and Mary, the more I must\nexpect suffering. The training for the kingdom is the same, whether for\nWise Men or Babes. The Wise Men learnt from the child on Mary's knee to\nview suffering in a new light, and they went back to their country\nprepared to sacrifice all for the Child and His Mother, shrinking from\nnothing till they laid down their lives for Him Whose star they had so\ndiligently followed. So Simeon's sword is piercing; the Cross is already\nshowing that the followers of the Babe are to be victims too--all is\ngetting clearer and clearer to Mary, and as she wonders her heart is\nenlarged.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary.\n\n     _Resolution._ To follow the generosity of the Wise Men and\n     the Babes.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Mater Dolorosa, Consolatrix\n     afflictorum, Regina Martyrum, ora pro nobis.\"\n\n\n\n\nEgypt\n\n     \"_That it might be fulfilled which the Lord spake by the\n     prophet, saying: Out of Egypt have I called My Son._\" (St\n     Matt. ii. 15.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Picture of JESUS, Mary, and Joseph.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to believe that no circumstances in\n     which GOD has placed me can hinder my spiritual life.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT\n\nOnly one child escaped the cruel sword of Herod, and that one was Mary's\nSon. He was safe in the arms of His Mother, who was fleeing with Him\ninto Egypt, with an anguish of heart so great that it constituted the\n_Second Dolour_. But no design of Herod, however powerful and clever,\ncould touch that life before His hour was come. The child knew it, and\nHis Mother knew it--yet they fled from those who sought His life; for in\nall things Mary's Son must be made like unto His brethren. He could have\nprotected Himself, had He so wished, without giving so much trouble and\nanxiety to His parents. He heard \"Rachel bewailing her children\"; He\nheard the cry of each one of those little Innocents, who was giving his\nlife for Him--yet He did not raise a finger to prevent all the misery,\nbecause He had come to do His Father's Will, and He left all in His\nHands; and also because He is our model, and He was showing us how to\nact. He wants us to have a perfect acquiescence in GOD'S Will, a\nboundless confidence, a profound peace, and even _joy_, in the midst of\nthe most trying and perplexing circumstances. He wants us to lie quiet\nin GOD'S arms, as He lay in His Mother's, content to know nothing except\nthat GOD'S will is being done.\n\nHe who knew least about it all, and yet had apparently to take the chief\npart and bear all the anxiety, was Joseph. He it was who received the\nwarning message from the Angel; he it was who had to break the news to\nMary that the Child's life was in danger and that they must fly\nimmediately--even in the middle of the night. He it was who took the\nChild and His Mother into Egypt, in accordance with what to anyone else\nbut Joseph would have seemed a very arbitrary and unreasonable command.\nBut those who live their lives close to JESUS and Mary do not criticise\nGOD'S dealings: such an idea never occurs to them; they have only one\nthing to do--to obey. When a criticising, discontented spirit comes over\nme, I shall find that the reason is always the same--I have not been\nkeeping close to JESUS and Mary.\n\nHow much Mary suffers during that long journey across the\ndesert--anxiety, fatigue, hunger, thirst, want of shelter! But it is all\non account of her Son; the sword is piercing her heart every day, but\nthe Babe is pressed against the wounds. Angels are following and longing\nto help their Queen, but they cannot without a permission from their\nlittle Master, and the permission will not be given, for He and His\nMother have made their sacrifice--they have laid themselves on the Altar\nas victims and are already being consumed; and the desert is rejoicing\nand flourishing like the lily, (Isaias xxxv. 1), because Mary with her\nchild is passing through it. O Mary, look upon thy children who are\ncrossing the desert of this world. The wilderness has lost all its\nterrors since thou with thy Son didst pass through it. Thou knowest its\ndifficulties and its hardships; \"turn, then, thine eyes of mercy towards\nus, and after this our exile show unto us the blessed Fruit of thy womb,\nJESUS.\"\n\n\n_Point II._--THE LAND OF EGYPT\n\nMary now finds herself in a heathen land, and her interest in the\nGentiles must have greatly increased. But her heart is also enlarged in\nanother direction--namely, towards the Jews of the Dispersion. Legend\ntells us that it was at Heliopolis, one of the cities where the Egyptian\nJews lived and where they had built a Temple, that the Holy Family took\nup their abode while they stayed in Egypt. What a blessing and a joy to\nthose faithful souls to have the Holy Family living amongst them! How it\nmust have stirred up their zeal and courage! It may have been Mary's\ninfluence on many a mother's heart, and the influence of JESUS on many a\nlittle playmate, which produced in after years some of the great\npreachers to the Gentiles who came from amongst the Jews of the\nDispersion.\n\nIt was not for nothing that Mary and her Son were sent into Egypt. GOD\nhas His reasons, though He does not often reveal them, because He loves\nto have our confidence.\n\nNow, for a time--_perhaps_ only for a few months, for Herod died soon\nafter the slaughter of the Innocents--Egypt was the centre of the world;\nnobody guessed it, but the Angels were there worshipping, adoring,\nwondering. It is a true picture of the Blessed Sacrament, hidden away in\nso many Tabernacles, surrounded by people who do not suspect Its\npresence. It is nothing to thousands who pass by. But what is It to\nthose who know? What was JESUS to Mary in the land of her exile? He was\nher all--_with Him_ exile was no exile; _with Him_ GOD'S Will was easy,\nGOD'S arrangements the best; _with Him_ it was impossible to complain,\nimpossible to have any regrets about the past, or impatient wonderings\nabout the future. She was absorbed in the present, because she had JESUS\nwith her. He had to be taken care of, fed, taught, thought about, worked\nfor, lived for. What a lesson for those who are inclined to look upon\ntheir surroundings as _Egypt_, who say too readily: \"How shall we sing\nthe song of the Lord in a strange land?\" (Ps. cxxxvi. 4.) How can I do\nthis or that _here_?\n\nIt was in Egypt that the Child grew, and it was there that Mary heard\nHis first words, watched His first tottering steps, and taught Him His\nfirst (vocal) prayers. And while her Child grew in wisdom and age, Mary\nwas growing too--growing in grace and virtue; imbibing more and more of\nthe spirit of her Son from the services she rendered to Him; making\ngreat progress in her new school, the school of the Cross; getting daily\nmore food for meditation and prayer; enlarging her heart and preparing\nherself to be a second Eve--the Mother of all living.\n\nIt _is_ possible, then, to grow in Egypt! And not only is it _possible_,\nbut if GOD sends me there, it is the soil most suitable for my growth at\nthat particular epoch of my life. How many of GOD'S children have had to\nlive in uncongenial surroundings, and with those who have no sympathy\nwith their faith, from the earliest confessors and martyrs to the\npresent-day converts to the Faith! If JESUS had spent all His lifetime\nin the Holy Land, such might have been tempted to say: \"He is my Model,\nbut He was never in my circumstances!\" But no, JESUS spent some time\nwith His Mother in Egypt, and He _grew_ there.\n\nLet me learn the lesson that GOD is with me wherever I am and in\nwhatever circumstances; and let me try to copy Mary in being so absorbed\nby Him, and by all that I have to do for Him, in the person of His\n\"least brethren,\" that my surroundings matter little.\n\n\n_Point III._--THE RETURN FROM EGYPT\n\n\"Be thou there until I shall tell thee,\" was the only order given to\nJoseph--there was no hint of how long the time would be; and so Mary\nsaid her _Fiat_ each day, ready either to stay in Egypt or to go back to\nher own land--both were the same to her as long as they were the\nexpression of GOD'S Will. At last the Angel came again with a message:\n\"Arise and take the Child and His Mother, and go into the land of\nIsrael; for they are dead that sought the life of the Child.\" Their own\ndear land, then, was no longer dangerous to them. GOD gave His reasons\nthis time--but when He does not, what then? Then my faith must be strong\nenough to believe that the fair land, which looks as if it would be so\ncongenial, holds dangers for me which Egypt does not; there are enemies\nthere who seek after my soul to destroy it, and whom I can only escape\nby the hard discipline of Egypt. Then I will be thankful for Egypt as\nlong as it lasts, and thankful, too, that my life--every detail of\nit--is arranged for me by one who _knows_.\n\nAnd so the faces of Mary and JESUS were set towards the land of\nIsrael--and to them both it meant Calvary. Mary would doubtless have\npreferred to take her Son back to Bethlehem, and bring Him up near the\nTemple, but again the warning voice told them that it was not GOD'S\nwill. And so they \"retired into the quarters of Galilee,\" and Mary found\nherself back again in Nazareth--the city of so many memories; and two\nmore of the prophecies concerning her Son have been fulfilled: \"Out of\nEgypt have I called my Son,\" and, \"He shall be called a Nazarene.\"\n\n     _Colloquy._ O Mary, get thy child grace to learn some of the\n     precious lessons that Egypt has to teach--that blind\n     obedience and submission which bring perfect rest; that\n     waiting for GOD'S orders without any complaining, or\n     impatience, or suggestions of something else; that quiet\n     uniting of all sufferings with those of JESUS; that entire\n     acquiescence in all His plans for me.\n\n     _Resolution._ To put no obstacle in the way of GOD'S\n     direction of me to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Fly into Egypt, and be there until I\n     shall tell thee.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Fifth Word\n\n     \"_And His Mother said to Him: Son, why hast Thou done so to\n     us? Behold, Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing._\"\n     (St Luke ii. 48.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of Mary and Joseph finding JESUS in\n     the Temple.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to seek JESUS as Our Lady sought Him.\n\n\n_Point I._--THE LOSS OF HER SON\n\nOnce more the Holy Family has come up to the Temple; and it is here that\nMary speaks her next recorded word. Her Son was not yet born when she\nspoke her last. Since then He has been her constant companion through\ninfancy and boyhood, in trouble and in joy, at Bethlehem, in Egypt, and\nat Nazareth. He is twelve years old now, and counts under the law as a\nman; it is time to decide His calling in life. He is old enough to go\nwith His parents to the Passover Feast at Jerusalem. So once again the\nreal Passover Lamb goes up to His Temple; and we can think of Mary and\nJoseph praying there to the Child Who is kneeling between them, Mary\npondering over her last visit to the Temple with Him, when she presented\nHim to the Lord as a little baby and when the sword pierced her soul for\nthe first time.\n\nWhen it was all over, the Child JESUS \"remained in Jerusalem,\" without\nsaying anything to His parents! It was only when they halted for the\nnight that Mary and Joseph would find out their loss, for the men and\nwomen left the Temple by different gates, and the children might go with\neither group. Mary had lost her Child! It was the third of the _Seven\nDolours_, and it has been revealed to the Saints that her spiritual\ndesolation was greater than that ever experienced by any of GOD'S\nchildren. Not only was she suffering intense desolation, but her grief\nwas enhanced by the fear that He had left her because she had done\nsomething of which He did not approve. She also had to bear the sight\nof her dearly loved spouse \"sorrowing,\" perhaps blaming himself for his\nwant of care, and in any case not so well able as she to bear the\nanxiety and grief. Mary shows us how to act in our times of desolation.\nDiligently she searched for Him during those three days, \"in the company\namong their kinsfolks and acquaintance,\" and in all the places where He\nhad been. Then they retraced their steps to Jerusalem. No time was lost,\nno pains were spared; they sought Him sorrowing for His loss, and for\nany fault that might be theirs. How JESUS loves to be sought thus! It is\none of His reasons for hiding Himself, to force us back to the company\nwhere we enjoyed His presence, to the places where we had Him with us,\nand to everything that reminds us of what He said to us and what we said\nto Him. He is not far from the souls that thus seek Him.\n\n\n_Point II._--THEY FOUND HIM IN THE TEMPLE\n\nIt was the most natural place to find Him. Do I in my times of\ndesolation turn instinctively to His House, where I know that He is\nhidden? Do I feel that I must spend all the time I possibly can close to\nthe Tabernacle, that my body, at any rate, may be near to Him, while my\nspirit is calling out in its distress: \"Oh, that I knew where I might\nfind Him!\"\n\nWho can measure what must have been Mary's joy and relief when she saw\nher Son sitting in the midst of the doctors, listening to their\nteaching! She \"wondered\"; she was perplexed; and then it was that she\nuttered her fifth word. It was a word of reproach rather than of joy,\nthough it was joy that caused it, and the reproach was full of\ntenderness. St Bernardine calls this word, _flamma amoris saporantis_,\n\"a flame of savouring or relishing love,\" because, he says, it belongs\nto love to \"distinguish and discern, and, as it were, taste the divine\neffects and qualities of that which is loved.\" It was her love which\nmade Mary _savour_ the intense pain caused by the absence of her Son\nand by the anxiety of her spouse. The flame of love within her enabled\nher to _relish_ both the love and the pain. Mary does not try to conceal\nher pain--that is not the outcome of true love. She says straight out\nwhat she is feeling, with that holy familiarity to which her love gives\nher a right: \"Son, why hast Thou done so to us? Behold, Thy father and I\nhave sought Thee sorrowing.\" Why? None knew better than He what the\nagony of those three days had been to His Mother, and He could have\nprevented it. Why, then, has He done so? Because He was beginning the\nprinciple which He carried out all through. He was the \"Man of Sorrows,\"\nand she was the \"Mother of Sorrows,\" and He would not spare her one drop\nin the cup of suffering. He knew its value too well, and His love for\nher was too great.\n\nWhen we have to undergo suffering that seems so unnecessary and that\ncould (perhaps we think) with a little forethought have been so easily\navoided, instead of allowing ourselves to give way to discontent, and\nregrets, and even rebellion, how much better it would be to say: Yes, it\nis quite true, JESUS could have prevented this, but He is treating me in\nsome degree as He treated His Blessed Mother, not saving me the pain and\ntrouble and inconvenience, but letting me have the opportunity of\nsanctifying my soul and of gaining greater merit. \"Why hast Thou done\nso?\" And He answers: \"Did you not know that I must be about My Father's\nbusiness?\" By His answer He prepares His Mother for the future; He\nraises her above the human in Him to the Divine; He announces Himself,\nthough obscurely, to the Doctors as the Messias; He teaches the great\nlesson of detachment, and shows that even our best natural affections\nmust be supernaturalised. \"My Father's business\"--that must ever come\nfirst. \"For this came I into the world,\" (St John xviii. 37), and I\n_must_ be about it, even if by so doing I give pain to those dearest to\nme.