Short conferences on the Sacred Heart : (the lover of souls)

,

SHORT CONFERENCES

ON THE

SACRED HEART

(THE LOVER OF SOULS)

BY

REV. HENRY BRINKMEYER

NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO

BENZIGER BROTHERS

PRINTERS TO THE I PUBLISHERS OF

HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE | BENZIGER'S MAGAZINE

1913

REMY LAFORT,

Censor Librorum

imprimatur.

*JOHN M. FARLEY,

Archbishop of New Ycrk.

New York, March 5, 1906.

Copyright, 1906, by BENZIOER BROTHERS

PREFACE

T?RIENDS have often advised the publication of the
following Conferences. For a long time I hesi
tated to act upon this suggestion, as I cannot claim for
them entire originality. They are bouquets of flowers
gathered in years gone by from various gardens to suit my
own taste, and for the pleasure and comfort of those to
whom they were presented. Perhaps their fragrance is
sufficient to gratify and embalm other souls dear to the
Sacred Heart. If so, may the Divine Master breathe
through these blossoms the sweetness of love and the per
fume of grace long after he who culled them has gone to
rest from his humble labors.

CONTENTS

&

FIRST CONFERENCE. PAGE

DEVOTIONS IN THE CHURCH 9

SECOND CONFERENCE.
THE Two POPULAR DEVOTIONS . . . . .17

THIRD CONFERENCE.
DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART 25

FOURTH CONFERENCE.
"THOU KNOWEST ALL THINGS" 35

FIFTH CONFERENCE.
LOVE MANIFESTED IN CREATION 45

SIXTH CONFERENCE.
"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH" 53

SEVENTH CONFERENCE.
"THY EXCEEDING GREAT REWARD" . . . .61

EIGHTH CONFERENCE.
"HE DWELT AMONG Us" 71

NINTH CONFERENCE.
"I HAVE GIVEN You AN EXAMPLE" . . . 81

8 Contents.

TENTH CONFERENCE. PAGE

"HE LOVED THEM UNTO THE END" .... 91

ELEVENTH CONFERENCE.
THE MEMORIAL 99

TWELFTH CONFERENCE.
THE BREAD OF LIFE 107

THIRTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE SACRIFICE ......... 119

FOURTEENTH CONFERENCE.
HE ABIDETH WITH Us 129

FIFTEENTH CONFERENCE.
REPARATION 137

SIXTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE MALICE OF SIN 145

SEVENTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE SATISFACTION FOR SIN 153-

EIGHTEENTH CONFERENCE.
APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S SATISFACTION . . .163

NINETEENTH CONFERENCE.
VICTIMS WITH CHRIST 173

THE LOVER OF SOULS.

FIRST CONFERENCE.
DEVOTIONS IN THE CHURCH.

' I VHERE is a distinction to be made between
faith and devotion. We cannot be devout
without faith, but we may have faith without devo
tion. The doctrines of faith do not grow; they
are always the same; but devotion to these doc
trines may and does grow; in other words, the
objects of faith are always the same, but they are
not always felt, and in consequence, the same
honors and the same love are not always rendered
them. Thus the sun in the spring-time will have
to shine many days before it is able to melt the
frost, open the soil, and bring out the leaves; yet
it shines out from the first, though it makes its
power felt but gradually. In like manner some
truth may shine out in the Church for a long time,
before it is fully seized and realized and melts
men's hearts into love and veneration of it. More-

IO Devotions in the Church.

over, just as the sun thaws in spring-time some par
ticles of snow and ice more quickly than others, and
causes some trees and flowers to sprout and bloom
more readily than their fellows, so too, some truth
may affect one soul more quickly and deeply than
it does another, and though understood equally
well by all, yet will not call forth equally well from
all, religious honor, respect, veneration, fear or
love. So you see Devotion is really "truth in
bloom," and since there are many truths and many
souls in the Church we must expect to see these
many devotions.

And such is the case. Any large parish church
will illustrate this. The edifice itself is dedicated
to Almighty God, under the invocation of the
Blessed Virgin, or some particular saint ; but within
there are sometimes three, five, seven or more al
tars, each of which has its particular saint or mys
tery to honor. The worshippers kneel here, each
according to his own inclination. No one interferes
with another. And as Mass is celebrated, and all
follow the sacred rite, each one has his own devo
tions which are all more or less diversified, and
though distinct, converge to one and the same
God. Some associate to pray for a good death,

Devotions in the Church. 1 1

others for the repose of the departed souls, others
finally for the conversion of the heathen and the
sinner; some join confraternities to honor the Pre
cious Blood, others the Sacred Heart, others again
the Immaculate Conception. In a word, there is a
variety of devotions open to individual Catholics
to choose from according to their religious task,
their character, their tendency, and the prospect of
personal edification.

What follows from the foregoing remarks?
This, that Devotion depends principally on the
lucid manifestation and the profound realization
of a religious truth. Truth must be presented to
the mind, before it can meet with any recognition.
We cannot honor and love what we do not know.
The better we know a thing, and the more we see in
it of the true, the good and the beautiful, the more
potently can it influence us. Now, by devotion in
general, we understand an ardent affection, which
will show itself in outward acts when opportunity
offers. Therefore, the better and the more gener
ally a religious truth or object is understood and
realized, the more ardent and the more universal
is devotion for it apt to become. To be devout
then, to be solidly pious, we stand in need of study

1 2 Devotions in the Church.

or instruction or reflection ; for naturally the more
we learn of religion, and the deeper we enter into
it, the more firm and fervent must our devotion
grow; consequently we ought always to be learn
ing : above all by meditation and prayer, we ought
to endeavor to bring religious truths home to our
hearts in order to realize them; then only can we
expect to obtain and foster devotion.

But you may ask: "If true devotion depends on
understanding and realizing a religious truth, why
is it then that the most learned theologians are not
the most saintly men? See, here is a poor, ignorant
man, who has never learned to read; he was
neglected in his youth; he scarcely knows the
Lord's Prayer by heart. There is a great scholar,
a doctor of divinity. He knows the Bible in He
brew, Greek and Latin. He has read through all
the Fathers. He knows St. Thomas and Suarez
by heart. He can solve almost any difficulty and
talk for hours on some abstruse, mystical point of
Theology. Why is it that the poor, ignorant man
is sometimes exact in observing the laws of the
Church, is charitable, avoids sin, and loves God,
while perhaps the great doctor of divinity does
none of these things?" The answer to this diffi-

Devotions in the Church. 13

culty is easily given. The learned doctor may
know more of truth, but he scarcely realizes any;
while the poor man may know little, but the little
he does know, he realizes intensely; it has entered
deep into his heart and moves him to act accord
ingly. Therefore, I have said, devotion depends
on the lucid manifestation and the profound reali
zation of a religious truth.