\n\nThey were her Son's first recorded words, and Mary \"understood\" them\nnot; they were words full of mystery and full of meaning; her mingled\nfeelings of pain and relief, of sorrow and joy, would prevent her from\nseeing the gist of their meaning at once; but as time went on, and her\nspiritual horizon increased, she would understand more and more what His\n\"Father's business\" was, though perhaps not till she stood at the Foot\nof the Cross did she understand the words in all their fulness.\n\n\"_Why hast Thou done so?_\" It is a question Mary often puts to her other\nchildren--sometimes in surprise and amazement, sometimes in anxiety and\nsorrow, sometimes in love and tenderness. Well for us if we can always\nanswer, like our Elder Brother: The \"Father's business.\" This is an\nanswer which will always satisfy the flame of love within her which\nprompts the question.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, asking for grace that I may be so taken\n     up with my \"Father's business\" that I cause her no anxiety.\n\n     _Resolution._ To put my \"Father's business\" first, to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Why hast Thou done so to us?\"\n\n\n\n\nNazareth\n\n     \"_And He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was\n     subject to them. And His Mother kept all these words in her\n     heart. And JESUS advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with\n     GOD and men._\" (St Luke ii. 52.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ JESUS, Mary, and Joseph going back to\n     Nazareth.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to go there too, and to study its\n     lessons.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY WITH JESUS AND JOSEPH\n\nThe lesson has been given now; JESUS has shown His parents that He is\nthe Son of GOD before He is the Son of Mary; that GOD'S will, and GOD'S\nbusiness, and GOD'S work, are the reasons for His being on earth. Now,\nbecause He is perfect man, He will live for eighteen years in subjection\nto His parents, to show us that subjection is one of GOD'S laws; that\nthe Father's business can only be done by a perfect submission to His\nwill and to His orders, expressed and given by those under whom His\nprovidence places us. All the direction needed for the spiritual life is\ncontained in these two sentences: \"_I must be about My Father's\nbusiness_,\" and \"_He was subject to them_.\" The Father's business is to\nbe done in His way--not in mine; it will only be done by a perfect\nsubmission of my will to His, by subjection all along the line, by the\ncrushing of self.\n\nHis Mother kept all these words in her heart. As she went home she was\npondering and meditating again. She had no need to make a \"_Composition\nof Place_,\" as she had to do a few hours ago, for her Boy was at her\nside once again; it was upon His words that she was meditating. They had\nmade her realise that He was a man now, that He would have \"business\" to\ndo that she must no longer expect wholly to understand. No doubt she\nprepared herself in her meditation to be ready from henceforth to find\nthat His sweet, childish, obedience was over. Just as we, in our\nmeditations, make the sacrifice beforehand about something that we\ndread, and then when we come up to it during the day, it is not there!\nBut GOD is pleased, nevertheless, that we made our sacrifice. One of the\nmany uses of meditation is that we may be fore-armed for the day's\nbattles. So it was with Mary. When she got back to Nazareth, it is true\nthat there was a change; it is true that the boyhood of her Son was fast\npassing into manhood; but His subjection was the same--only it was far\nmore touching to His Mother's heart just because He was no longer a\nchild.\n\nAnd what was Mary's part? If JESUS was \"subject,\" Mary had to command;\nif JESUS obeyed, it was because Mary gave her orders--and this till He\nwas thirty years old! What an absolute repression of self and of her own\nideas there must have been in Mary before she could bring herself to\ngive an order to Him Whom she was worshipping as her GOD! With what\nreverence, and honour, and humility, and searchings of heart, and\npreparation, and care she would give her orders! Only the knowledge that\nit was His wish that she should stand in GOD'S place to Him, could have\ngiven her courage. Her authority over Him was GOD'S authority, and it\nwas only by constantly referring it to GOD that she dared to maintain\nit.\n\nWhat a lesson Mary gives here to parents and superiors and to all whose\nduty it is to command others! Whether they have to command the unruly\nand the unsubmissive, or those whom they know to be in every way\nsuperior to themselves, a few thoughts suggested by the contemplation of\nMary commanding her Son at Nazareth may help to make easier a position\nwhich must often be irksome and difficult:--\n\n     1. GOD has put me into this position because He intends me to\n     be His delegate.\n\n     2. My orders are all given in His Name, and all my authority\n     refers back to Him.\n\n     3. My only sure weapons are--_humility_, that is, a real\n     belief in my own weakness; and _self-effacement_, to the\n     extent of letting those who are under me see, not me, but\n     GOD, in my orders.\n\n     4. I must see JESUS in all whom I command. If they are\n     thankless and unruly, they are nevertheless amongst His\n     \"least brethren,\" and He wants them trained to live with\n     their Elder Brother in His Father's house. If they are\n     already so like Him in their docility and humility that the\n     very sight of them makes me adore GOD in them, I will\n     remember that Mary gave her orders to JESUS because GOD\n     wished it; and that thought will give me courage to be His\n     faithful representative and to give those under my care every\n     possible opportunity of advancing in wisdom and grace by the\n     submission of their will.\n\n     5. I must be firmly persuaded that GOD never puts anyone into\n     a position without giving the grace to fill it. Mary needed\n     far more grace to command JESUS than ever I shall need!\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY A WIDOW\n\nNeither sacred nor profane history gives the exact date of that sad day\nin Mary's life when death deprived her of her beloved spouse. Joseph had\nshared all Mary's sacred joys and sorrows from her school-days. He it\nwas who had trained her Son in His work as a carpenter; and to him alone\ncould she speak freely of Him. What a wonderfully happy and blessed\ndeath must have been St Joseph's--the last people he saw, JESUS and\nMary; his last messages given to JESUS and Mary; all he had to leave,\nleft to JESUS and Mary; the last words he heard, those of JESUS and\nMary! He is the _Patron of a good death_: that is, he will help those\nwho invoke him, to die with JESUS and Mary.\n\nAnd now from henceforth Mary will have no one to talk to about her Son,\nno one to share her joy in all these new lessons which she is ever\nlearning from Him. But, on the other hand, from henceforth her Son will\nbe her _all_. He, who later raised the dead man because \"he was the only\nson of his mother and she was a widow,\" knew how to wipe away the tears\nfrom His Mother's eyes. He knew how to be to her more than a husband.\nFrom henceforth the Son and the Mother were all in all to each other--He\nher sole support, and she keeping the little home for Him alone. They\nwere alone for their meals, and alone in the evenings when the day's\nwork was done. It may have been during those blessed evenings that JESUS\nexplained to Mary what His \"Father's business\" was, so that she might\nunderstand all about it; that He unfolded to her the wonderful plan of\nRedemption; that He told her about His public life, about the Church\nthat He was going to found, and which she was to nurse during its\ninfancy. Perhaps He told her, too, of the extension of the\nIncarnation--His great secret, the Blessed Sacrament. Who had a greater\nright to know it than Mary, through whose means the Incarnation took\nplace? And as the time of the Hidden Life drew to a close, He would\nexplain to her that His \"Father's business\" was calling Him away from\nNazareth, that He would have to give up His home and His life with her,\nbut that they would still work together for the Redemption of the world,\ntheir interests would still be one. Oh, blessed converse! The secrets of\nJESUS and Mary! More than ever was her heart being enlarged; more than\never would she have need to ponder these things in her heart. With the\nundivided attention of such a Master, what progress she must have made\nin virtue and in grace!\n\n\n_Point III._--MARY ALONE\n\nBut the day came at last when her Son was to leave their little home.\nMary knew that it would come; again she had made her sacrifice\nbeforehand, and she was ready. She was saying her _Fiat_ while Simeon's\never-active sword was piercing her heart. There was the last meal, the\nlast kiss, the last blessing--and He was gone. She watched Him till He\nwas out of sight and then turned to her empty house. It would never be\nthe same again. Never again would she have Him all to herself. But Mary\nwas a \"valiant woman,\" and no grief of hers would spoil her Son's work.\nThree thoughts supported her in her trial; and the same three will\nsupport us in our trials too.\n\n     1. This separation was GOD'S will--and that was always dearer\n     to Mary than _anything_ else.\n\n     2. The very sacrifice of her Son that she was called upon to\n     make, was a proof of her union with Him and with His\n     interests.\n\n     3. The knowledge that the separation was no real separation.\n\nIt is true that never again will He come in from His work and share the\nsimple meal with her; true that there will be no more talking over their\nplans together; but such a perfect union as theirs cannot be broken by\nseparation. Does not everything in the house speak of Him? Mary has had\nher time of _consolation_; now she is to have her time of _desolation_.\nLet me learn from her how to act under these changed conditions, which\nare sure to be mine at some time or other in my life. How does Mary act?\nDoes she sit still and mourn over the days that are gone? Not at all.\nShe acts as though they were _not_ gone; as though there were no\ndifference between consolation and desolation; there _is_ no difference\nreally, but faith and love must be very strong before this fact can be\ngrasped. Mary does her work as usual with her Son and for her Son. Her\nheart is with Him all the time; everything reminds her of Him, and she\nis thinking of Him, talking to Him, telling Him everything just as she\ndid before. How far am I like her?\n\n\"Sedes sapientiae, ora pro nobis.\"\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, asking her to get me grace to ponder\n     over these wonderful mysteries.\n\n     _Resolution._ Never to allow myself to make any change in my\n     spiritual life during a time of desolation.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"He was subject to them.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Sixth Word\n\n     \"_The Mother of JESUS saith to Him: They have no wine._\" (St\n     John ii. 3.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The Marriage Feast.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to remember the interest that Mary takes\n     in her children.\n\n\n_Point I._--\"THEY HAVE NO WINE\"\n\nIt looks, from the context, as though Our Blessed Lady were staying in\nthe house at Cana where the wedding feast took place, for while St John\ntells us that JESUS and His disciples were _invited_, he says that \"the\nMother of JESUS was _there_.\" We need not suppose that she remained long\nat Nazareth after her Son began His public ministry--it is more probable\nthat she stayed with friends in the neighbourhood of His work. After\nthis first miracle of her Son's, she went with Him and His disciples to\nCapharnaum, but \"remained there not many days,\" St John tells us. (chap.\nii. 12.) At all events, she was at Cana at the time of the marriage\nfeast, and it may be that it was in St John's house that she was\nstaying; for there is a very old tradition which tells that the\nbridegroom was none other than John himself. If the tradition be true,\nit lends an additional significance to this sixth word of Our Lady; for,\nas St Bernardine suggests, it would probably be the miracle produced by\nthis word which made him decide to give up the wedded state, even before\nhe had entered upon it, for one of perpetual virginity--a decision which\nendeared him to the hearts of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother.\n\nEighteen years had passed since Mary's last recorded word. It was spoken\nto Our Lord Himself, as also was this one. St Bernardine calls the sixth\nword \"a word of compassionating love\" (_flamma amoris compatientis_). We\nshall see why as we continue our meditation.\n\nIt is not difficult to picture that little family feast in which JESUS\nand Mary took part. Their presence produced, as it ever must, joy,\npeace, and harmony. But now, apparently, there was going to be a hitch\nin the proceedings; Mary's watchful eyes noticed that the wine was\nrunning short; she wanted to save the newly married pair from any\nconfusion and humiliation that would spoil their mirth on this glad day,\nand she showed her _compassionating_ love by anticipating their need.\n\nMary is the same now; she is full of compassionating love, pity, and\nthought for her children; she anticipates their needs and will save\nthem, if possible, from the dangers which threaten them, by telling\nJESUS. What a comfort it should be to me to remember that I have a\nMother in Heaven who is looking out for the difficulties and dangers\nwhich threaten me, and doing her best to avert them! How far am I like\nmy Mother in this? Do I, by my tact and forethought and observation, try\nto smooth away difficulties and avert little unpleasantnesses that I see\nlying in the path of another? To what extent is this _flamma amoris\ncompatientis_ burning in me? Do others feel that if I am there, not only\nwill there be more joy and mirth, but also more harmony and good\nfeeling--in short, that things are sure to run smoothly, because one of\nMary's children--\"a child of Mary\"--is there. The Mother of JESUS was\nthere.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE ANSWER OF JESUS\n\nJESUS, too, had noticed that the wine was running short, and He knew\nthat He was going to work a wonderful miracle of transubstantiation,\nforeshadowing the miracle worked at every Mass. He knew also that He\nwould not work the miracle till His Mother had intervened. At Nazareth\nHe made her a participator in all His work. Though separated from Him,\nshe was still to have her share; and her share was _prayer_--the great\nwork of intercession. By this means, doubtless, she had had her share in\nher Son's Baptism, in the Fasting and Temptation in the wilderness, in\nthe calling of the first six Apostles. Now, in this first miracle, He\nwill give a lesson to these Apostles and show them the position His\nMother is to occupy in His Church. She understands that He addresses her\nas \"Woman\" rather than as Mother, to show them that He, and they too,\nmust be detached from all natural affections and ties. He has His\nFather's business to do, and they have been chosen to help Him in it,\nand she is acting in her _official_ position as Intercessor. My hour for\nworking this miracle is not yet come, but now that you have spoken it\nsoon will come, seems to be the meaning of His answer. It was by this\nmiracle that JESUS manifested forth His glory, \"so that His disciples\nbelieved on Him.\"\n\nAnd one of Mary's reasons for saying: \"They have no wine,\" and thus\nasking for the miracle, may have been that she knew it would confirm the\nfaith of the new Apostles in her Son.\n\nWhat a loving, compassionating Mother she already is! How her heart is\nenlarging to take in all that concerns her Son--His work, His interests,\nHis miracles, His Apostles! She notices the needs, and just hints them\nto JESUS; there is no need to explain and go into details; they\nunderstand each other--it is heart-to-heart work. If the flame of\ncompassionating love is burning in her heart, it is because it has been\nlighted at the fire of the Sacred Heart.\n\nIn after years, especially during the Passion and after the Ascension,\nwhen the Apostles must so often have turned to Our Lady for consolation,\nhelp, and direction, how they would look back to the time of the feast\nin Cana of Galilee, when they heard her say her first _official_ word:\n\"They have no wine\"! And how the remembrance of it would strengthen\ntheir faith, not only in Him, in Whom from that moment they \"believed,\"\nbut also in her whom He had then so clearly pointed out as His\nco-worker, and as the one from whom they might expect help in their\nneeds.\n\nIf Mary did so much for her children when she was on earth, without even\nbeing asked; and if she supplied needs, of which they were scarcely\nconscious, what will she not do now, when, as the great Intercessor at\nher Son's right hand in Heaven, she hears the entreaties of her children\non earth? She still co-operates with JESUS; her work is still to find\nout the needs of her children and to tell Him of them. When I am in\nneed, perplexity, or trouble, what a consolation and strength it would\nbe to remember that this very need of mine is a subject of conversation\nbetween JESUS and Mary; and that, when His hour is come, her pleadings\nfor me will be heard, and the need will be supplied!\n\n     _Colloquy_ with the Mother of Compassion. \"Mater\n     misericordiae, ora pro nobis.\"\n\n     _Resolution._ To try to-day to prevent little\n     unpleasantnesses happening to others.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"The Mother of JESUS was there.\"\n\n\n\n\nHer Seventh Word\n\n     _His Mother saith to the waiters: \"Whatsoever He shall say to\n     you, do ye.\"_ (St John ii. 5.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The Marriage Feast. Mary speaking to the\n     waiters.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to obey.\n\n\n_Point I._--LOVE'S CONSUMMATION--OBEDIENCE\n\nThe perfect understanding that existed between Mary and her Son made her\nquite sure from His answer that all would be well, that a miracle would\nbe worked, and the need supplied; and so she prepared the way for it by\nspeaking her seventh recorded word. It is to the waiters that she\nspeaks--to those whose work it is to minister to the needs of JESUS and\nHis brethren. \"Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.\" St Bernardine\ncalls this word \"a flame of consummating love,\" (_flamma amoris\nconsummantis_), because Mary shows by it that her love for her Son and\nfor all her other children is so great, that she desires that all should\nobey Him, and accomplish His commandments perfectly. She is not content\nwith loving and serving Him herself, the flame of love that makes her\nown obedience so perfect, burns that others too may consummate their\nlove by their obedience: \"Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.\" If you\nwant my Son to show you some special favour, be very careful about your\nobedience.\n\nMary's word is for _all_ her children, but it is intended principally\nfor the waiters, to whom it was primarily addressed. It is those who\nhave, in any way, to minister to JESUS under the guise of His \"least\nbrethren,\" who have to remember so specially that they are to do only\nwhat _He_ says--that they are only His agents waiting for His orders.\nHow much better His servants would do their work if they carried out His\nMother's direction, and did all that He says and only what He says! His\n\"least brethren,\" who are sick, would never feel neglected, would never\nhear that impatient word which makes them long to get up, and wait on\nthemselves, instead of being left to the tender mercies of the servants\nof JESUS and Mary! His \"least brethren\" who are tiresome and difficult\nto get on with--perhaps only because they are lonely and in need of\nsympathy--would be quite sure of never getting an unkind, cutting, or\nthoughtless word from those who are waiting on JESUS and Mary; it is\nwhat _He_ saith that they will say and do--nothing else.\n\nAnd amongst the waiters themselves there would be no jealousies, and\nheart-burnings, and envyings, and criticisms; no thinking that others\nare preferred to them, that they are left out and taken no notice of,\nthat their services are not wanted. The waiters would remember that they\nare waiting upon _His_ Brethren, and that they have no right to do or\nsay or plan anything that He does not tell them; and if He tells them\nnothing for the moment, and they have to stand by, and see others do His\nwork, they are nevertheless His servants, waiting for His next orders.\n\n\"Whatsoever He shall say, do.\" Obedience, then, is love's consummation.\nMary's love--strong flame though it is--cannot get beyond obedience;\nthere is nothing higher; it is the proof, the crown, the consummation of\nlove. When, for the moment, her request seems unheeded--even\nrejected--her consolation is: \"Whatsoever He shall say\" will be right;\nwhatever it is, it will be the answer for me. \"_Ecce ancilla Domini._\"\nBehold the servant waiting.\n\n\n_Point II._--RESULT--WATER CHANGED TO WINE\n\nThe waiters have not long to wait for their orders. When His Mother has\nprepared us and we are standing waiting ready to do \"whatsoever\" He\nshall say, the order is quite clear. We know exactly what He means, and\nwhat it is that He wants done; and though the order may seem\nunreasonable, and we run the risk of humiliating ourselves before\nothers, yet we shall do it, for His Mother said: \"Whatsoever.\" And by\ndoing it we shall prove that our love, like hers, is a consummating\nlove--a love that finds its consummation in obedience. This kind of love\nis like a fairy's wand; it changes all that it touches, water is wine\neverywhere--that is, we get the best out of everything; not perhaps\nimmediately, or at any rate we are not so quick to _detect_ the \"good\nwine\" as the steward of the feast was; the path of obedience is often,\nas it was for Mary, a path beset with difficulty and sorrow; but love\nhas touched it, the result is the same, the water _is_ changed, and\nchanged into \"_good_ wine.\" It would not be good for us to drink of it\nto the full now. GOD reserves the good wine till the end, and when we\nhave well drunk of the cup of suffering and sorrow here, He will hand us\nthe cup of joy that inebriates. Here we may only \"_taste_ and see that\nthe Lord is sweet\"; (Ps. xxxiii. 9); but one day, when the _flamma\namoris consummantis_ is perfected in us, when we have done all that He\nsaith to us, and paid our debts even to \"the last farthing,\" (St Matt.\nv. 26), then we shall drink to the full of the joy of His countenance,\n(Ps. xv. 11), and He will say: \"I have inebriated the weary soul, and I\nhave _filled_ every hungry soul.\" (Jer. xxxi. 25.)\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Our Lady, asking that I may always hear her\n     voice telling me to obey her Son.\n\n     _Resolution._ To remember that obedience turns water into\n     wine.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.\"\n\n\n\n\nWho is my Mother?\n\n     \"_My mother and my brethren are they who hear the word of GOD\n     and do it._\" (St Luke viii. 21.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ Our Lady standing waiting on the outskirts of\n     the crowd.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to \"hear the word of GOD and do it.\"\n\n\n_Point I._--HIS MOTHER STANDING WITHOUT\n\nThis one incident in which Mary is mentioned between the time of the\nMarriage at Cana and Holy Week, happened during the second year of her\nSon's ministry. We do not know whether or not she had been near Him\nduring this time. According to the opinion of some, she was one of the\nlittle band of women who followed Him about, to minister to His needs\nand those of His Apostles. But whether she followed Him actually or not,\nwe know that her spirit was ever with Him, and that she followed Him\nwith her prayers, and interest, and sympathy, _knowing_ Him more as He\nmanifested Himself more by His healing and miracles, and therefore\n_loving_ Him and _imitating_ Him more, and _therefore_, growing in\ngrace, of which she was ever full. Such, we are quite sure, is a true\npicture of Mary, though this one instance at Capharnaum is the only\noccasion on which we are able to make an actual picture of her.\n\nHer Son had probably come to Capharnaum for a rest after one of His\nmissionary rounds; it may be that He had come to have a little time of\nrefreshment with her. And she and His brethren--His relatives--went to\nmeet Him, desiring to speak to Him. We are not told what it was that\nthey were so anxious to tell Him. When they arrived He was already\naddressing a crowd which was _sitting_ about Him, and which was so great\nthat His Mother and His brethren could not get near Him; and so \"they\n_stood_ without\"--on the outskirts--and thus attracted the notice of\nsomeone who attracted _His_ notice; someone, in fact, who interrupted\nHim in the middle of His discourse, by telling Him that His Mother and\nHis brethren wanted Him. Such is the simple incident, and by it Mary\naffords her Son the opportunity of giving two most important lessons to\nHis Apostles, and also to those who would, during all time, have any\nkind of apostolic work to do.\n\n\n_Point II._--A LESSON ON INTERRUPTIONS\n\nHe is preaching, and He is interrupted. What does He do? Shows, as He\nhad shown so clearly before, when He was only twelve years old, that\nHis \"Father's business\" must come first--that He is perfectly\nindifferent to all natural ties when that is concerned, and that His\nfollowers have got to be the same. He is preaching to the people--that\nis His work, and not even for a desire of His Mother will He interrupt\nit. He preaches by example what He had already preached by word: \"He\nthat loveth father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he\nthat taketh not up his cross and followeth Me is not worthy of Me.\" (St\nMatt. x. 37.)\n\nIncidentally, He shows us what we may do with our interruptions. We are\nso prone to let them worry us, to think that they spoil our work, to\nsay: But for these endless interruptions, I could do so much more! What\ndid our Lord do with His interruption, which was a very real one, and\nfar more disturbing than are many of ours of which we complain so\nreadily? He turned it into good use, so that His work was the gainer by\nit and not the loser. If we cannot always follow His example literally\nby making the interruption a _direct_ help to our work, we can always\nmake it help _indirectly_ by taking it as a message from GOD, Who would\ngive His Apostle an opportunity of practising patience, self-control,\nand self-repression. Our work will gain more by these divinely planned\ninterruptions than by the smooth, easy, methods which we had planned for\nourselves.\n\n\n_Point III._--A LESSON ON RELATIONSHIPS\n\nTo the interrupter He said: \"Who is My mother? and who are My brethren?\"\nAnd, looking round on them who sat about Him, He saith: \"Behold My\nmother and My brethren! For My mother and My brethren are they who hear\nthe word of GOD and do it.\" It is the same lesson that He gave to the\nwoman, who probably was one of the very crowd He was now addressing, and\nwho could not refrain from proclaiming before everyone the\n_blessedness_ of His Mother. To her He said: \"Yea, rather, blessed are\nthey who hear the word of GOD and keep it.\" (St Luke xi. 27, 28.) The\nlesson, then, is that He holds as His nearest and dearest those who do\nHis Father's Will. His Mother was, it is true, dearer to Him than all\nbesides, was, it is true, blessed above all women; but only because she\ndid His Father's Will more perfectly than any other.\n\nWho is My mother? Any of these in the crowd have as much right to Me as\nshe has, if they do My Father's Will as she does it. This is the lesson\nthat Mary is giving Him the opportunity of teaching.\n\nWould I be dear to Him as His Mother was; would I have that close union\nof heart; would I see things from His point of view; would I be willing\nto be put in the background and kept standing there if it furthers the\n\"Father's business\"; would I be ready to suffer anything for the spread\nof His Kingdom? There is only one way--do as she did. \"Whosoever shall\ndo the will of My Father that is in Heaven, the same is My mother.\"\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary standing in the background. Thou whose\n     unique privilege it is to be the Mother of GOD, teach me to\n     do His will in such a way that I may share in some degree thy\n     _spiritual_ maternity. This was thine by _detachment_--even\n     from the visible presence of JESUS, by a perfect _performance\n     of the will of GOD_, and by _suffering_. By thy ceaseless\n     intercession help me to struggle ceaselessly till I know\n     something of these three things.\n\n     _Resolution._ To prove my close relationship with JESUS and\n     Mary to-day by the way I do GOD'S will.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"His Mother stood without.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Fourth and Fifth Dolours\n\n     \"_And thy own soul a sword shall pierce._\" (St Luke ii. 35.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ (1) Mary meeting JESUS with His Cross.\n\n     (2) Mary witnessing the Crucifixion of Her Son.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to understand what a precious gift\n     suffering is.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S SUFFERING\n\nMary, with the knowledge which she had all her life of her Son's\nPassion, must have known when the hour was approaching. She had noticed\nthe ever-increasing envy and hatred of the Chief Priests. She knew of\nthe various attempts on His life, and of the organised plot to kill Him.\nAnd when the Passion itself began, we may be quite sure that, even if\nshe were not actually a witness of some of the scenes, the Apostles kept\nher informed of what was going on. She would hear of the Agony in the\nGarden, of Judas' betrayal, of the desertion of the Apostles; then of\nthe trials, of the scourging and crowning with thorns, of Pilate's vain\nattempts to save Him; _she_ knew that they would be vain. And when at\nlength the death sentence was passed, she set out with the other\nministering women to be as near to Him as she could while He carried His\nCross to Calvary. _Once_, at any rate, on the Way of the Cross they\ncaught sight of each other, and had that unspeakable consolation which\nno one could give to JESUS but Mary, and no one to Mary but JESUS. But\nthough it was a consolation, it was also an anguish so great, that this\nmeeting of JESUS with His Blessed Mother is counted as one of the seven\nswords that pierced her heart. It is the _Fourth Dolour_. Then, on\nCalvary's hill, she must have heard, even if she did not see, the nails\nbeing driven in; and heard, too, something that gave her strength and\ncourage at that terrible moment--her Son speaking to His Father, the\ncrowning point of Whose \"business\" He had now reached: \"Father, forgive\nthem, for they know not what they do.\" Who can measure what the pain of\nthis _Fifth Dolour_ was to Mary! What was it that gave her an almost\nsuperhuman courage? The firm belief that everything she saw and heard\nwas GOD'S will; and such was the intensity with which she had said her\n_Fiat_, that His will was nearer to her even than her own sufferings. In\nproportion as this is the case with us shall we get the good that GOD\nintends out of suffering, and join, as Mary did, our prayers with those\nof JESUS by asking GOD'S forgiveness for all who cause us suffering.