To one other fact I wish to lead your attention,
one which must not surprise us if we meet with it in
history or books of travel, viz.: That devotions
come and go, increase and decrease, are local and
universal. In the so-called Raccolta, or prayer
book, in which you have all the prayers and acts
indulgenced by the Popes of various centuries, in
this Raccolta, I say, we find numbers of devotions
of which we perhaps never heard before ; some of
them were formerly loved and revered and widely
practiced, but are now perhaps passing away. For
instance, at first great devotion was paid to the
apostles, then followed others to the martyrs;
though all along there were saints nearer to our
Lord than either martyrs or apostles; but as if they
had been lost in the effulgence of His glory, and
because they were not manifested in external works

14 Devotions in the Church.

separate from him, it happened that for a long
time, they were less thought of. In process of time
the apostles and then the martyrs exerted less influ
ence than before over the popular mind, and the
local saints who were new creations of God's grace,
took their place. Then owing to the religious med
itation of holy men and their gradual influence
upon Christian people, those names which might at
first sight have been expected to enter somewhat
into the devotions of the faithful, shone like stars
in the ecclesiastical heavens. St. Joseph furnishes
a most striking instance. It was always known
that he was the foster-father of our Lord and the
chaste spouse of Mary, and still, though he had so
great a claim to the veneration and love of the
faithful, devotion to him is comparatively of late
date, at least among Christian people. When once
it began, men seemed surprised that it had not been
thought of before; and now they justly hold him
next to the Blessed Virgin in their religious affec
tion and veneration. Again, some saints are greatly
honored in one locality, and scarcely at all in an
other; the reason of it is frequently that he is
the evangelist or patron, the child or benefactor
or pride of that particular nation or city. Thus :

Devotions in the Church. 15

St. Genevieve and St. Martin are greatly honored
in France; St. Patrick in Ireland; St. Wenceslaus
in Poland; St. Philip in Rome; St. Januarius in
Naples; St. Anne in Canada; etc. Finally, there
are popular devotions — devotions that move not
only individuals and localities, but also the masses,
aye, the world. Such popular devotions are abun
dant outpourings of the Holy Ghost, moving mul
titudes to love and religion, working out divine
purposes, developing and protecting some divine
principle or institution, or shielding from some
imminent danger threatening religion or society.
From time to time Almighty God lets, as it were,
a ray of intense light stream in upon some truth
or object or" Faith, which, illuminating it, throws
other truths and objects in a dark background.
This truth or object, though always known, being
thus prominently held up, strikes men's attention
and seizes upon their affections; in this way popu
lar devotions arise and spread: they are evidences
of Divine Providence in general, and especially of
God's loving care of His Church. In our century
there are two such popular devotions, which evi
dently came from God. They are devotion to the
Sacred Heart of Jesus, and devotion to the Im-

1 6 Devotions in the Church.

maculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. These
two devotions should be especially cultivated be
cause they are intended in the designs of God to
answer to the wants of the age. Of the two, that
of the Immaculate Conception holds of course a
subordinate place; it is intended as a preparation
for the other. For Jesus is obscured, when Mary
is kept in the background. She has protected
Him; as in His infancy, so in the history of devo
tion; and we shall see in a future instruction, that
devotion to the Immaculate Conception protects
devotion to the Sacred Heart and ministers to it.

"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and
of the knowledge of God!" Truly, He reacheth
from end to end mightily and ordereth all things
sweetly. Let us submit to His inscrutable judg
ments, and endeavor to realize all His designs; for
on the one hand, God's glory is man's happiness,
and man's happiness is God's glory; and on the
other hand, God would cease to be God, if He
sought not in all things His glory and man's happi
ness.

SECOND CONFERENCE.
THE TWO POPULAR DEVOTIONS.

T N our last conference, we learned the meaning
of devotion; we saw that devotion is truth in
bloom, and that consequently it depends upon a
clear understanding and a vivid realization of reli
gious truth. Before concluding, we said that pop
ular devotions are a special outpouring of divine
grace, and are designed to meet some great evil or
some special exigency of the times, and that there
are in our age two such popular devotions, the de
votion to the Immaculate Conception of the
Blessed Virgin, and the devotion to the Sacred
Heart; the first a preparative and a safeguard to
the second. To-day we will try to learn how these
two devotions meet the wants of the times and
thus answer the designs of God.

What are the wants of the times? Truth and
Love! because the evils of the times are what we
call naturalism and concupiscence. Naturalism is
the evil affecting the mind of the age, concupiscence

1 8 The Two Popular Devotions.

is the evil affecting the heart ; Christian faith is the
remedy for the evil of the mind, Christian love the
remedy for the evil of the heart; and just as nat
uralism engenders and strengthens concupiscence,
so faith engenders and strengthens love. Now,
devotion to the Immaculate Conception enlightens,
animates, and strengthens faith ; while devotion to
the Sacred Heart inspires and fortifies love, and
just as faith prepares the way for love, so the
Immaculate Conception prepares the way for the
Sacred Heart. Here you have a summary of what
I wish to explain at present.

I say the radical evils of our age are naturalism
and concupiscence, or if you prefer the word, sen
suality. First, naturalism. By naturalism is meant
a denial of the supernatural. Men now-a-days be
lieve only in the world around them; they believe
only in what they can see and hear and feel, and
perceive with their five senses, or what they can
grasp with their intellect; they refuse to believe in
a Divine Providence, in grace, in spiritual agencies,
in prayer, or if they do theoretically assent to these
truths, they permit them to have no practical influ
ence upon their lives, and are more or less indiffer-
entists in matters of religion. Again, they deny

The Two Popular Devotions. 19

the supernatural end of man; or if they have a
belief at all in a future world, they picture it to
themselves a natural world like the present, only
more perfect in degree. In one word, all that
which is above and beyond visible nature, they
deny, doubt or practically ignore.

What is the consequence of this naturalism, this
evil in the minds of men? They give themselves
over to nature, they enjoy this world, they live for
it and become wholly sensual. I need scarcely
enlarge on this statement. Who does not know
that sensuality, to speak more plainly, impurity, is
already the social evil of our day, especially in our
country ?

The world is flooded with a literature imbued
with its venom, and literature mirrors the spirit of
the age. We may safely say that of every one
hundred in mortal sin, ninety, if not ninety-nine,
are in that state because of impurity. But leaving
aside this gross kind of sensuality, was there ever
during the Christian era such a love of bodily
ease, of comfort? Was there ever a stronger, a
more universal thirst for riches, for pleasure and
honor? Is not a thing most valued only in as much
as it can contribute to ease and pleasure, and serve

2O The Two Popular Devotions.

as a means to acquire gold, or as a stepping-stone
to a higher position in life? Do you often hear
it asked, how, for instance, such and such a dis
covery or invention will facilitate the saving of
souls, or advance the interests of religion? And is
it not humiliating to have to confess that even in
persons called religious there is frequently so much
worldly calculation when there is question of sav
ing souls, or in general of advancing the interests
of God? These two then, naturalism and sensual
ism, are the radical evils of the age; the remedies
for these two evils are found in the devotions to
the Immaculate Conception and the Sacred Heart,
and the first devotion leads to the second, as nat
uralism leads to sensuality. Let us try to see in
what manner all this is done.

We can not honor the Immaculate Conception
without believing in it. What is meant by believ
ing in the Immaculate Conception? We believe
that Mary alone of all the children of Adam was
conceived without sin; in other words, we believe
that all the rest of mankind were born, or at least
conceived deprived of that supernatural grace
which Adam and Eve had at their creation, and
that she alone was conceived with grace, and in-

The Two Popular Devotions. 21

deed, from the first moment of her existence, had
all that fulness of grace which Adam and Eve pos
sessed before they fell. By professing a belief in
this doctrine, what do we affirm? We affirm at
once the existence of the supernatural, we affirm
that man was originally created for a supernatural
end, and endowed with supernatural grace, we af
firm man's fall and the necessity of man's redemp
tion, we affirm a Divine Providence, a Redeemer,
an Eternity; finally, we affirm that man must live
a supernatural life in order to reach his super
natural end. All this, naturalism denies or ignores.
Consequently, faith in the Immaculate Conception
is diametrically opposed to the intellectual error of
our age, and therefore, devotion to the Immaculate
Conception is, from its very nature, apt to destroy
or weaken this error, or at least to strengthen and
shield men's minds against it.