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S SACRIFICE\n\nThen, as soon as the darkness permitted her to draw near without\nobservation, she allowed John to take her to the Foot of the Cross, and\nthere took up her stand. Her sacrifice was very near to its completion\nnow. This is what she meant when she said her _Fiat_ to the Angel\nGabriel thirty-three years ago. This is what she meant when she\npresented Him to the Lord when He was forty days old. The three days'\nloss, and the separation when He left His home at Nazareth, had been a\nforeshadowing of this. Now the consummation of her sacrifice had\narrived: \"And there stood by the Cross of JESUS His Mother\"! She had\nnever flinched, had never looked back. It had been _Fiat_ all along the\nline. She was a \"valiant woman\" to the end, bravely doing her part, and\noffering her Son to GOD.\n\nThis was Mary's sacrifice--but what is her part in the Sacrifice that\nher Son is offering to His Father for the world's redemption? Just this,\nthat she provided the Victim. She did not withhold her Son--her only\nSon. (Gen. xxii. 16.) JESUS on Calvary offered Himself to the Father;\nand Mary assisted--not only by the perfect union of her will and\nintention with His, but _actually_, by providing Him with the Body which\nHe was offering to His Father. Her position was that of the Deacon at\nHigh Mass. His part is not the offering of the Sacrifice--the Priest\nalone can do that--but He provides the Priest with the bread and wine\nwhich he is going to use for the Sacrifice, and without which there\ncould be no Sacrifice. \"A _Body_ hast thou prepared Me\"; and that Body\ncame from Mary--it was with Blood drawn from her veins that He redeemed\nthe world. But the Sacrificial Act was His, and His alone: \"I have\ntrodden the wine-press alone.\" (Isaias lxiii. 3.)\n\n\n_Point III._--MARY'S LEGACY\n\nAs she stood there taking her part, how her heart was enlarging! He was\ndying for the whole world--for the whole human race, past, present, and\nfuture--and she was His Mother; she was standing by and assisting; all\nHis interests were hers. She had seen the conversions worked by Him on\nthe Way of the Cross; she had seen the change in the dying thief; now\nJESUS addressed Himself to her, and by His Third Word from the Cross\nmade her the Second Eve, the Mother of all living--of all for whom He\nwas dying. \"Woman, behold thy son!\" Again He used the official\ntitle--_Woman_; He was not treating her now as _His_ Mother, but rather\nas the Mother of all. Behold thy son; take John for thy son, and with\nhim take the whole human race. He counted on her power of suffering, and\nit was through that suffering that she became the universal Mother. He\nknew how the sword would stab when she heard that she was to take John\nin His place, but He knew also that the wound made by that sword-thrust\nwould enlarge her heart to take in her new family. He was dying, and His\nlegacy to His Mother was the whole human race. The idea was not a new\none to her, for He had been gradually training her up to it, as we have\nseen, ever since the Incarnation. He added another word to make all\nsure. He spoke now to John as the representative of the human race:\n\"Behold thy Mother!\" The immediate meaning of His words John very well\nunderstood--that he was to cherish, support, and take care of her; be a\nson to her now that her own Son was being taken from her. But He had an\nintention in that word for each one of us. To each and all He said:\n\"_Behold Thy Mother!_\" and from that moment all who will, have the right\nto take her to their own.\n\nTo what extent have I taken this word seriously? Have I really believed\nthat JESUS had me in His mind as well as St John when He said: \"Behold\nthy Mother!\" that it was of me that He thought and to me that He spoke?\nHave I felt the responsibility as well as the honour of being a child of\nMary, and that it is my bounden duty to love and cherish her, to support\nand take care of her--that is, to stand up for her and shield her from\nthose who _will_ not behold her as their Mother? O my Mother, I want\nmore than ever to take thee to _my own_, as thy first adopted son did.\nCome home with me, live side by side with me, talk to me of JESUS, and\nthus help to pass the time when you see me getting weary; help me to\nimitate Him as thou didst, and to share His work by my prayer and\nsacrifice as thou didst. And then, Mother, thou wilt always be there to\nshow me what sacrifice really means--how it enters into all the little\ndetails of everyday life--to show me what having my will united to thy\nSon's means. Thou wilt be there to put a restraining hand upon me and\nmake me live as a child of Mary should; thou, to whom JESUS was subject,\nwilt teach me what real submission means. Yes, I am decided that to-day\nit shall be recorded of me in Heaven: \"From that hour that disciple took\nher to his own.\"\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary.\n\n     _Resolution._ To take Mary as the special gift of JESUS to\n     me.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"There stood by the Cross of JESUS His\n     Mother.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Sixth and Seventh Dolours\n\n     \"_And Joseph, buying fine linen and taking Him down, wrapped\n     Him in the fine linen, and laid Him in a sepulchre which was\n     hewed out of a rock._\" (St Mark xv. 46.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of the Thirteenth Station.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to be unselfish in my grief.\n\n\n_Point I._--MATER DOLOROSA\n\nAs Mary stands at her post, praying for her new family for whom her Son\nis dying, and uniting herself more closely than ever with His\nintentions, the sword never ceases to pierce afresh her wounded heart.\nShe has to listen to the cry: \"I thirst!\" from the parched lips and\nthroat of Him from Whom she had never heard a complaint; and she has to\nappear to be deaf to His needs. Again she hears a cry, more full of\nagony even than the last: \"My GOD, My GOD, why hast Thou forsaken Me!\"\nand she who once lost her Son for three days (the _Third Dolour_) can\nunderstand in some small degree the anguish of that cry. Then after His\nnext words: \"All is consummated,\" she hears Him commend His Soul to His\nFather, and she watches Him die. She is alone! And not only is she\nalone, but she has a sense of responsibility. Just as on the occasion of\na death among us, the one next has to rise to the responsibility and act\n_at once_, so it was with Mary. She was the one _next_. She knew that it\nwas to her that the Apostles and all His friends would turn to know what\nto do--what He would like done. He who had died on the Cross \"was indeed\nthe Son of GOD,\" and she was His Mother; she, if anyone did, must know\nall about Him. So, although all is over, there is no time for Mary to\nrelax and give way to her grief. There is work to be done--work that He\nhas left her. \"It is finished\" for Him, but she is only just beginning\nher work as Mother of the Church. And so she still stands at the Foot\nof the Cross, reverently worshipping the dead Body to which the Divinity\nis still united.\n\nHer meditation was suddenly interrupted--\"One of the soldiers with a\nspear pierced His Side\"; and again Simeon's prophecy was fulfilled:\n\"Thine own soul a sword shall pierce.\" Soon followed what is called her\n_Sixth Dolour_--the taking down of her Son from the Cross. He was in the\nhands of friends now, and all was done with the greatest reverence and\nloving tenderness. But nothing could stay the sword from piercing Mary's\nheart when she received into her hands the blood-stained Crown of Thorns\nand the rough nails. Nothing could stay it when she had her JESUS once\nmore in her arms, and was able to see for herself the cruel wounds as\nshe washed them and bound them up. Then when the precious Body had been\nwrapped in the winding sheet, she accompanied the little cortege which\ncarried It to the tomb. And when, after a few minutes' adoration, she\nbeckoned them all away, and the great stone was rolled to its place, the\nsword pierced her heart again--it was the _Seventh Dolour_--the burial\nof JESUS.\n\nShe allowed John to escort her past the three crosses, along the way\nwhich He had trodden, back to the Cenacle. \"That disciple took her to\nhis own.\" The next time we make the Way of the Cross, let us make it\nwith Mary as John did. She will explain to us better than anyone else\ncan, the meaning of each \"station.\"\n\nMary has left Him now, but she is with Him still in spirit and in\nheart--hence her strength. What a lesson she gives us on how to act in\ntimes of bereavement! We are never to lose sight of the fact that this\nparticular kind of suffering is intended for our sanctification. This\nwill prevent us from allowing it to make us morbid, selfish, gloomy,\ninconsiderate, ungrateful, acting as though _our_ suffering were greater\nthan that of everybody else, being exacting and fastidious about things\nthat remind us of our lost one--even of having the name mentioned in our\npresence! What about our sacrifice? Are not all such things as these a\npart of it? We have no business to add to the trials of others by our\ntyrannical selfishness. Sorrow ought to brace the soul up to greater\nheights of sanctity; if it depresses it to a lower level of\nspirituality, there is something very wrong with us. We are not copying\nMary, neither are we uniting our sufferings to those of JESUS--the only\nway of making them meritorious. Let us see to it that our grief is a\nsource of joy and blessing to everyone else in the house. This means\nself put on one side; it means a smiling face, a bright, cheery, voice\nin spite of a breaking heart. It means a great sympathy with the grief\nof others--and it _often_ means that we shall get the credit of not\nreally caring, of not having much depth of affection, not much heart!\nBut this again is part of the sacrifice which we gladly offer if only it\nmay aid suffering in doing its blessed work. There were those, no doubt,\nwho were ready enough to say that Mary's calm courage was unnatural. But\n_we_ know that it was supernatural: let us try to copy her in it.\n\n\n_Point II._--MATER MISERICORDIAE\n\nWhat must have been the grief of the Apostles--their Friend, Teacher,\nand Lord dead, their hopes all dashed, and their consciences ill at ease\nas they thought of their base desertion of Him in His hour of need! They\nwere scattered everyone to his own, but probably one by one they found\ntheir way back to the Cenacle. It was the last house where they had been\nall together with Him, and it seemed natural to go there again--and\nbesides, His Mother was there. She was next to Him, and therefore more\nto them than anyone else could be. _She_ had been faithful to the end.\nShe could tell them more about Him than anyone else could. Her very\nvoice and manner reminded them of Him. Somehow, they felt that she would\nlook at things from His point of view, and that if _she_ forgave them\nfor the wrong they had done to her Son, _He_ would. Then they would\nlearn from John what JESUS had said about her with His dying lips--that\nthey might now regard her in very deed as their Mother; that she was now\nin fact the Mother of the Church which He had founded; and that they\ncould turn to her in their times of perplexity and difficulty. \"Behold\nthy Mother\"--the Mother of Good Counsel and the Mother of Mercy! Was it\nnot just what they wanted? How well He knew! How thoughtful it was of\nHim to leave us Mary!\n\nAnd so we may think of Mary on Holy Saturday rallying her new family\nround her, loving them for her Son's sake, making excuses for their\nweaknesses, as a mother ever does, and putting fresh heart and courage\ninto them. And then we may think of her stealing away to ponder--to make\nthe first Meditation on the Passion, presenting willingly her heart to\nthe sword once more, that her compassion might fit her for her position\nas Mother of Mercy.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, who says to me: For you, too, my child,\n     \"I am the Mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge,\n     and of holy hope. Come over to me, all ye that desire me, and\n     be filled with my fruits. He that hearkeneth unto me shall\n     not be confounded; and they that work by me shall not sin.\"\n     (Ecclus. xxiv. 24-30.)\n\n     _Resolution._ To take my troubles and difficulties to Mary\n     to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Mater Dolorosa, Mater misericordiae, ora\n     pro nobis.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe First Glorious Mystery\n\n     \"_He shall reign for ever, and of His Kingdom there shall be\n     no end._\" (St Luke i. 32, 33.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture or statue of Our Lady.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to learn from Mary how to rejoice.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S EASTER DAY\n\n\"Of His Kingdom there shall be no end.\" It was to Mary that these words\nwere said, before her Son was born; and she believed them. She knew,\ntherefore, that He would rise again; she knew that all was not finished\nwhen she left the precious Body in Joseph's new tomb. In all\nprobability, too, JESUS had told her, as He told the Apostles, that He\nwould rise again on the third day. And while they \"believed not nor\nunderstood,\" _she_ did both. But this supernatural gift of faith, which\nshe exercised to the full, had not the power to prevent the sword from\npiercing on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. She felt the full weight of\nall her sorrow, but she sorrowed, as all Christian mourners should do,\n\"not without hope.\"\n\nWhat must her expectation have been as she knelt on that Holy Saturday\nnight counting the minutes till the day dawned! She knew that He would\nrise again--but would she see Him? Would He come to her? He had kept her\nso much in the background during His ministry, perhaps He will do so\nstill, and it will be to those who need Him most that He will come. No,\nsweet Mother, the meek and lowly of heart ever attract Him; it is to the\nheart which _desires_ Him most that He will come. A pure, disinterested\ndesire to have JESUS ever proves to Him an invincible attraction. No one\non earth desired to see JESUS as Mary did, and it was to her, as the\ntraditions of the Holy Fathers testify, that He came first--as soon as\nthe Easter Day dawned and \"death could no longer be holden of Him.\" The\nEvangelists are silent about this appearance of JESUS to His Blessed\nMother, for the very good reason that she told them nothing about it.\nThere was no need to do so, as, for example, there was to tell various\nlittle details about His Birth, because GOD wished us to know them. At\nthis meeting of the Son and the Mother even Angels would fear to\nintrude; and we ordinary mortals simply should not understand what took\nplace, even were it narrated to us. All those to whom He appeared would\ntake it for granted that His Mother had seen Him--why write down a thing\nthat everybody knew? \"According to thy faith be it unto thee.\" Mary was\nthe _only_ one who had faith enough to believe that her Son would rise\nagain, and it was only natural that she should be the first to see Him.\nShe was the one who had entered most deeply into His sorrows, and she\nwould be the one to whom He would first communicate the Easter joy. Let\nus now think a little about Mary's joy.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S JOY AND ITS CAUSES\n\nWhat joy it must have been to Mary to see that precious Body which He\nhad taken from her, which she had nurtured and tended and loved, which\nshe had seen so recently covered with scars and gaping wounds! What joy\nit must have been to her to see It in all the beauty of Its\nResurrection--to see It glorified! Her joy was so intense that the\nsaints tell us it was only by a miracle that her body could master her\nsoul and keep it still a prisoner. And then the consolation of knowing\nthat never again would He suffer--the joy of seeing the Five Wounds and\nknowing that He would keep them always, as precious memorials of His\ndeath and of His victory over death, of His undying love for His Church,\nand of His right to give it all that it should ever claim, because with\nthose wounds He had more than paid for all that it would ever need.