Moreover, mark that we can scarcely think of
the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin,
without thinking at the same time of her divine
maternity, for the one is the reason of the other;
Mary was immaculately conceived, because she was
to be Mother of God. The Immaculate Concep
tion, therefore, leads us to Jesus ; devotion to it be-

22 The Two Popular Devotions.

gets devotion to Him; in thanking Him for His
bounty to her and to us, we cannot but think of
His love, His Heart ! Now it is precisely devotion
to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that is the remedy
for sensualism, the second great evil of our day.
This is evident almost at first thought.

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is in every sense
a devotion of love. The object of the devotion is
love, for the heart is the symbol of love, and we
pay special honor and adoration to the Heart of
Jesus, because it recalls and symbolizes His divine
and human love. The aim of the devotion is to
repair the injuries done to His love and to repay
love with love. The effect of the devotion is to en
kindle love. The Pope himself in the decree of
Blessed Margaret Mary's beatification, declares it
in these words: "Jesus Christ wished that the ven
eration and worship of His Sacred Heart should
be established and promoted in His Church, in
order that He might the more enkindle the fire of
Charity." Our Lord Himself in revealing His
Sacred Heart to Blessed Margaret Mary said:
"The great desire I have to be perfectly loved by
man, has made Me foresee the design of disclos
ing to them My Heart, and of giving them in these

The Two Popular Devotions. 23

latter times this last effort of My love, by proposing
to them an object and a means so calculated to en
gage them to love Me, and to love Me solidly."
But can divine love be associated with illicit love?
Can the love of our Lord be in the heart side by
side with the love of the world? Does not the love
of God drive out the love of triple concupiscence ?
Is it not true, that when God takes possession of
a heart, all that is not God's becomes worthless
to it? Therefore, just as the devotion to the Im
maculate Conception is a specific remedy for the
first evil of our age, naturalism ; so the sister devo
tion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a remedy for
the second consequent evil, viz., sensualism.

Verily, we have reason to exclaim : "Digitus Del
est hie," "the finger of God is visible here!"
Plainly it is the work of the Almighty God which
wills the cultivation of these devotions, especially
that of the Sacred Heart. For the heart is most
of all affected and diseased; if the heart of man is
good, his mind will soon be healthy too. We will
endeavor to enter into the designs of God; we will
cultivate, practice and promote devotion to His
Heart. That we may do so the better, we will
study It ; we will study Its love that we may learn

24 The Two Popular Devotions.

how to love ; we will study Its patience that we may
learn how to suffer; we will^study Its meekness and
humility that we may learn how to find peace for
our souls.

i

THIRD CONFERENCE.
DEVOTION TO THE SACRED HEART

ITS OBJECT.

N our last conference we learned that there are
in our age two popular devotions, and we tried
to understand the reason of their present exist
ence in the Church. We resolved especially to prac
tice the devotion to the Sacred Heart, it being the
more important of the two; moreover, we deter
mined to study it, in order that we might the bet
ter practice, cultivate and propagate it, and thus
enter into the designs of God. In accordance with
this resolution, we shall now endeavor to obtain a
clear and full understanding of the object of this
devotion.

St. Thomas, the great doctor and patron of theo
logical schools, distinguishes two objects in every
devotion; first, that which in a devotion is hon
ored, adored and loved. And secondly, that on
account of which said object is honored, adored and
loved. The first is called the immediate material

25

26 Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

object, and the second, the formal, incentive or
causative object. Thus in a devotion to some saint,
the saint himself is the material object, it is he
that is honored and loved — while his virtues and
sanctity are the incentive object, that is, the reason
why such devotion is paid him. Now, in the devo
tion to the Sacred Heart, the Heart itself is the
material object; it is that which is adored, honored
and loved; while that which It symbolizes, namely,
the love of Jesus, is the formal incentive object of
the devotion, in other words, is the reason why
such special homage is paid to It. We shall, then, in
this conference first speak of the material object
of the devotion and show what it is ; in the second
place, of the causative object, and explain what the
Heart symbolizes.

What is the material object of the devotion to
the Sacred Heart? I have just named it; it is
literally the Heart of Jesus, the living, human, cre
ated, fleshly Heart of the Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity: the Heart that is beating this mo
ment in the bosom of our Lord in Heaven : that
Heart is what we adore, honor and invoke in this
devotion. But we ask ourselves: how can we
adore that Heart? That Heart as a material or-

Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 27

gan is human, It was made, It is a creature; how
then can we adore It? Is not God alone to be
adored? Again, honor, says St. Thomas, is offered
to a person: honor cannot, strictly speaking, be
received by things, it can be properly received only
by persons In like manner, prayer is offered to
a person, not to a mere thing; only a person can
hear our prayers, not a mere thing. The Heart of
Jesus as such is not a person, It is inseparably
united to Him, but It is not His adorable Person.
How then can we honor and adore and pray to It?
This difficulty deserves an explanation, for it is just
because of this difficulty, I fancy, that some well-
meaning and pious Catholics complain of not be
ing able to acquire a devotion to the Sacred Heart.
It is true, properly speaking, honor is directly
given to a person, for only a person is capable of
accepting it : still we may and do frequently honor
a thing on account of a person. Thus when Mary
Magdalen approached the table of the Phari
see, and kneeling behind our Lord, washed His
feet with her tears, anointed them with pre
cious ointment, and dried them with her beautiful
hair, it was to Him, to His person that she was
giving all these marks of contrition and love. In

28 Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

honoring the Heart of Jesus, we in a similar man
ner honor Him, His Person, and every outward
mark of respect and love that we render It, we
render to Himself, to His ever-adorable Person.
The heart, detached from His person and with
out any relation to Him, would be but a mere lump
of flesh, a bundle of muscles and nerves, and there
fore, deserving of no religious respect; but It can
never be separated from Him, even in the tomb,
It was hypostatically united to Him; it is, then,
because the Heart is His Heart that It is entitled
to honor. Moreover, it is true, adoration is due to
God alone : we can honor a human person, but we
can adore none but a divine person. Still, what I
have said of honor, can also be said to a certain
degree of adoration. I observed that, although
honor can be directly given only to a person, it can
also be rendered to a thing on account of a person.
Similarly, although we can adore only what is
divine, we can also adore a created thing united to
a divine person ; for just as honor when offered to
a thing is referred to the person, so adoration when
offered to a created thing, is referred to the divine
person to whom that created thing is personally
united. Now, Jesus is not a human person, nor

Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 29

are there in Him two persons. He has but one
personality, and that is divine, for He is the Sec
ond Person of the Blessed Trinity, that is, of God.
His body and soul are the body and soul of God,
His hands and feet are the hands and feet of God,
His Heart is the Heart of God. In honoring and
worshipping His flesh and blood, we honor and
worship the Person, namely, God; in adoring the
hands and feet, we adore God; in adoring, loving
and venerating the Heart, we adore, venerate and
love the Person, namely, God. The divinity of
Jesus Christ is the reason we adore His humanity.
In praying to It, we are praying to Him, to His
Person. You clearly see, I hope, how philosoph
ically exact and reasonable all this is, and how well
it harmonizes with Faith, v/

But we may ask ourselves again : "Why honor
in a special manner the Heart of Jesus? His
sacred head crowned with thorns, His hands and
feet pierced with nails, are as divine as the Heart
which palpitates in His divine bosom." This is
true; since Jesus is a divine person, everything
which He has inseparably united to His divine per
son merits the most absolute adoration ! His
whole body and His soul are adorable, because they

30 Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

are the body and soul of God. Still, the Heart
merits a special devotion, because, if not the or
gan of human love, it is, nevertheless, the symbol
of all love. This, the second point of our instruc
tion, merits a brief explanation.

In all languages, both human and divine, the
heart is a symbol of love. Throughout the world
when men speak of the heart, they use it as a figure
of love. The reason of this seems to be that the
heart is, as it were, the centre of feeling. Every
emotional feeling makes an impression upon it.
The heart leaps with sudden joy, it trembles with
fear, it contracts with sadness, it dilates with happi
ness, it sends the blood thrilling along the veins in
moments of satisfied ambition, it almost stops beat
ing in terror. The brain transmits its sensations
to the heart, and these sensations are as manifold
as are our thoughts, for the soul as long as united
to the body can not think without using the brain
as an organ. Some old philosophers went even so
far as to say that in the present life the soul can
not love without using the heart as its organ.
Hence, the Heart of Jesus was and is, if not the
organ, at least the symbol, nay, more, the receptacle
of His human love, of that love with which He

Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 31

loved us on earth, died for us on the cross, and is
loving us still here in the humble tabernacle of the
altar. Moreover, it was the heart which was first
formed by the Holy Ghost from the pure flesh of
the Virgin Mary; it was the heart which first lived
in the Infant Jesus, and sent forth into His tiny
veins that Precious Blood which was afterwards
poured out for us on the heights of Calvary; it
was the heart that suffered most from the insults,
irreverences and outrages of ungrateful men during
the thirty-three years of His life ; it was the heart
that was sorrowful unto death during those long
hours of the Passion when Jesus sweated blood
from agony, when He was betrayed by Judas, when
He was mocked and derided, when He was denied
by Peter, when He met His Mother, when He gave
John to Mary and Mary to John, when He cried
out, "Father, forgive them for they know not what
they do," when He exclaimed in His distress, uMy
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
It was His heart that died last, and when It died,
the ransom of our Redemption was paid. The
Heart of Jesus, therefore, deserves special vener
ation as having taken such a large share in the work
of our Redemption, and as being the seat and

32 Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

centre of our Lord's human love and feelings. It
is a fit symbol also of His eternal and divine love.
The Heart of Jesus means then, the divine and
human love of Jesus. A look at the Heart of
Jesus recalls His love and all that His love has
done, and is doing for us; It brings to mind the
blessings we have received from Him in having
been created, redeemed, made a member of His
mystical body, the Church, in being nourished with
His flesh and blood, in being allowed to speak
to Him heart to heart in the Sacrament of the
Blessed Eucharist; It gives us a fuller knowledge
of His science, for the love of His Heart is a wise
and knowing love ; It also reveals to us His humil
ity, purity, meekness, compassion, goodness, mercy
and patience, for all these moral qualities mani
fested themselves, thrilled, so to speak, in His
human Heart.

To resume briefly what we have learned, — first :
the material object of the devotion to the Sacred
Heart, namely, that which we honor, adore and
love, is the living, fleshly, human Heart of Jesus;
secondly: the causative or formal object of the
devotion, namely, the reason why we pay It a spe
cial honor, adoration and love, is the love of

Devotion to the Sacred Heart. 33

Jesus, of which the Heart is the seat and symbol.
It may be that all this has been a little dry and
abstract, perhaps too deep : but I hope it will not
prove altogether useless. Our piety should be
solid and able to resist our ever-varying moods and
fancies, and to effect this, we must build behind it
a wall of substantial doctrine, as a strong support
when sensible devotion deserts us, and temptation,
perhaps, in the form of doubt assails us.

FOURTH CONFERENCE.
THOU KNOWEST ALL THINGS."

have now learned that the reason we know
and love in a special manner the Sacred
Heart of our Lord is because the heart is the seat
of His human love and the symbol of His divine
love. To study the Sacred Heart of Jesus is,
therefore, to study His love. The devotion to the
Sacred Heart is a devotion to love and a devotion
of love; consequently, the theology of the Sacred
Heart is the theology of love : in other words, the
love of Jesus as manifested in Creation, in the In
carnation, in the Passion, and in the Blessed Eu
charist, becomes the subject of our study and medi
tation, when we aim at understanding the Heart
of the Man-God.

But all love presupposes knowledge. We can
not love what we do not know. We cannot love
intensely what we do not know intimately. Nor
can we wish a friend good whom we do not in some

35

36 "Thou Knowest All Things."

measure know and appreciate. Hence, Christ's
love presupposes science, knowledge of those He
loves, and a knowledge of the good He wishes
them to possess, as also of the evil from which He
desires to save them. We will, then, as a last pre
liminary to the study of the love of the Sacred
Heart, endeavor to obtain a clear idea of its sci
ence.

The knowledge of Jesus is fourfold, because
coming from four sources. He is God, equal to
the Father and to the Holy Ghost, He is in fact the
Word, that is, the living expression of the knowl
edge of the Father; consequently, He possesses an
infinite, divine knowledge. But He is also man.
As man, from the very moment of His conception,
His human soul enjoyed what the blessed enjoy in
Heaven, namely, the vision of God; it follows,
that He has the knowledge of what is called the
Beatific Vision. As man, from the first moment
of the creation of His soul, knowledge was infused
into Him, just as it had been infused into
Adam, and just as, to a certain degree, it was
infused into the prophets and into St. John the
Baptist while yet in his mother's womb. Thus,
He has an infused knowledge. Finally, as man,

"Thou Knowest All Things" 37

He has all that knowledge which He acquired as
other men, from seeing, hearing, feeling, think
ing and suffering. We see then that Jesus has a
fourfold knowledge, — a divine knowledge, a
beatific knowledge, an infused knowledge and an
acquired knowledge. Each deserves a brief expla
nation ; let us begin with the last.

First, He has acquired knowledge. He knew all
those things which man by force of his natural rea
son can master. We learn from one another, we
are taught by preceptors, we instruct ourselves by
reading books, we reason and deduce one truth
from another; if we be learned men and studious,
or possess natural genius, we penetrate into the
secrets of nature, and may possibly surpass the
great minds that have preceded us in the walks of
science. But our Lord did not learn precisely in
this way; He never went to school, nor did He read
books to study, nor was He taught even by angels,
much less by men. Yet He exercised His intel
lectual powers after the manner of rational be
ings. He did not see with His bodily eyes all sensi
ble objects, nor was He in every place by His hu
man presence, still through the medium of His
sense perceptions, He drew unerring conclusions by

38 "Thou Knowest All Things."

the strength and energy of His natural intelligence.
In a word, as St. Thomas says, whatever can be
acquired by the natural powers of the mind, all that
our Lord did acquire without being taught, by the
natural power of His human intellect. Therefore,
all that which the greatest philosophers, astrono
mers, geologists, scientists, physicians, philologists,
historians, etc., can ever learn by research and
study, He knew by the force of His own reason.
Again, all that from which man can suffer in
soul, as trials, temptations, afflictions, agonies,
despair, etc., all these He knew. Not that He
underwent every kind of temptation and every
species of trial. He never, for example, per
mitted a temptation against the angelic virtue to
approach Him, — but, as Holy Scripture ex
presses it, uHe learned by the things which He
suffered."