\n\nMary entered into all these truths as no one else could, and therefore\nher Easter joy was greater than that of anybody else. Her joy was\ngreater, too, because her _love_ was greater. Her love for JESUS was\nwholly unselfish, and so was her joy; it was wholly on account of the\njoy of her Son. She forgot her own joy for the moment; she forgot the\nlong exile that lay before her; she forgot everything but His joy.\n\nHer _suffering_ also was indirectly another cause of her joy. Our\ncapacity for joy is in proportion to our capacity for suffering. We have\nseen something of what Mary's capacity for suffering was, and so we can\nunderstand in some small measure how full was her cup of joy.\n\nMary had other joys too, which were incidental to the joy of seeing her\nSon risen and glorified. She saw the saints who rose with Him, for He\nwould be sure to present them to His Mother. Some would need no\nintroduction--her dear spouse St Joseph, her parents St Joachim and St\nAnne.\n\nYes, Mary's joys more than made up for her sorrows. One day, if we try\nto receive our cup of sorrow as Mary did, that is, take it _for_ JESUS\nand _with_ JESUS, we too shall receive the cup of joy, and we shall be\nable to say with St Paul as we put the two side by side: \"The sufferings\nare not worthy to be compared with the glory.\" (Rom. viii. 18.)\n\nTeach me, O holy Mother of GOD, something of this real joy--the joy that\nis arrived at through faith, through suffering, through a perfect union\nof heart with the Sacred Heart of JESUS, and through conformity to GOD'S\nwill; the joy of the risen life--the new life that rises out of the\ndeath to self.\n\n     _Colloquy._ The _Regina Coeli_:--\n\n     \"Queen of Heaven, rejoice,--Alleluia\n     For He Whom thou wast made worthy to bear--Alleluia\n     Hath risen as He said--Alleluia.\n     Pray for us to GOD--Alleluia.\"\n\n                          (_Anthem from Easter to Trinity._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To say my _Fiat_ bravely with Mary, as the\n     surest way of sharing her joy.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Causa nostrae laetitiae, ora pro nobis.\"\n\n\n\n\nThe Second and Third Glorious Mysteries\n\n     \"_All these were persevering with one mind in prayer, with\n     the women, and Mary the Mother of JESUS, and with His\n     brethren._\" (Acts i. 14.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ (1) A picture of the Ascension--Our Lady\n     kissing the Footprints.\n\n     (2) A picture of the Descent of the Holy Ghost--a tongue of\n     fire resting on the head of Our Lady, who is seated in the\n     midst of the Apostles.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to enter into the dispositions of Mary.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY ON ASCENSION DAY\n\nMany, no doubt, were the visits that JESUS paid to His Blessed Mother\nduring the forty days that His glorified Body still lingered in this\nworld of ours, as though He were loath to leave it. He was bracing her\nup for the time of exile that lay before her, filling her with stores of\nconsolation upon which she would be able to draw in her times of\ndesolation. She probably knew that the fortieth day was the last, and\nthat, when He led His little flock out \"as far as Bethania,\" it was His\nlast walk with them. She knew of the \"mountain appointed\" where He\nwished all His brethren to assemble--\"more than five hundred at once.\"\n(1 Cor. xv. 6.) She heard His last words, heard Him charge His\n_witnesses_: \"Going, therefore, teach (_make disciples of_) all nations:\nand behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the\nworld.\" (St Matt. xxviii. 19, 20.) She was not to be a witness--though\nshe was ever the silent witness of His Humanity--but it was only fitting\nthat she should hear all the orders that were given to her children. She\nheard of the promise of the Father, and that they were to stay in the\ncity till it was fulfilled. She saw Him lift up His hands in\nblessing--the last blessing; she watched with the rest His glorified\nBody raised up from their midst--watched till \"a cloud received Him out\nof their sight,\" then she knelt in humble acquiescence to GOD'S will and\nkissed the ground where He had just stood--the favoured bit of earth\nwhich was the last to be touched by His blessed Feet. When she looked\nup, it was to see two angels asking the astonished disciples why they\nwere gazing into Heaven, and telling them that the same JESUS who was\ntaken up from them into Heaven would so come again as they had seen Him\ngo. It was not to _her_ that the angels were speaking--_she_ was not\ngazing up. She _knew_ the lesson that the others were being taught, knew\nthat her Son was already in Heaven, sitting at the right hand of GOD.\n(St Mark xvi. 19.) When the Apostles realised sufficiently what had\nhappened, they, \"adoring, went back to Jerusalem with joy,\" (St Luke\nxxiv. 52), and Mary led them to the Cenacle to \"wait for the promise of\nthe Father,\" as her Son had bidden them.\n\nThus she taught them the lesson she would teach all her children--that\nthe only thing to do in times of desolation and sorrow is to follow\nclosely the commands of JESUS: \"Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.\"\nIt is no use to stand gazing after what has gone; this is no time for\nregrets; He gave a clear command: \"Go to Jerusalem and wait.\" We shall\nalways find that there is no balm for sorrow like fidelity to duty. It\ncosts something; human nature longs to stay and hug its sorrow; but it\nis far wiser to turn away from the loved spot and go bravely hand in\nhand with the Mother of Sorrows to do the next thing to which duty--that\nis the voice of JESUS--calls us.\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY ON THE DAY OF PENTECOST\n\nNine days they spent with Mary the Mother of JESUS, persevering with one\nmind in prayer, (Acts i. 14), and going constantly to the Temple to\npraise and bless GOD. (St Luke xxiv. 53.) It was a Novena of prayer and\nthanksgiving. It was Mary's first official act as Mother of the Church.\nShe kept the little flock together, kept them close to her Son by\nobedience to His last command, by intercession for the great gift that\nHe had promised to send them, and by thanksgiving for all that He had\nbeen to them and done for them. It was the first Retreat, and they made\nit with Mary, the Mother of GOD.\n\nWhat must Mary's prayers have been during those nine days! She was now\nmore united than ever to her Son; her eye of faith saw Him at the Right\nHand of GOD in Heaven; she saw eye to eye with Him; she knew all His\ninterests and intentions; she had still a Mother's right to command Him;\nshe knew that nothing in their relationship was changed, and that He\nwould not refuse her behests in Heaven any more than He had done on\nearth. And so, as her eyes swept the wide horizon which was now hers,\nthe Mother of the Church made a Novena for Pentecost, praying with all\nher knowledge and all her power, for the Holy Ghost to come down upon\nher children--to come and fill that Church of which she was the Mother,\nthat Church which her Son had founded, for which He had given His life.\n\nThese first Retreatants had no books. They needed none--their lives were\nso closely bound up with the life of JESUS; the Holy Spirit prayed\nwithin them; and Mary was ever with them directing, and setting them an\nexample. In proportion as these things are true of us are we independent\nof _exterior_ help in our prayers. And the more we are able to dispense\nwith exterior help, the more interior and real will be our prayers.\n\nThen \"when the days were accomplished\"--when the Novena was over--the\nHoly Ghost came down as JESUS had promised that He should--came down as\na tongue of fire upon each one: a proof that He had entered into each\none of those expectant, faithful souls, filling each according to his\ncapacity, and giving each the power needful to carry on the work that\nwas appointed for him to do.\n\nWhat, then, must have been the measure with which Mary was \"filled with\nthe Holy Ghost,\" for what was the Apostles' work compared with hers? She\nhad always been \"full of grace\"--she had long been the spouse of the\nHoly Ghost, ever since He had overshadowed her at the Incarnation, and\nHe had always been filling her according to her ever-increasing\ncapacity. We have seen how, under her Son's training, her horizon was\never enlarging--how much wider it became on Calvary, how pain and joy\nhad dilated her heart, how her intercourse with her Divine Son during\nthose forty days had still more widened her outlook; and now, with all\nthe fresh territory over which she was to reign, in her mind and in her\nheart, she had been praying--the Holy Ghost had been praying within\nher--for Him to come and overshadow her once again, and fill her with\ngrace that she might be able to meet all her new responsibilities as\nMother of the Church. Mary had more need of the Holy Ghost than any of\nthe hundred and twenty souls gathered in the Cenacle; her desire to\nreceive Him too was greater than theirs; and so we may well believe that\nshe received Him in a fuller measure. She had no need of the gifts of\ntongues and miracles, which were a necessity to the Apostles, to help\nthem in the beginning of their difficult work. Her work during the\nremaining years of her life was that of intercession, and it was to be\ncarried on in secret and obscurity. The gifts she needed from the Holy\nGhost were those of hiddenness, patience, humility, conformity to GOD'S\nwill. She needed Him in all His plenitude to pray within her with\n\"unutterable groanings\" for all the needs of the Church throughout all\ntime. Her work was still, as it ever had been, to _ponder_ in her\nheart--to meditate and hold colloquies with her Divine Son, through the\nagency of the Holy Spirit, about all the interests which they had in\ncommon.\n\n     _Colloquy._ \"Our Lady of Light, Spouse of the Holy Ghost, I\n     offer thee my whole heart, my soul and my body, to keep for\n     JESUS, that I may be His for ever. Our Lady of Light, pray\n     for me.\" (_Prayer of Blessed Grignon de Montfort._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To think more of the Holy Spirit praying within\n     me.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Sacrarium Spiritus Sancti, ora pro\n     nobis.\" (Sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, pray for us.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Exile\n\n     \"_Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged._\" (Ps. cxix. 5.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A statue or picture of Our Lady.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to learn how an exiled child of Eve\n     should live.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S EXILE\n\nTradition tells us that St John took the Holy Mother to his house in\nJerusalem, and that it was there that she died, though she spent some of\nthe time of her exile at Ephesus. In solitude and silence she pondered\nover all the wonderful mysteries of her life; she interceded for her\nnew-born child, the Church, which had already so many needs; and she\nhelped the Apostles by her prayers. They were soon scattered in\ndifferent directions, \"making disciples of all nations,\" as their Master\nhad bidden them; and it would only be at rare intervals that they could\ncome and see their Mother, and talk over their difficulties, and get the\nadvice of her who saw eye to eye with her Son. But what a comfort and\nstrength it must have been to them to know that she was always there,\ntelling her Divine Son of their needs!\n\nAnd during those long years--according to some opinions fifteen, to\nothers, twenty-three--what was Mary's strength? The same as it had ever\nbeen--union with her Son. Every day, tradition tells us, she received\nHim in the Blessed Sacrament at the hands of St John. What Communions\nmust those have been, when Mary said again: _Ecce ancilla Domini, fiat\nmihi secundum verbum tuum_, and her GOD was again incarnate within her!\nWhat made those Communions so intense? The fact that His love and desire\nin coming were _reciprocated_. The love and desire are never wanting on\nHis side, but unfortunately there is so little of either on ours! It\ntakes more than one to make a good Communion. _A joining together_ of\ntwo is the meaning of the word. If the union is to be strong, fervent,\nreal, lasting, each must do his part. Oh, teach me, dear Mother, how to\nreceive thy Son in Holy Communion. Thy whole life was centred in Him;\nthy every thought was with Him; everything thou didst was done for Him;\nevery moment of thy exile gladly borne for Him; every sigh a spiritual\nCommunion; and when each day the glad moment of actual Communion came,\nit was just His embrace--He pressed thee to His Heart for a few minutes,\ntelling thee it would not be long before thy exile would be over, and\nthou wouldst see His Face again. Thy Communions were an ecstasy of\nlove--help me to put a little more love into mine; teach me to regard\nthem as the Bread from Heaven sent specially for the exile; teach me to\nmake them the centre of my life; teach me to live my whole life with\nHim, so that my Communion may never be interrupted. This should be the\naim, surely, of every communicant; it is the ideal life; it is the life\nthat JESUS intended when He said: \"He that eateth Me, he shall live by\nMe.\" It is possible; but oh, how far I come short!\n\n\n_Point II._--THE REASON FOR MARY'S EXILE\n\nWhy did her Son leave her behind to suffer so intensely, as He well knew\nshe would, from the separation? Would not the Beatific Vision in Heaven\nhave been better than her Communions on earth? Could not her\nintercession for the Church have been even more effectual had she been\nclose to her Son's throne in Heaven? Could she not have been the Mother\nof Good Counsel in Heaven for those who had to guide the Church in its\ninfancy, as she has been ever since?\n\nWe can think of many reasons why JESUS left her in exile for a time:--\n\n1. She had to _nurse the new-born Church_ by strengthening and\nencouraging the Apostles with her example, so like that of the Master\nHimself, and by supplying the Evangelists with many details of His life,\nwhich they could not have learnt from any lips but hers.\n\n2. She had to _establish her position_ as Mother of the Church--the\ntradition was to be handed down by the Apostles that it was _she_ who\nguided, and tended, and cared for the Church during the early and tender\nyears of its existence; that it was to her they turned in times of\nperplexity and doubt; that her constant intercession for them was their\nstrength. This could not have been so had she left the earth with her\nSon. During those long years of exile the new child learnt to regard\nMary as its Mother, and when she was taken away into Heaven, it was\nquite natural to it still thus to regard her, and to teach all who came\nafter to do the same.\n\n3. Our Lord would give her still more time to _increase her merits_ by\nsuffering. He wanted her crown to be the most beautiful possible, and\neven for the Mother of GOD there was only one way to make it so--the way\nof suffering, which intensified her love and humility and submission to\nGOD'S will.\n\n4. May not another reason have been in order that she might be the\n_better able to sympathise_ with the exiled children of Eve (_exules\nfilii Evae_)? Had He taken her with Him, they would surely have felt that\ntheir Mother could not quite understand their position. And what is such\nan effectual barrier to sympathy as the feeling that we are not\nunderstood?