Secondly, our Lord has an infused science.
There are many truths which the human mind,
however strong and penetrating it may be, can
never even suspect, unless it be inspired from
above, or be supernaturally taught and assisted.
Such truths are, for instance, the mysteries of
Faith, as the Trinity, the Incarnation, Grace, etc.,

"Thou Knowest All Things." 39

or visions into the future. No human genius can
infallibly know what is to come; none could have
foretold the Resurrection of the Messiah, the estab
lishment of the Church, and the persecutions assail
ing it. The human mind is so weak that without
Revelation it can scarcely establish its own immor
tality. Now, besides the knowledge of those things-
which the human intellect can possibly acquire by
its own efforts, our Lord had a knowledge of all
things and all beings, natural and supernatural; and
that knowledge was, of course, infused into His
soul, for it could not naturally be acquired. By
reason of this infused science, He knew every truth
and every mystery that had ever been revealed to
man; He knew the past, the present, and the fu
ture; He knew every angel in heaven, and every
man on earth ; He knew every creature, animate or
inanimate, that had proceeded from the hands of
God, or would yet be called into existence. He
knew all that would happen to the Church and to
souls till the end of the world ; He knew the temp
tations, the trials, the sins, the virtues, the thoughts
and desires, the eternal salvation or perdition of
each one of us: all was unfolded before Him,
heaven, earth and hell, from the beginning of time,

40 "Thou Knowest All Things."

till eternity never-ending. Such was His infused
science.

Thirdly, He had what may be called beatific sci
ence, or the science obtained by the Beatific Vision.
What is meant by the Beatific Vision? It is the
seeing of God face to face in Heaven. We cannot
see God at present; we know that He exists, we
may feel at times His presence, still we never be
hold Him. Even after death we cannot see Him,
not even an angel can naturally see Him. It is true
the blessed in Heaven see Him as really and as
substantially, face to face, as we see one another,
but they behold Him thus because their souls are
illumined and strengthened by some special gift,
which gift theologians call the light of glory.
When a soul is admitted into Heaven, the light of
glory first penetrates, enlightens, raises and fortifies
it, and then only can it behold God as He is, just
as light must enter a room before anything within
becomes visible to us. In thus beholding Him, it
beholds in Him as in a mirror an immense number
of truths and existences, possible and actual. It
does not see all things, for then it would compre
hend God, and that is impossible, nor does it per
ceive truths in God with a clearness of vision equal

"Thou Knowest All Things" 41

to that possessed by every other soul, for then all
would be equally happy. On earth, one mind
knows more, and understands more fully than an
other; in Heaven also one sees more in God and of
God than does another, and what it sees it under
stands more clearly than another. Now, our '
Lord's human soul even on earth, before His death,
was enlightened^ penetrated and fortified by this
light of glory; continually, even in sleep, it beheld
face to face the Blessed Trinity, the Father, the
Word and the Holy Ghost, and in thus beholding
God, it saw in Him all realities, all that was, and
is, and shall be, and what it saw in Him, it saw with
an all-pervading vividness and not only in general,
as it were, but in particular : each fact, each exist
ence, each event stood unveiled before Him with
all its intense individuality: in a word, it saw all
things as God sees them. It is true, by infused
science He knew already all realities, all things
existing, the past, the present, and the future; yet
He knew these things as man knows them : but by
the Beatific Vision He saw and knew all these
things as God sees and knows them; therefore,
may we not believe that He saw them with still
greater comprehensiveness and intenser distinct-

42 "Thou Knowest All Things."

ness? For it is well said : "All other science, what
ever its excellence, is unreal, superficial, shadowy,
compared to the science of the Beatific Vision."

Finally, our Lord had divine knowledge, for He
is God, He is the Eternal Word of the Father, He
is, as St. Paul says, the brightness of His glory,
and the figure of His substance ; in Him all things
were created in Heaven and on earth, and without
Him was made nothing that was made. In Him
is all light, all truth. He is God of God, light of
light, truth of truth. He is, in fact, the knowledge
of the Father. When we think of ourselves, we
beget an idea, a thought in our minds, — this idea
is in us not the mind itself, — it is not a substance, it
is only a form, an accident in the mind. God the
Father in thinking of Himself, of His being, also
begets an idea, a thought, but in Him this idea is
a substance, not a mere form, as in us, and this
substance is His Son : so that in very deed, the Son
is the living knowledge of the Father, He is truth
itself. UO ! the depth of the riches of His wisdom
and of His knowledge." "O Lord! Thou knowest
all things." uLet then our hearts be comforted,
for in charity instructed, we know that all the
riches and all the fullness of the knowledge of all

"Thou Knowest All Things:9 43

the mysteries are possessed by the Heart that loves
us!"

How sweet when kneeling before the Taber
nacle to say to ourselves: He knows all — all my
miseries, my failings, my trials, my sufferings, my
sorrows and my desires, — He can do all things, and
He loves me!

FIFTH CONFERENCE.
LOVE MANIFESTED IN CREATION.

TN Christ there are two natures, the divine and
the human, though He is but one person, the
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This divine
Person has then two wills corresponding to these
two natures, — a divine will and a human will, and
since love is an act of the will, He also has two
loves, a divine love and a human love, an uncre
ated, eternal love, and a created, temporal love.
The Heart is the symbol of His divine, uncreated
love, and it is the symbol and the seat of His
human, created love. We will therefore consider
them in turn, beginning with His uncreated love.

Since love is an emotion of the soul, or, under
another aspect, an act of the will, it cannot be seen
and studied except in its manifestations, in its out
ward effects: deeds show the existence and the in
tensity of love. If we wish accordingly to study
the uncreated, divine love of Jesus, we must study

45

46 Love Manifested in Creation.

it in its manifestations, in its deeds, and from its
deeds judge of its intensity and worth. Now, di
vine love has manifested itself principally in three
ways — in Creation, in the Incarnation, and in the
rewards prepared for the elect in Heaven.

What profound truths are revealed to us when
we contemplate the love of God in Creation. He
is our Creator. Outside of His own being, there
is nothing that was not made by Him. Since He
is our Creator, He must love us. The act of cre
ation is an act of the will, and an act of the will
is an act of love. He created us because He loved
us, and He loves because He created us. It is a cir
cle, a blessed prison from which there is no escape.
We know that God must love and does love us, but
why, we cannot understand on earth. It is a mys
tery, and probably in Heaven itself we shall not
understand; we shall sink deeper and deeper into
the fathomless ocean of His love, but we shall
never sound its infinite depths. We know that we
are living, but what life is we do not comprehend;
in like manner, we know that God is loving us, be
cause He has created us and is preserving us, and
preservation is nothing but a continued creation;
but why God loves us, we do not fully comprehend,

Love Manifested in Creation. 47

and we need not comprehend. We will cling to His
love as to an anchor, though all the rest be involved
in darkness and in apparent contradictions, until
He raises us up and folds us to the bosom of His
love in the bright daylight of eternity.

Creation is therefore, as St. Dionysius says, an
outpouring of God's love. What is the nature of
that love? what are its principal characteristics?
The love of God for us is an eternal love, that is, a
love ancient as eternity, and a total love, that is, a
love of His whole being.

First, God loves us with an eternal love; there
was not a moment in that long, never-beginning
course of eternity when God did not love us, and
love us singly and individually. Before the world
was, when He was all alone, when there was not
even an angel before His throne, when there was
no light and no darkness, nothing but Himself, —
ever since then He has been caressing us with love.
There was not an instant in that long eternity when
He was not thinking of us. Holy Scripture, as
well as Reason, tells us this : In charitate perpetua
dilexi te. "With a love eternal have I loved
thee." We know it is true, yet we cannot realize
what eternal love means. But what a revelation it

48 Love Manifested in Creation.

is! what a light and what a treasure! Each one
of us can say to himself: Before the world was
created, before there was such a thing as time,
when nothing existed but God, when He saw His
own beauty and was ravished with it, and was in
finitely and absolutely happy, when the Triune
God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost were
all alone, without relation to any created being
whatever, even then He thought of me and loved
me, though as yet I had no existence. In seeing
His Word, the Son, the Father saw me, and in that
very mutual love, which exists between Father and
Son, and which is the Holy Ghost, He loved me.
He has thus always loved me ever since He began
to love Himself, that is, from all eternity! The
very thought of it overwhelms us !

But this is not all : since God is eternal, He can
not change; what is eternal is immutable. uThou
art the Lord and Thou dost not change." God's
love for us in being eternal is also unchangeable.
Here is another mystery ! Yet it is a truth as unde
niable as God Himself. God's love for us can
never change. We change in many ways, even in
love. One day we love God more than another,
one day we are lukewarm, then fervent, then again

Love Manifested in Creation. 49

our hearts seem void of love. It appears to us
that God changes; that at times He gives more
freely, loves more tenderly, draws more intensely;
but the change is in us, not in God. The earth
revolves around the sun, and we make the circle
with it, yet all the time we imagine that the sun is
moving around us; the seasons come and go, the
atmosphere varies, the clouds rise and descend; we
imagine that the sun shines less warmly in winter
than in summer, more brightly in spring than in
autumn, yet the sun itself is, as it were, immov
able; day and night throughout the year it sends
forth the same amount of light and heat. — So too
with God. His love is unchangeable and immov
able. If we love Him, He loves us; if we hate
Him, He loves us : if we betray Him, He loves us
still. His love for us will continue even to the
consummation of its work — even to death on the
cross, even though it be denied, forsaken, betrayed;
for it is eternal, and therefore, independent of time.
This, His eternal love, is all beautifully and mag
nificently typified by the human Heart of Jesus.

Secondly, His love for us is a total love; He
loves us with His whole Being. The whole Blessed
Trinity loves us with all Its substance and with all

50 Love Manifested in Creation.

Its divine perfections. The whole Divine Heart
loves him infinitely to whom It gives least : and the
love which It gives to one It does not take from
another, — and in fact, It loves each soul as if it
were the only one in the world. Yet God has His
preferences; He gives to some more than He does
to others. Just as in Heaven some are higher and
far happier than others. All see and love and pos
sess the same God, and though all are as happy as
they wish to be, and none envies his brother or
sister, — still as one star differs from another, so
has one soul more power, more beauty, more sci
ence, more bliss than another. In like manner, God
loves with His whole Being each one of His crea
tures ; still He loves far beyond all others His Son
Jesus become man, — then He loves Mary above
others; then among the saints and angels around
His throne, as well as among His children on
earth, He truly loves one more than another, — He
caresses some more than others with love, He has
His more intimate friends even as we have ours.
This is a mystery which we cannot understand on
earth. Yet, not only faith, but reason itself tells us
it must be thus. He is Master of His gifts, and

Love Manifested in Creation. 51

whether we receive much or little or nothing, we
have no right to complain. But we know that He
loves us with His Being as God, and that therefore
the love which He bears us is the very same love
with which He loves Himself, the Word and the
Holy Spirit, — the very same love with which He
loves His Son Jesus, the Virgin Mother Mary,
and all His saints and angels. Let us try to un
derstand, even faintly, what these words express,
for if we do we shall not wonder any longer that
God is so patient with sinners, and that Jesus died
for souls. For, once more, what is God's love
for man? It is the love of His whole divine
Being, — to apprehend His love would therefore
be to apprehend His Being, — to understand His
love would be to understand His Being, — and
who can understand and comprehend God? who
can on earth even look into His face and live?
"Thou canst not see My face and live," said
God to Moses. Can we be astonished then, at the
words of our Lord to St. Catherine of Genoa : "Oh,
if you knew how I love a soul ! But this will be the
last thing you will know in this world; for to
understand it, would kill you." Yes, for to appre-

52 Love Manifested in Creation.

hend and see His love, would be to apprehend and
see His Being; and were we to see God on earth,
we should die of love and joy.

Here you have a glimpse of the divine uncreated
love of the Sacred Heart. Does it not at first al
most frighten you to think that you have been
loved from all eternity with such a love? How
mysterious, how adorably loving God is ! O would
that we could die now to see that love, to love it,
and to enjoy and possess it forever !

SIXTH CONFERENCE.
"THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH."

\\7 E have now seen that the divine uncreated
love of the Sacred Heart as manifested in
the creation of man, dates from all eternity, and
that it proceeds from God and embraces, as it were,
the whole substance of the Divine Being. Again
that overwhelming love is displayed in the Incar
nation of the Son of God. It is ever the same
eternal and total love we have already considered;
it is simple, it is pure, it is immutable as God Him
self. Yet we poor creatures who do not see God,
and who study His perfections successively in His
works, perceive new qualities in that divine love for
man, when we look at it, not only through the mys
tery of Creation, but also through that of the In
carnation. Each of these sublime mysteries dem
onstrates God's love for His creatures. Creation
reveals it as eternal and total, — while the Incarna
tion manifests it as a generous and humble love.

53

54 "The Word Was Made Flesh."

We will study then the generosity and humility of
the divine love of the Sacred Heart for man.

Generosity is something more than kindness, ten
derness or beneficence. A kind person will assist
one in distress and will be careful not to wound the
feelings of another. A beneficent, bountiful per
son will provide for the comfort and happiness of
others and will dispense his favors abundantly.
But a generous person will do not only all this, he
will not only give, though he receive nothing in re
turn: he will dispense favors though at a great
sacrifice to himself; he will, as it were, forget his
own rights and disregard his own inclinations if he
can bestow comfort upon another; he will not be
repelled by the ingratitude and wickedness of those
he benefits, in a word, he will sacrifice himself, his
claims, his interests, and all that is dearest to him
for the sake of those he loves : such are the traits of
one who is not only compassionate, kind, liberal
and beneficent, but who is also generous. Sudh are
the characters of God's love as shown in the In
carnation. God is beneficent as our Creator, He
continues His beneficence to us by His daily preser
vation and protection, He is bountiful in providing
us daily with so many things over and above our

"The Word Was Made Flesh." 55

needs, and which are intended only to procure us
pleasure and to gladden our hearts, — but He was
infinitely generous, when He so loved the world
as to give for its redemption His only-begotten
Son. What need has He of us ? What interest has
He in loving us? Is He not complete and per
fect in Himself? What beauty, what glory, what
happiness does He want? Can we add to His bliss
and to His unspeakable loveliness? We can re
ceive all from Him, we cannot make any return
for His bounties. Says St. Hilary most beauti
fully: "As no light returns to the sun, or heat to
the fire, or to a perfume its sweet scent, so the Di
vine gifts so precious to him who receives them,
are without profit to Him who gives them." But
to his native nothingness, and to his incapability of
making any requital to God, man has added sin,
and not one sin, but vast oceans and floods of sins,
— sin so cruel, so heinous, so terrible, that the mere
sight of it cast the Son of God prostrate upon the
ground in the garden of Gethsemane, and caused
Him to sweat blood from sheer agony. And God
knew it from all eternity. He saw these oceans of
sin rising one upon another, He saw each and every
sin in all its naked, revolting deformity, with all