\n\nSo Mary was left in exile to gain much that she could not have gained\notherwise.\n\nI am one of the exiled children of Eve. What have _I_ got to do as an\nexile?\n\n1. _I have to establish my position._ There is a certain place prepared\nfor me in Heaven, which _may_ be mine through all eternity. What is to\ndecide whether I get it or not? The way I \"pass the time of my\nsojourning\" here. By the time my exile is over, I must so have lived\nthat there must be no doubt about it that I belong to the Heavenly land;\nthat I am a child of GOD and an heir to His Kingdom; that I seek not the\nthings of earth but those which are above; that Heaven is my Home. And\nwhat will be my position there? Mary earned her position as Queen of\nAngels, of Patriarchs, Prophets, Martyrs, Virgins, as Mother of the\nChurch. What position shall I earn? That depends, as Mary's did, on my\nfidelity to grace. I shall have just that degree of glory and merit to\nwhich I have attained when I am called hence to give an account of my\nstewardship--no less and no more. The position I have to establish,\nthen, during my exile, is that of being known by all the inhabitants of\nHeaven--all the Angels and Saints--as one who is sure to join them one\nday. \"Make your calling and election _sure_.\"\n\n2. _I have to suffer._ One of the actual reasons for my being here on\nearth is that I may _suffer_--not that suffering is in itself good, but\nit gives me the means--perhaps the greatest means--of developing the\nvirtues which must be mine if I am to enter the Kingdom one day. Our\nLord chose for Himself and for His Mother a life of suffering, to make\nus understand and to show us how suffering may aid us--yes, the very\nsame suffering which hardens the sinner. What is the secret, then, of\nsuffering? That by means of it, and because of it, we may make Acts of\nLove and Contrition and Submission to GOD'S Will. Suffering is too\npowerful an instrument to leave our human nature untouched by it; we\n_must_ do something under it--either _curse_ GOD and die, as Job's wife\nadvised him to do, or _bless_ Him all the more fervently, as Job did.\nLet me remember, then, that one of the things I have to do as an exile\nis to see to it that GOD gets, out of each piece of suffering that He\nsends me, the extra _love_ that He expected would result from it.\n\n3. _To do the work GOD wants me to do_; to work in my little corner of\nHis vineyard; to co-operate with Him in His great work of the salvation\nof souls; and to show sympathy and kindness to my fellow-exiles.\n\n     _Colloquy._ _The Salve Regina_:--\"Hail, holy Queen, Mother of\n     Mercy; hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope! To thee\n     do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send\n     up our sighs, mourning, and weeping in this vale of tears.\n     Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy\n     towards us; and after this our exile, show unto us the\n     blessed Fruit of thy womb, JESUS: O clement, O loving, O\n     sweet Virgin Mary.\" (_Anthem from Trinity to Advent._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To learn the exile's lessons.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"For we have not here a lasting city,\n     but we seek one that is to come.\" (Heb. xiii. 14.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Death\n\n     \"_They that work by me shall not sin._\" (From the Epistle for\n     the Vigil of the Assumption, Ecclus. xxiv. 30.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ A picture of Mary's death.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ To prepare for death by living \"by Mary.\"\n\n\n_Point I._--\"THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN\" (1 Cor. xv. 56)\n\nSin had never touched Mary; there was therefore for her no sting in\ndeath. She had no penalty to pay, neither had she to die for others as\nher Son died. Why, then, should Mary die?\n\n1. Because she had a mortal nature. She belonged to the great human\nrace, and it was therefore appointed unto her to die. (Heb. ix. 27.)\n\n2. Because she chose to die (the Fathers say her Son gave her the\nchoice) that she might be conformable in all things to her Son, and also\nthat she might be the better able to help, and pray for, and sympathise\nwith her children, who throughout all time would be constantly saying:\n\"Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.\"\n\n3. Because Our Lord wanted her to have a specially chosen death--one\nthat came neither from old age nor sickness, but simply from _love_. Her\nlove for Him was so great that her body could no longer hold her soul\ncaptive.\n\n4. Because GOD would not deprive her of the inestimable privilege of\nmaking the sacrifice of her life to Him, and such a life! This practice\nit is which makes the death of His Saints precious in the sight of the\nLord. (Ps. cxv. 15.)\n\nLet us learn two lessons:--\n\n1. To _choose_ to be in all things conformable to JESUS, even though\nthis choice means death to self.\n\n2. How precious a thing in GOD'S sight is the sacrifice of their lives\nto Him by His children! Let us resolve to make Him this sacrifice often\nbeforehand--at least every night before we take from His Hands the\nprecious gift of sleep which \"He giveth His beloved.\"\n\n\n_Point II._--MARY'S PREPARATION FOR DEATH\n\nWe are told that some little while before her death an Angel (probably\nGabriel) was sent to tell her that her time was at hand. She answered:\n_Ecce ancilla Domini_ (\"Behold the handmaid of the Lord\"), and made once\nagain the sacrifice of her life. She then told the news to John, who\nmade it known to the faithful. How great their sorrow must have been at\nthe prospect of losing such a Mother! St Denis tells us that Our Lord\nbrought all the Apostles and missionaries, who were scattered all over\nthe world, to witness her death. She blessed them, and encouraged them\nto continue their work, saying that she would help them powerfully in\nHeaven. Her joy was full because the time, which was to unite her to her\nSon, had come at last; but Mary was not selfish in her joy any more than\nshe had been in her grief. She did not forget the sorrow of her\nchildren; they were still to be exiles, but exiles with a Mother in the\nHomeland--a Mother who would be there to befriend them and take an\ninterest in all they were doing.\n\nDo I realise this--that while I am an exile here I have a Mother in\nHeaven who is taking the keenest interest in all that concerns me, in\nall that is preparing me for my Home; a Mother who is waiting there for\nme, ready to welcome me?\n\n\n_Point III._--HOW MARY DIED\n\nThere was no sickness, no wearing out nor decay of that beautiful body,\nno effects in it of original sin. Of what, then, did Mary die? Of two\nthings--_love_ and _desire_; and these were so intense that even _her_\nbody, strong and perfect though it was, had not the power to detain the\nsoul captive any longer. Mary died of love, as her Son had died of\ngrief--a grief which was the outcome of an immense love. Did Mary\nreceive the Last Sacraments? The Sacrament of Penance was out of the\nquestion for her sinless soul; we may doubt about Extreme Unction; but\nwith what intensity of love and desire must she have received her\nViaticum! And when JESUS came with all His court to fetch her immaculate\nsoul, we are told that she said: \"Thy will be done; for a long time I\nhave sighed after Thee, my Son and my GOD; nothing can be more\ndelightful than to join Thee and be where Thou art for ever.\"\n\nThen the Angels began to sing--all who were present heard them--and\nwhile they sang, Mary said her _Fiat_ and died, and her most pure soul\nbegan its eternal happiness in the sight of the Beatific Vision. The\nEternal Trinity gave it the glory which was its due--the reward of her\nlove so pure, so generous, so constant. She had a higher degree of glory\nand a clearer vision of GOD than all the Saints, because glory depends\non grace, virtue, and merit, of which she had far more than any of them.\n\nWhat does Mary's death say to me? \"They that work by me shall not sin.\"\nYou cannot be sinless, as I was, you cannot die of love, as I did, (St\nTheresa and St Philip of Neri did), but you can, by keeping close to me,\nand doing all your work at my side, keep from all wilful sin, and you\ncan thus love JESUS so much that when He comes to fetch you, death will\nhave no terrors for you, and you, too, will be able to say: _Ecce\nancilla Domini_, Here I am, Thy servant, doing Thy work. \"Blessed is\nthat servant whom the Lord when He cometh shall find watching\"; and the\nbest way to watch is to work at Mary's side.\n\nAnd let me never forget that my degree of glory in Heaven will be\naccording to the amount of grace and merit that I have at the moment of\nmy death. How thankful I should be that I still have power to increase\nthese! And how eager and zealous to use my time to the best advantage!\nDeath cometh when no man can work--when no more merit, no more\nreparation will be possible. The point I have then reached will be mine\nthrough all eternity. \"As the tree falls, so will it lie.\" Holy Mary,\nMother of GOD, pray for me now and at the hour of my death.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary, my Mother in Heaven, who is pleading\n     for me; who is letting me do all my work close to her side;\n     and who will be there at the hour of my death, to put me back\n     into the Hands of her Son, Who gave me to her when He was on\n     the Cross, saying: \"Take this child and nurse it for Me.\" And\n     He will see to it that none shall pluck me out of His Hands,\n     for it is impossible for a child of Mary to be lost.\n\n     _Resolution._ To let love for her Son keep me close to Mary's\n     side to-day, listening to all her directions about my work,\n     so that I may do it to please Him.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"They that work by me shall not sin.\"\n\n\n\n\nMary's Tomb\n\n     \"_I gave a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatical balm; I\n     yielded a sweet odour like the best myrrh._\" (Ecclus. xxiv.\n     20.)\n\n     \"_In the Holy City likewise I rested, and my_ abode _is in the\n     full assembly of the Saints._\" (verses 15, 16.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The Apostles carrying the body of their Mother\n     to the grave.\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ The grace of faith and love to penetrate into\n     these mysteries.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S BODY\n\nThe Angels still continued singing, while the Apostles and missionaries\nand women wept around the body. But the heavenly music was catching,\nand it was not long before the mourners dried their tears and joined in\nthe Angels' hymn of praise. We are told that the sick and the blind and\nthe lame were allowed to come and kiss the precious body, and that in so\ndoing they were instantly healed. Why was Mary's body so precious?\nBecause it had been the tabernacle of the Son of GOD. Why is mine so\nprecious? Because it, too, is so often the tabernacle of JESUS Christ.\nDo I realise that this makes my body holy? And do I regard it as\nsomething precious, consecrated and dedicated, GOD'S Temple, His own\ndwelling-place? Often have Angels adored before it! How much respect,\nthen, ought I to show it! How careful I ought to be as to what I do with\nit, and to what use I put it!\n\nWe are told that when the Apostles carried the bier to the grave, near\nthe Garden of Gethsemani, all the faithful accompanied them, and the\nAngels never ceased their singing. The precious body exhaled a sweet\nfragrance which perfumed every place the procession had to pass through,\nand there were miracles and conversions all along the route. They laid\ntheir precious burden in the grave, put a great stone over it, and then\ndispersed. But they did not leave the grave alone. The Apostles watched\nand prayed there in turn, listening to, and rejoicing in the Angels'\nsong.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE EMPTY TOMB\n\nOn the third day, St Thomas arrived from the Indies (the Apostles felt\nsure that it was Our Lord's plan that he should be late), and naturally\nwanted to look once again on his Mother's face. So they removed the\nstone, but only to find an empty tomb. They found the linen and clothes\nall in order, and they noted the delicious fragrance, but the body was\ngone; the soul had come back for it and fetched it to share in its\nglory. Then the Apostles remembered that during the morning the\ncelestial singing had suddenly stopped, and they knew that their\nMother, clothed in her glorified body, was even then sitting at the\nRight Hand of her Son in Heaven. Why was it? Why was her body not left\nin the tomb? Because it was impossible for that body, from which the\nWord had taken Flesh, and which had never been touched by sin, to \"see\ncorruption.\" Also, although Mary had to die, and to bear the separation\nof soul and body, there was no necessity in her case for that penalty to\nbe prolonged. GOD would not keep her--a perfect human creature--in an\nimperfect state, which the soul without the body must ever be. So,\nthough not yet a dogma, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary has\never been a belief of the Church. If we need a _proof_, let us call to\nmind the fact that no one has ever pretended to possess relics of Our\nLady's body. Our Lord would surely never have deprived the Church of\nsuch treasures, had they existed.\n\n\n_Point III._--THE FOURTH GLORIOUS MYSTERY\n\nLet me turn from the empty tomb, and try to realise the other side of\nthe picture--Mary in Heaven. This Fourth Glorious Mystery was foretold\nmore than once in Holy Scripture: \"Arise, O Lord, into Thy\nresting-place; Thou, and the Ark which Thou hast sanctified.\" (Ps.\ncxxxi. 8.) What is this ark sanctified by GOD but Mary's body, of which\nthe Son of GOD took flesh?\n\n\"The Queen stood on Thy Right Hand in gilded clothing surrounded with\nvariety.\" Who is this but the Queen of Heaven clothed with her glorious\nbody of immortality?\n\n\"A Throne was set for the King's Mother, and she sat on His Right Hand,\"\n(3 Kings ii. 19), in all the dazzling beauty of her glorified body,\nsurrounded by adoring Saints and Angels. Her Son on His Throne is saying\nto her: Ask, My Mother, for I will not say thee nay. The beauty of the\nscene is so entrancing, the light is so dazzling, the music is so\nenchanting, the mystery is so wonderful, that I feel almost bewildered\nand want to shut my eyes and think what it all means. It means\nthis--that I have a Mother in Heaven, and that when her Son bends\ntowards her from His Throne, and when all the hosts of Heaven hold their\nbreath to catch what their Queen is saying, they hear her ask some\nlittle favour for me, her child on earth. Why? Because I am saying:\n\"Holy Mary, Mother of GOD, pray for me now.\" Let me, with the eye of\nfaith and love, penetrate the thin veil, which hides these wondrous\nmysteries from my sight. Let me try to see things as they really are,\nand then my prayers will be less formal.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary on the Right Hand of JESUS in Heaven.\n\n     _Resolution._ To think of her there when I say my Rosary\n     to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Holy Mary, Mother of GOD, pray for us\n     sinners now and at the hour of our death.\"\n\n\n\n\n\"Who is She?\"\n\n(The Fourth Glorious Mystery)\n\n     \"_Quae est ista quae progreditur quasi aurora consurgens,\n     pulchra ut luna, electa ut sol, terribilis ut castrorum acies\n     ordinata?_\" \"_Who is she that cometh forth as the morning\n     rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an\n     army set in array?_\" (Cant. vi. 9.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The Angels asking three times: \"Who is she?