56 "The Word Was Made Flesh."

its hideous and shocking circumstances, — it re
quired all the strength of His infinite intelligence to
comprehend the malice of these innumerable sins,
—still His love had to be satisfied. Love, as it
were, silenced His justice, it quickened His wis
dom, it strained His mercy. We might say, man's
sin made Him, in a measure, love man more; for
He decreed to become man Himself to redeem
man. Yet he knew well that even after the re
demption man would go on sinning, that few
would try to be saved, that fewer still would be
come saints, and that for those He would make
saints, He would have to suffer more grievously
than for all the rest. But He shrank not; love
makes one insensible to wrong; love must be satis
fied at every cost. He determined to save His crea
tures by giving up His only-begotten Son. Who
can understand such love? It is so generous that
it overwhelms us. If we had not God's word for
it, we could never believe it. Father Faber well
says: "More men are puzzled and tempted by the
love of God than by any other article of faith."
We may indeed exclaim with Job : uMy God, what
is man that Thou shouldst magnify him? why dost
Thou set Thy Heart upon him?" — To resume:

"The Word Was Made Flesh." 57

God gives to man without the possibility of receiv
ing any return, — and when man is no longer man,
when he is become like to senseless beasts, and,
from being a child of love, makes himself a child of
wrath, — even then God loves him, and, to satisfy
His own infinite justice, He becomes man, He suf
fers and by His sufferings pays rigorously for all
He gives us, — finally He immolates Himself to
save His creature. Is not all this indeed generous ?
Secondly, God's love for man, as manifested in
the mystery of the Incarnation, is humble. Gener
ally humility is defined as a virtue which prompts
us to acknowledge our baseness and accept the
place which belongs to us. Since in God there are
all rights and no defects, He cannot in this sense be
humble. There can be no presumption, no excess,
no insincerity, no baseness in God; consequently,
there cannot be in Him what is ordinarily called
humility. But if we regard humility under an
other respect, namely, as a willingness to be low
ered, and as an inclination for abasement, because
of the blessed effects of such abasement, then we
must say that, without exception, God is the one
who abases Himself the most consummately and
the most willingly, and on this ground God is more

58 "The Word Was Made Flesh:9

humble than any creature ever can be or ever will
be. It was love in God to create man, but it was
a humble love, for it was a condescension, an in
clination towards nothing, and therefore an abase
ment. Especially in decreeing the Incarnation did
this humility become apparent. Undoubtedly
again it was love that prompted it, but a love
which, as St. Bernard says, makes majesty give
way; a love which is humble, and therefore, it is
indeed humility, and profound humility. Tu non
abhorruisti Virginis uterum. "Thou hast not ab
horred the Virgin's womb." That womb was all
holy and pure, unstained by sin, but for God to
descend into it was like descending into an abyss
of infinite depth. Think of the pure God putting
on a human form and, consequently, assuming an
animal nature, not for a day, not only for thirty-
three years, but for endless ages : think of His de
creeing from all eternity that in time He would
unite to Himself personally a material nature, and
consequently, in that nature be forever after be
neath His own millions and millions of angels.
And this is not yet all ; think of His decreeing from
all eternity, that He Himself would take upon
Himself the sins of mankind, that He would be

"The Word Was Made Flesh:' 59

their victim and their ransom, that He would be
the despised and the most abject of men, as it were,
a worm trodden under foot. If we think of all
this, and consider that God as God from all eter
nity conceived and willed and in time, as man, ac
complished all these things, must we not say that
of all beings He is the one who abases Himself
most consummately and most willingly, and is
therefore most humble? And that humility, that
willingness to be abased sprang from love. For,
what is love? It is something more than mere
complacency and affection. St. Francis de Sales
explains its nature in his beautiful treatise on the
love of God. He says that complacency is a sort
of satisfaction which the heart experiences at the
view of goodness, that affection is a tender senti
ment which dwells with pleasure upon an object,
but that love is a movement forward, an effusion
and an impulse of the heart towards the object of
its predilection. Love therefore of its own nature
tends to union, it breaks down all barriers, it bends
towards the object loved, "it unites, collects, assem
bles and compresses all things, reducing them to
unity." God's love for man sought therefore for
union with man, and by means of this union, it

60 "The Word Was Made Flesh."

sought to communicate itself to man. Now, there
is no connection known to us which could be formed
with man so close and intimate as this alliance of
God with man in becoming man Himself. And to
this unparalleled union God's love impelled Him.
It was an awe-inspiring humiliation, as we have
just seen : but God loved us and He became incar
nate; His Incarnation proves therefore, that He
loves us with a love which is humble even to the
lowest degree of self-abasement.

We have now seen God's love, all generous and
humble, in the mystery of the Incarnation. "I
have given you an example, that as I have done to
you, so you do also." We should imitate this
generous and humble love of the Sacred Heart.
We should be generous with God, by the practice
of self-forgetfulness, self-sacrifice, self-abandon
ment ; we should be humble by loving a hidden life,
by being silent when blamed, by avoiding praise
and seeking what is lowly in the estimation of the
world. Love will make all things easy. "O Lord !
make me love Thee, then do with me what Thou
wilt 1 O would that I could die for love of Thee,
who hast deigned to die for love of me!"

SEVENTH CONFERENCE.
THY EXCEEDING GREAT REWARD/'

E have studied the divine, uncreated love of
the Sacred Heart as manifested in the Cre
ation and the Incarnation. We will now consider
it as shown in heaven in the rewards of the just.
It is true, the magnitude of those rewards is be
yond all conception; "Eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man
what things God hath prepared for those that love
Him." Still, theology teaches us something con
cerning the joy of the elect in heaven, and though
that knowledge be meagre, obscure and incapable
of being fully realized, it is sufficient to inflame our
hearts with holy desires, and to give us another
glimpse of the fathomless abyss of God's love for
man.

The essential happiness of heaven consists in
what is called the Beatific Vision. The word bea
tific comes from two Latin words, which mean to

61

62 "Thy Exceeding Great Reward"

make happy. The Beatific Vision, therefore, is a
vision, a sight which makes one happy. That
vision is the vision of God. No creature, not even
an angel, can by its natural powers see God. God
is a spirit whose substance is so pure, so simple, so
immaterial, that no created spirit can behold Him.
"He dwelleth in light inaccessible." The angels
can see and converse with one another, and when
our souls are separated from our bodies, we also
shall be able to see the angels and kindred spirits :
but of our own unassisted natural powers, we can
never behold the Spirit of God. To see God, a
new supernatural, intellectual power must be in
fused into our soul; our mind must be supernatur-
ally elevated and expanded, since new power must
be added to our intellect : that enlightenment, that
elevation, that expansive power which is what is
called "lumen gloriae, the light of glory." Conse
quently, when a soul crosses the threshold of hea
ven, this light of glory envelops it, as it were,
round about; it penetrates the soul through and
through, it elevates and expands the intellect com
municating to it the divine power of seeing God.
In lumlne tuo videbimus lumen. "In Thy light we
shall see the Light." The soul looks upon God