\"\n     (Cant. iii. 6; vi. 9; viii. 5.)\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ Grace to understand who she is.\n\n\n_Point I._--\"WHO IS SHE?\"\n\n\"Who is she?\" ask the Angels, as they see Mary coming into Heaven. Once\nbefore had One clothed in the robe of His beautiful, glorified Body\npassed through Heaven's portals; and the Angels had said: \"Who is this\nthat cometh with dyed garments from Bosra, this beautiful One in His\nrobe?\" (Isaias lxiii. 1), and they had opened wide Heaven's gate to let\nin the Conqueror of sin and death, the King of glory, the Lord mighty in\nbattle. But who is _she_--a woman, who, though she is beautiful as the\nmorning rising, fair as the moon, and bright as the sun, is also\nterrible as an army set in array? She also has come from the\nbattlefield; she also is a conqueror, for she has crushed the serpent's\nhead; she has undone Eve's terrible work, and, as far as a creature can,\nhas made reparation for it. She it is who has stood like a rock amidst\nthe most crushing sorrows. Her strength is terrible to the devil, but\nthe Angels rejoice in it, and her children flee to her as the _Refugium\npeccatorum_, saying: _Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos_. (Give me,\ntoo, strength against thy enemies.) And so the Angels open wide Heaven's\ngates again, to let in the Mother of the King--the Queen of\nHeaven--_their_ Queen--who has earned her right to her throne; not by\nbeing the Mother of GOD, but by nobly fighting the battle against sin,\nthe world, the flesh, and the devil.\n\n    \"Maria Mater gratiae,\n    Dulcis Parens clementiae,\n    Tu nos ab hoste protege,\n    Et mortis hora suscipe.\"\n\n(O Mary, Mother of grace, sweet fount of gentleness, do thou protect us\nfrom the enemy, and receive us in the hour of our death.)\n\nAnd she _will_; she is there for her children. \"Who is she?\" She is our\nMother; she will never forget it, though she is the Queen of Heaven, of\nAngels, and of Saints; and she will ever be terrible to all who dare to\nattack her children.\n\n\n_Point II._--\"WHO IS SHE?\"\n\n\"Who is she that goeth up by the desert as a pillar of smoke, of\naromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense, and of all the powders of\nthe perfumer?\" (Cant. iii. 6.) That is: Who is she who is adorned with\nall possible graces and virtues? \"Who is she?\" She is the \"fairest among\nwomen\" (chap. i. 7) because of her _humility_, answers the Angel who\nheard her say: _Ecce ancilla Domini_, at the most exalted moment of her\nlife. \"Who is she?\" She is the \"fairest among women\" because of her\nconformity to GOD'S will, say those who have heard over and over again\nher _Fiat_ when the sword was piercing her soul. \"Who is she?\" We, too,\ncan answer the question, for we know her. We have watched her, and\nmeditated upon her life, from the moment of her Immaculate Conception\ntill her holy death of love and desire; and we have seen that she has\nalways been growing in grace and in conformity to her Divine Son. Yes,\nshe is the \"fairest among women,\" and she is my Mother and my model. How\nis it with me? Am I known to my friends, to those who live with me, to\nmy Guardian Angel, yea, to the Blessed Trinity, as one, who is growing\nin virtue and grace; as one, whose conformity to JESUS and His will, is\napparent from the use I make of the _Ecce ancilla_ and the _Fiat_? There\nmust be some resemblance between the child and the Mother.\n\n\n_Point III._--\"WHO IS SHE?\"\n\nFor the third time the Angels ask the question: \"Who is she that cometh\nup from the desert flowing with delights, leaning upon her Beloved?\"\n(chap. viii. 5.) There is no doubt about it now--she is His Mother, and\nher Beloved is JESUS, the Son of GOD and of Mary. What unspeakable joy\nis hers to find herself once more in the arms of her Beloved! \"His left\nhand is under my head, and His right hand shall embrace me,\" (chap. ii.\n6), and she leans upon Him. She had never left Him really; she had been\nleaning on Him all the time of her exile: by her memory, by her love, by\nher Communions, by her constant doing of His will. This is why I can so\nsafely lean on Mary, the Mother of Good Counsel, because to lean on her\nis to lean on JESUS, on Whom she leans. She nurses her children _for\nHim_.\n\n\"Who is she that cometh up from the desert?\" In spirit Mary had ever\nbeen coming up. Always had she sought \"the things that are above, where\nChrist sitteth at the right hand of GOD.\" Her treasure was in Heaven,\nand nothing on earth had power to attract or attach her.\n\nHow far do I copy my Mother in this? Are my affections set on things\nabove, where JESUS and Mary are? Have things of earth no attraction for\nme in comparison with heavenly things? Am I ready to give them up to Him\nto Whom they belong when He asks for them? Is my whole heart in Heaven\nbecause my treasure is there? This is what is meant by going up from the\ndesert. It means striving always after what is more perfect. It means\nthat each day finds me _more_ charitable, _more_ faithful, _more_\ncareful about occasions of sin, _more_ like my Mother. And it means also\n_Sursum corda_ (Lift up your hearts) whenever the difficulties and\nsorrows of the desert seem too much.\n\n     _Colloquy_ with Mary.\n\n     _Resolution._ To ask myself the question often to-day: \"Who\n     is she?\"\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Pulchra es et decora filia Jerusalem,\n     terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.\" (Thou art fair and\n     comely, O Daughter of Jerusalem, terrible as an army set in\n     array.)\n\n\n\n\nMary's Coronation\n\n(The Fifth Glorious Mystery)\n\n     \"_Thou wast made exceeding beautiful and wast advanced to be\n     a Queen._\" (Ezech. xvi. 13.)\n\n     _1st Prelude._ The great sign which appeared in Heaven: \"A\n     woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and\n     on her head a crown of twelve stars.\" (Apoc. xii. 1.)\n\n     _2nd Prelude._ The grace so to live and die, that I may one\n     day be crowned.\n\n\n_Point I._--MARY'S CORONATION\n\n_Specie tua et pulchritudine tua, intende, prospere procede, et regna._\n(In thy comeliness and thy beauty go forth, proceed prosperously, and\nreign.) The culminating point is reached, and Mary is led in triumph to\nreceive her crown from the Blessed Trinity. GOD the Father crowns her as\na _Victor_; GOD the Son as a _Queen_; and GOD the Holy Ghost as a\n_Bride_. We give our crowns on earth to victors, to queens and to\nbrides. Mary was all of these for she had conquered the devil; she was\nthe King's Mother, and she was the spouse of the Holy Ghost.\n\n1. She was crowned as a _Victor_, as a sign of her courage and bravery.\nGOD the Father had seen the world, which He had created and had\npronounced to be \"very good,\" spoiled by sin. The Arch-fiend had entered\nParadise, and had stolen away the hearts of His children, robbing them\nof His grace, and leaving them and all their descendants stained by sin.\nTo Satan GOD had spoken of a woman whose Child would be his enemy; and\nof her He said: \"She shall bruise thy head.\" Now the old prophecy has\nbeen fulfilled, and Mary stands before Him waiting for her crown. She\nhas crushed the serpent; she has been terrible to all GOD'S enemies; and\nthe crown that the Eternal Father places on the head of His daughter is\na token that she is indeed a Victor.\n\nHow did Mary win the Victor's crown? By her fidelity to grace. No one\never had so many occasions of grace, and she did not miss one of them.\n\n\"There _is_,\" somewhere in the heavenly courts, \"a crown laid up for\n_me_.\" (2 Tim. iv. 8.) But \"the Lord, the just Judge\" will only give it\nme if \"I have fought a good fight.\" (verse 7.) \"To him that shall\n_overcome_ will I give to sit with Me in My Throne.\" (Apoc. iii. 21).\n\"Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.\"\n(chap. ii. 10.) \"Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy\ncrown\" (chap. iii. 11). All, then, depends on my efforts. I have got to\nbe _faithful_, to _fight_, to _overcome_, and to _hold fast_. My\nconsolation is that my Mother is interceding for me; my enemies are the\nsame as hers, and she has overcome them. _Da mihi virtutem contra hostes\ntuos._\n\n2. She is crowned as a _Queen_. Her Son is the King of Heaven, and He\ncrowns her as the Queen-Mother. \"A throne was set for the King's Mother,\nand she sat on His Right Hand.\" (3 Kings ii. 19.) \"The Queen stood at\nThy Right Hand in gilded clothing, clothed round about with varieties.\"\n(Ps. xliv. 14.)\n\nKings and Queens wear their crowns in token of their power and\nauthority. JESUS crowned His Mother in token of _her_ power and\nauthority. He made her Queen of Angels, of Patriarchs, Prophets,\nApostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, and gave her not only authority\nover all these, but also, in a certain sense, if we may say so\nreverently, over Himself. He allowed her still to keep the sweet\nauthority which she had exercised over Him at Nazareth, when He was\n\"subject\" to her; for He says to her: \"My Mother, ask, for I _must_ not\nturn away thy face.\" (3 Kings ii. 20.) How He loves us--even to the\nextent of pledging Himself to answer the intercessory prayer of one who\nHe knows will make full use of her privilege--one who is even now\nturning to me, her child, and saying: \"I will speak for thee to the\nKing.\" (verse 18). Let me determine to have my share in this blessed\ncompact between the Son and the Mother, by continually asking my\nQueen-Mother for her intercession. _Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis._\n\n3. The Holy Ghost crowns her as His _Spouse_. \"Come from Libanus, my\nspouse; come and thou shalt be crowned.\" (Cant. iv. 8.) \"Faithful unto\ndeath\" she had been; ever since her Immaculate Conception she had always\nlistened to the least inspiration of grace which her Divine Spouse had\nsuggested, and now she receives her reward, the \"crown of life.\" The end\nis attained, and there is joy in the presence of the Angels of GOD.\n\n\n_Point II._--THE JOY OF THE ANGELS\n\n_De cujus Assumptione gaudent Angeli et collaudant Filium Dei._ At whose\nAssumption the Angels rejoice and praise together the Son of GOD.\n(_Introit for the Feast of the Assumption._)\n\nWhat were the causes of their joy?\n\n1. Mary's joy at her re-union with her Son.\n\n2. Her reception and coronation as their Queen.\n\n3. Her being placed on the throne at her Son's Right Hand.\n\n4. The sight of her beautiful glorified body--the means of the\nIncarnation--before which, as before the Tabernacle, they had so often\nworshipped their hidden GOD.\n\n5. The likeness between the Mother and the Son--a likeness which had\nbeen increasing during her years of exile, by means of the Blessed\nSacrament.\n\n6. Hearing JESUS call her _Mother_. \"My Mother, ask.\"\n\n7. Seeing the great Intercessor at her work praying for sinners, in whom\nthey take such an interest.\n\nAnd the result of their joy is that \"they praise together the Son of\nGOD\"--that is, they perfectly fulfil the end for which they were\ncreated, teaching us the great lesson that the more we know Mary and\nrejoice in her joy, her position and her work, the more we shall know\nand praise her Divine Son, and so fulfil the end for which we were\ncreated.\n\nBut it is not only the Angels who are rejoicing. She is \"_Queen of all\nSaints_\" as well as \"_Queen of Angels_,\" and the Church Triumphant is\nswelling the chorus of joy. Each member of that spotless multitude has\nalready been a cause of joy in Heaven, for there is joy in the presence\nof the Angels of GOD over every sinner that doeth penance. (St Luke xv.\n7.) \"Joy cometh in the morning\" after the night of doing penance. \"No\ncross, no crown.\" It is because Mary is the \"_Mother of Sorrows_\" that\nshe is able to be the \"_Cause of our joy_,\" and we must all pass by the\nsame route.\n\nHelp me, my Mother, to share the joy of the Angels and Saints even in\nthe \"valley of tears.\" It is possible, but it can only be done by a\nfaith strong enough to see things as they really are.\n\nAnd what about Mary's joy? As she stands in the midst of that great\nmultitude of Angels and Saints, who are vying with each other to do her\nhonour, her heart too is overflowing with joy, but it is all for her\nSon. The honour and worship that are being paid to her are _His_; they\nare because of \"the great things _He_ has done\" for her. She is only His\nhandmaid, and she is always singing her _Magnificat_: \"My soul doth\nmagnify the Lord, my spirit doth _rejoice_ in GOD my Saviour.\"\n_Humility_ is ever her greatest virtue, and she shows it on her\nCoronation Day by casting her crown at the Feet of Him Who redeemed her\nwith His Blood--her Son, her Saviour, and her GOD.\n\n     _Colloquy._ The _Ave Regina Caelorum_:--\"Hail, Queen of\n     Heaven! Hail, Lady of the Angels! Hail, blessed root and\n     gate, from which came light upon the world! Rejoice, O\n     glorious Virgin, that surpassest all in beauty! Hail, most\n     lovely Queen! and pray to Christ for us.\" (_Anthem from\n     Purification to Easter._)\n\n     _Resolution._ To work for my crown to-day.\n\n     _Spiritual Bouquet._ \"Ora pro nobis, Sancta Dei Genitrix, ut\n     digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi.\"\n\n\n\n\nSalve Regina\n\n(According to the Second Method of Prayer[1])\n\n\nSALVE. This anthem of the Blessed Virgin, which the Church bids her\nchildren use from Trinity to Advent, begins with a _salutation_. In\naddressing our Mother, we are to copy the Archangel who, when he came\nwith a message to the lowly child at Nazareth, begins by _saluting_ her.\nHail! full of grace. But though the word, which is here put into the\nlips of us sinners, means, \"Be thou safe and well,\" it is not a wholly\ndisinterested salutation; there is an idea of wanting a favour implied\nin it, though we do not actually ask for it. It is like the cheerful\n\"Good-morning, sir!\" of the beggar. Our _Hail_ here has not so much the\nmajesty of the salutation of an Archangel as the cry of distress of a\nbanished child.\n\nREGINA. She is appealed to as a Queen; she asks as a Queen; she is\nanswered as a Queen; she gives as a Queen. \"I pray thee speak to the\nKing, for he cannot deny thee anything.... I will speak for thee to the\nKing.... And the King arose to meet her, and bowed to her, and sat down\nupon his throne. And a throne was set for the King's Mother, and she sat\non his right hand. And she said to him: I desire one small petition of\nthee; do not put me to confusion. And the King said to her: My Mother,\nask, for I must not turn away thy face.\" (3 Kings ii. 17-20.) Such is\nthe beautiful picture Holy Scripture portrays for us of King Solomon and\nhis mother Bethsabee. \"But a greater than Solomon is here\"; and we are\naddressing His Mother. With what confidence then may we say our _Salve\nRegina_! She has pledged herself to speak to the King for us, and her\nRoyal Son will give her all that she asks. She is the Queen of\nPatriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins--yes, Queen\nof _all_ Saints. Why? Because when they were \"poor banished children\" on\nearth they recognised her as their Queen, and did not address their\n_Salve_ to her in vain.\n\nMATER. Not only is she Queen of Heaven and my Queen, but also she is the\nMother of each one of the banished children. \"I will not leave you\norphans,\" JESUS said when He was leaving the sorrowing disciples; and a\nlittle later, when His last moment drew near, He showed them their\nMother, saying to St John, who represented the whole human race: \"Behold\nthy Mother!\" and to her: \"Behold thy son,\" and in him all thy banished\nchildren!\n\nWhat a consolation it would be to me if I realised more that I have a\nMother in Heaven! My first thought in any trouble, difficulty, or\nperplexity would be: \"Salve sancta Parens!\"\n\nMISERICORDIAE. She is the Mother of so many virtues--of fair love, of\nknowledge, of good counsel, of holy hope, of divine grace--yes, and the\nMother of Sorrows too; but here her children love to call her \"Mother of\n_mercy_,\" of _pity_, for they are exiles, and it is she who can effect\ntheir ransom. _Mercy_--this is what they who say the _Salve Regina_\nneed. They are poor, banished, weeping children, and they need the pity,\nthe mercy, the sympathy of their Mother. How comes it that there is no\nsorrow with which the Heart of Mary cannot sympathise? How is it that\n\"never is it heard of that her children turn to her in vain\"? Because\nthe \"sword pierced her own heart also.\" No heart except that of her\nDivine Son can sympathise like the seven-times pierced heart of Mary. It\nis because she understands so well the sorrows of a bleeding heart, that\nnot the smallest need of any one of her smallest children, who appeals\nto her, is overlooked. How merciful should they be who have such a\nmerciful Mother! \"Go thou and do in like manner,\" was our Blessed Lord's\ninjunction when He had been telling of the mercy of the Good Samaritan.\n(St Luke x. 37.) Am I merciful in my judgments of others; merciful when\nI am talking of them; merciful to those who have wronged me; merciful to\nthose who come to me for pardon; merciful in my thoughts? O Virgin most\nmerciful, pray for me!\n\nVITA. She is our _life_, for it was she who gave life to our Redeemer.\nIt was from Mary's veins that He took the Blood which He shed for our\nsalvation. She did not spare her Son, her only Son, (Gen. xxii. 16), but\noffered Him up for a sacrifice for us. In every truth she can say: \"In\nme is all hope of life.\" (Ecclus. xxiv. 25.)\n\nDULCEDO. Our sweetness. Think of her sweetness all through her\nlife--when the Angel came to her; during the three months that she\nhelped Elizabeth; when there was no room for her in the inn at\nBethlehem; when her Son seemed to take no notice of her during His\nministerial work; when she met Him on the Way of Sorrows; when she stood\nby the Cross; when she gently bathed His wounds and prepared His Body\nfor the grave; when she consoled the mourning disciples; when He\nappeared to her on Easter Day; when she kissed His footprints as He\nascended to Heaven; when the Holy Ghost came down upon her. Even from\nher body after the soul had left it, and even from her grave after the\nbody had left it, there came a delicious odour, reminding all who\nenjoyed it of the _sweetness_ of the Mother who had left them. And this\nsweetness her children must try to copy. Is my sweetness for ever\nproclaiming itself to all with whom I come in contact--by my patience\nunder the little trials of everyday life, by the kind word with which I\nmeet the sharp, sarcastic one, by my extreme care of the feelings of\nothers, by my universal kindness, by the humility with which I bear\nhumiliations, by the ready way in which I prefer everybody else to\nmyself? O my Mother, pray for thy child, and teach me how to copy thee!\n\nET SPES NOSTRA. How necessary is _hope_ to the poor banished children!\nWithout it they would indeed be in a desperate condition; but Mary is\never inspiring them with hope. _Ego Mater sanctae spei._ (I am the Mother\nof holy hope.) And her hope is all for her children: she has no need of\nit for herself. She is a true Mother--always hopeful of her children,\nnever giving them up.\n\nIt is impossible for a child of Mary not to share her Mother's holy\nhope. A child of Mary _cannot_ despair! When we think about death and\nfinal perseverance, what holy hope at once fills our hearts as we\nremember that we have put that terrible moment into the hands of our\nMother! _Ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae._ (Pray for us now\nand at the hour of our death.) \"Hail, our hope!\" Before these words all\nfears disappear. For never has it been known that those who appeal to\nthe Mother of holy hope appeal in vain.\n\nSALVE. We repeat our salutation. We do not want her to forget us.\n\nThe importunate are ever dear to the heart of Mary as they are to the\nHeart of her Divine Son. Let us constantly greet her with our\n_Salve_--it will be enough to appeal to her Mother-heart, and she will\ngive us whatever we are needing.\n\nAD TE. To _thee_. To whom should we go if not to the Mother whom JESUS\nhas given us. \"Behold thy Mother!\" It is only natural that we should\nturn to thee. _Monstra te esse matrem._ Show thyself to be a mother by\nhearkening to our cry.\n\nCLAMAMUS--_do we cry_. It is a direct cry for help now--we make no\nsecret of it--the children are calling aloud for their Mother--their\nneed is so great that they care not who hears them.\n\nEXULES. At last we describe ourselves; one word is sufficient--_exules_.\nWe are _exiles_; we are not at home; we are banished from our country.\nThere is something so pathetic about an exile. How he cherishes any news\nof his dear country! How he writes every little detail of his life and\nof the strange land to his mother at home! How he longs for her letters!\n\nMary is my Mother, and I am an exile. Do I love to hear about my own\ncountry? Do I tell my Mother of all the difficulties of the way and\nallow her to console me with stories of the Homeland? \"How shall we sing\nin a strange land?\" It _is_ possible, by keeping in touch with Mary. She\nwill so inspire us with hope and with love for our heavenly country that\nwe shall often find our hearts light enough to soar beyond this land of\nexile, and to join in the ceaseless praises of those who have reached\nhome.\n\nQueen of Heaven, give me a _real_ desire for Heaven.\n\nFILII EVAE. We account for our exile by explaining that we are children\nof _Eve_. We had another mother once, and she brought misery on all her\nchildren, and they were all with her \"driven out from Paradise,\" and an\nangel with a flaming sword was put at the entrance to prevent their\ngetting back. Poor children! Is there any use in crying for\nre-admittance? Yes, for before the justice of GOD drove out Eve and her\nchildren, He spoke of another Mother, who was, through her Divine Son,\nto undo all the harm that Eve had done, and to \"open the Kingdom of\nHeaven to all believers.\" To whom, then, is it more natural for the poor\nbanished children of Eve to turn than to the Mother whose one idea is to\nget them back?\n\nAnd with our cries are joined those of other banished children whose\ncry: \"How long!\" is ever ascending to Heaven. It is their Mother Mary\nwhom they long to see; for as the turn of each one's banishment expires,\nshe it is who comes to open the gate and bring them to the \"better\ncountry\" which they have so long desired.\n\nWhen we say our _Salve_, let us remember those souls who, though they\nare holy, are still banished children, and let us intercede with their\nMother for them.\n\nAD TE SUSPIRAMUS. To thee do we send up our sighs. The idea is that each\nbreath is a sigh, and a sigh meant for our Mother to hear. Well would it\nbe for us if this were true! It would change the character of our exile.\nA sigh meant for Our Blessed Lady could not be one of discontent and\nmurmuring and rebellion against our lot. The very fact that it is\nintended for her would make it full of love and hope and submission to\nGOD'S will. It would be like the sigh of a child whose mother has\npromised it some little pleasure. The time seems very long to the little\none, and as she sits patiently by her mother's side, a sigh escapes her\nnow and then--a very marked and intentional sigh! What does it mean? It\nmeans that though she will not speak or do anything that her mother\nmight not like, yet she would remind her mother of her presence and let\nher know that she is feeling the time very long. Does the mother mind\nthe sighs? Oh no, for each one tells her of the love of her child, and\nmakes her anxious to shorten the time of waiting if she can.\n\nGEMENTES ET FLENTES. The sighs become more audible--_groaning_ and\n_weeping_--the exiles are _mourning_ the loss of things they can never\nhave again till they get home. It is one of the times when they feel\nthat the harps must be hung up, (Ps. cxxxvi.), when mirth and joy are\naltogether out of place. Such times will come in our land of exile; and\nthese are the times when we shall do well to cry out to our Mother.\n\nO Mary, look upon thy weeping children, and as the great wail of\nsuffering humanity rises up to thee, \"show thyself a Mother,\" the Mother\nof Consolation. Come to the suffering hearts that cry for thee, and make\nthem understand that joy and gladness is for them, even in the land of\ntheir exile ever since the Sun of justice has risen over it \"with\nhealing in His wings.\" Whisper to each heartbroken one, words of hope\nand consolation; tell of reparation, of mortification, of detachment, of\nthe immense value of suffering, till the sorrowing heart is willing, yea\n_glad_, to suffer.\n\nIN HOC LACRYMARUM VALLE. In this _vale_. Our land of exile is a Valley\nof Humiliation. It was here that JESUS came to stay, when He _humbled_\nHimself even to the death of the Cross; and here it is that He would\nhave each one of His children wait till the humiliations of the valley\nhave taught them to conquer self-love. \"Be you humbled, therefore, under\nthe mighty hand of GOD, that He may exalt you in the time of\nvisitation.\" (1 Pet. v. 6.)\n\nIt is a vale of _tears_--a vale where JESUS wept; a vale which has been\nsanctified by the tears of a Magdalen, and a Peter, and of multitudes of\nothers who have learnt here to be saints; a vale where every tear shed\nby His children is treasured by GOD. \"Thou hast set my tears in Thy\nsight.\" (Ps. lv. 9.)\n\nWe read of two occasions on which JESUS wept--once for the sorrows of\nHis friends (St John xi. 35), and once for the sins of His enemies. (St\nLuke xix. 41.) I need not then be ashamed of tears--not even if I have\nto say with the Psalmist: \"My tears have been my bread day and night.\"\n(Ps. xli. 4.) But I must be careful that they resemble those of JESUS,\nthat the cause of them is never self-love or self-pity, but sorrow for\nmy own sins and those of others, and for anything which grieves the\nHeart of JESUS. \"They that sow in tears shall reap in joy,\" for He\nHimself \"will wipe away all tears from their eyes.\" (Ps. cxxv. 5, and\nApoc. vii. 17.)\n\nEIA ERGO ADVOCATA NOSTRA. _Therefore_, just because of our misery and\nneed--it is our only plea, and one which appeals more than any other to\na Mother's heart--we appeal to her as _our Advocate_: one who will plead\nour cause, who will speak to the King for us and tell Him of our needs,\nas she did long ago at Cana of Galilee. Had ever banished children such\nan advocate--one to whom the Judge has pledged Himself: \"I must not turn\naway thy face!\"\n\nO _Advocata nostra_, plead for me with thy Son when I stand before Him\nto be judged! In that terrible moment remember my _Salve_, for I shall\nbe unable to say it then.\n\nMISERICORDES OCULOS AD NOS CONVERTE. _Turn thy merciful eyes upon us._\nWe only ask her to _look_. It is quite enough for a mother to see her\nchild in trouble. She does not need to be told what to do.\n\nET JESUM BENEDICTUM FRUCTUM VENTRIS TUI NOBIS POST HOC EXILIUM OSTENDE.\nHere we get to the point of the prayer--the sighs, and groans, and\ncries, and tears of the banished children are all because they want to\nsee JESUS. _And after this our exile show unto us the Blessed Fruit of\nthy womb, JESUS._ \"We would see JESUS\" (St John xii. 21), and we come to\nask His Mother to show Him to us. This is her great work; and she turns\nto the children and says: \"Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye,\" and\nyou shall see His Face one day.\n\n_After this our exile._\n\n    \"When the voyage is o'er, O stand on the shore\n      And show Him at last to me.\"\n\nIt is because I cannot see JESUS that I am so often in trouble in the\nland of exile. If my faith were strong enough I should see Him\ncontinually, and sorrow would flee away. We have not got to wait till\nthe voyage is o'er before seeing Him. Many and many a glimpse of the\nBlessed Fruit of her womb does our Mother give us. To be near her means\nthat we are near Him too. Each Communion, each absolution--yea, each\nhumiliation and sorrow is our Mother letting us see JESUS if we will\nonly look; and when she stands on the shore to show Him _at last_, we\nshall see that it is the \"same JESUS\" Who so often walked with us in the\nland of our exile, though our eyes were for the most part holden by our\nwant of faith, and we did not recognise Him.\n\nO CLEMENS, O PIA, O DULCIS VIRGO MARIA. _O clement, O loving, O sweet\nVirgin Mary._ We multiply our words in trying to express to our Mother\nsomething of what we feel towards her, but they all mean the same\nthing--that she is a _Mother_. Her sweetness is as ointment poured\nforth, and attracts all to it. Her kindness and love, too, have been\nknown to all since she stood at the Foot of the Cross, and received all\nher banished children into her stricken heart. Never in vain can we\nappeal to our sweet Mother. And so with renewed confidence we will say\nour _Salve_, rejoicing even in this vale of tears because we have a\nMother who knows all about us, and who will never forget us; whose one\ndesire is to show us the Blessed Fruit of her womb, JESUS; who will\nteach us to sing the Lord's song in a strange land, even as she sang her\n_Magnificat_; and who will one day, when the days of our exile are over,\nsing with us the ever \"new song\" of Redemption to \"Him Who loved us and\nwashed us in His Blood.\"\n\nTill then, dear Mother, help us to be patient, and help us to learn the\nlessons of the valley, remembering that they will never be learned at\nall if they are not learned here.\n\n     _Colloquy._ The _Salve Regina_.\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[Footnote 1: _Note._--There are times when we get a little tired of\nPreludes and Points, and feel that a change of method would be a help to\nour Meditation. St Ignatius knew this, and knew also that to some minds\nPreludes and Points would be a positive hindrance; and so he has given\nus, in his book of the _Spiritual Exercises_, \"Three (other) methods of\nprayer.\" Our Meditation to-day is according to the _Second Method_,\nwhich \"consists in considering the signification of each word of a\nprayer.\" (Text of the _Exercises_.) St Ignatius says that if one or two\nwords give us sufficient matter for thought and spiritual relish and\nconsolation, we are not to be anxious to pass on, even though the whole\ntime of the Meditation be spent on _one_ word, but leave the rest till\nthe next day. So we may take to-day as many words of the _Salve Regina_\nas we find spiritual relish for. This method, St Ignatius tells us, may\nbe applied to \"_any other prayer whatsoever_.\"]\n\n\n\n\n_Dei Genitrix, intercede pro nobis._\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nObvious spelling and punctuation errors were repaired, but unusual\nperiod spellings and grammar uses were retained. Original placed\npunctuation such as semi-colons outside closing quotation marks; this\nwas retained.\n\nTable of Contents entries do not always agree with chapter headings in\nthe original; these differences were retained.\n\nGospel references throughout the main text begin with \"St\" as in \"St\nLuke.\" In two exceptions--P. 23 and 97--the \"St\" was missing and has\nbeen added by the transcriber for consistency. The preface, by a\ndifferent author, does not use \"St\" before gospel references.\n\nA few uses of \"God\" were left out of small-caps in the original. These\nwere placed in small-caps to agree with majority use.\n\nThree uses of \"ch.\" were changed to match three uses of \"chap.\" for\nconsistency.\n\nP. 53: Transcriber added a paragraph break between \"sacrifices.\" and (1)\nfor consistent treatment of numbered paragraphs.\n\nBlocking of numbered paragraphs on P. 70-71 and 73 is faithful to the\noriginal.","title":"Mater Christi: Meditations on Our Lady","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":42524}