"Thy Exceeding Great Reward!' 63

face to face as He is ! It sees the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost with the eye of the intellect,
infinitely more clearly than we see with the eye of
our body the material universe around us. It be
holds the Unity and the Trinity of God, yet does
not comprehend Him; it beholds the Father en
gendering the Son, and the Holy Ghost proceeding
from both, yet it does not understand. It sees His
goodness, His omnipotence, His justice, His mercy,
His infinite beauty and holiness, the interminable,
incomprehensible oceans of His perfections, it' con
templates all before it, — oceans of joy, of peace, of
tenderness and love. It sees too, how God has
loved from all eternity, how wonderfully His
Providence has directed all with wisdom and power
to their appointed end, how He blessed us when
He made us endure this sorrow and loaded us
down with that cross, it sees the Father, the Son
and the Holy Ghost bending in love towards it,
and ready to clasp it eternally to His bosom.
What is the immediate consequence of this vision?
When the soul thus sees God in His divine beauty,
goodness, and unspeakable love for it, it loves Him
with all the power of its being. It cannot help it
self. It is set on fire with a seraphic love ; it loves

64 "Thy Exceeding Great Reward"

Him unselfishly, supremely, above all things.
Feeling this intense love for Him, seeing at the
same time this mysterious love of God for it, and
knowing that it shall now possess Him forever, a
new, ineffable joy takes possession of it, and thrills
through its every fibre. That joy, that bliss cannot
be described; eye hath not seen it, ear hath not
heard it, neither hath it entered into the heart of
man : it constitutes the essential happiness of
heaven.

We must, however, guard against one error,
which is very apt to creep into our minds when
meditating upon the happiness of seeing God. And
it is an error very common even among holy per
sons. We must not imagine that the sight of God
will so absorb our minds as to make us motionless
and inactive like statues, or that our happiness will
be so exclusively complete, as to make us insensi
ble to every other joy. This is certainly a mistake.
It is true, the essential happiness of heaven con
sists in the vision of God; still the Beatific Vision
will not destroy our nature. We are naturally
active, we shall be supremely so in heaven. Man
is not an angel, he is not complete unless he has a
body with its senses. The resurrection of our body

"Thy Exceeding Great Reward/' 65

shall therefore increase our happiness; all the nat
ural senses shall be gratified; we shall enjoy, for
instance, the charms of heavenly music. And there
shall be social joys in heaven. We shall know one
another there. We shall take with us our natural
love for relatives and friends, stripped of every
thing that was inordinate and imperfect. It may
sound strange, yet the Angel of the Schools, St.
Thomas, teaches that even in heaven we shall have
our preferences as we have them on earth. Yes,
in heaven, where all is order, harmony, sanctity,
stability and love, even in heaven, I say, those
whom we shall have loved here on earth by reason
of nature or grace, we shall love for the same rea
sons still, and incomparably more than we loved
them on earth, and the love we shall feel for them,
will be more tender, more intense, than that we
feel for others, though we should see the latter to
be as holy as the seraphim, and as beautiful as the
archangels. For God is the author of nature as
well as of grace, and grace never destroys, it only
elevates and perfects nature.

We have seen so far that the essential happiness
of heaven consists in the Beatific Vision, i. e., in see
ing, loving and enjoying God. The souls who al-

66 "Thy Exceeding Great Reward"

ready enjoy the Beatific Vision, are consequently
happy beyond expression: still as long as they are
separated from their bodies their happiness is not
yet complete. Then only will their bliss be entire
and perfect, when they are reunited to their risen
bodies. I do not mean to say, that the least shadow
of sadness or discontent rests upon the blessed;
they know that new joys are in store for them, and
they desire those joys only inasmuch as God wills
them : but they desire them, because human nature
requires and springs from the union of body and
soul. And will these our bodies be changed?
Will our bodies become worthy temples of our
transformed and beautiful souls? Yes; St. Paul
says explicitly: "It is sown in corruption, it shall
rise in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it shall
rise in glory. It is sown in weakness, it shall
rise in power. It is sown a natural body, it shall
rise a spiritual body" (i. Cor. xv). First, "It
is sown in corruption, it shall rise in incorruption."
That is to say, our bodies at present are corruptible
by their very nature, and because corruptible, they
have an inexpressible capacity for suffering. Every
organ, every member, every nerve of our frame is
susceptible of veritable torture. And bodily pain

"Thy Exceeding Great Reward." 67

can be so great as to drive us to distraction. But
these, our bodies which are sown in corruption,
shall rise in incorruption. They shall be no longer
subject to sickness and infirmity. There shall be
no more disease, no more pain or anguish; no
more shall the eyes weep tears of grief. Every
sense shall become the source of an abundant, ever-
new, and never-dying joy. This first gift is called
the gift of impassibility. St. Paul continues: "It
is sown in dishonor, it shall rise in glory." Yes,
our bodies are sown in dishonor; like seed they are
cast into the earth, and become the prey of corrup
tion and worms. Our dearest friends turn away
with disgust from that which is but a mass of
putrefaction. But these same bodies shall rise in
glory. That word glory, in Holy Scripture, means
first, perfect beauty and symmetry of form, and
secondly, a radiant brilliancy. Our bodies in heaven
shall possess both this beauty and brilliancy.
The body on earth may have been disfigured by
birth, infirmity or accident ; it may have been shriv
elled with old age, or by sin it may have lost its
youthful bloom: but in heaven, all these defects
and blemishes of the body shall disappear. It shall
be a masterpiece of God's wisdom and power.

68 "Thy Exceeding Great Reward."

Every member, organ and feature shall be exqui
sitely shaped and proportioned, without defect or
imperfection of any kind, with all the loveliness and
bloom of youth. The body will also shine with a
brilliancy before which all the radiance of a
midday sun shall pale, yet with a bril
liancy that gladdens, soothes and softens as the
light of precious stones. This gift is called the gift
of glory. Let us follow St. Paul's revealed words.
Thirdly, "It is sown in weakness, it shall rise in
power." The soul has not at present perfect con
trol over the body: the spirit is willing, but the
flesh is weak. The soul cannot go where it will,
walls and doors impede its desires. The body is a
thick, heavy, unwieldy mass of clay, — it is an obsta
cle to the soul's will. But the body sown in weak
ness, shall rise in power. Walls and doors, slabs
and seals, shall no longer be able to impede its
course ; it shall run and not be weary, it shall move
as if it had the wings of eagles, with such rapidity
that its time cannot be noted, with lightning speed,
it shall pass from place to place. This third gift
is called the gift of agility. Finally, in the fourth
place : "It is sown a natural body, it shall rise a spir
itual body." St. Paul does not mean to say that

"Thy Exceeding Great Reward." 69

our bodies are to be changed into spirits; but this,
— that our bodies, though remaining material,
shall be clothed with certain properties belonging
naturally to spirits. A spirit needs not food, drink
or sleep, nor shall our risen bodies need these
things. The sense of taste shall be eminently grati
fied, but not in the carnal way of eating and drink
ing. A spirit is invisible, in like manner a glorified
body is visible or invisible as the soul wills. A
spirit is by nature simple; the body shall lose its
coarseness of texture, and become so refined and
delicately organized as to approach the nature of a
spirit. A spirit is immortal ; the body likewise shall
be immortal; it shall never again feel the sting of
death, never again shall it be the victim of the
grave. Finally, a spirit cannot become the slave of
animal passion; the body also shall be emancipated
from the law of sin which is now in its members.
It shall war no longer against the spirit, it shall no
longer burn with the impure flame of concupiscence,
it shall, in a word, be totally subject to the spirit:
in consequence, no more temptations, no more dan
gers, no more struggles, no more inordinate crav
ings after forbidden pleasure. This fourth gift is
called the gift of spirituality.

70 "Thy Exceeding Great Reward"

No wonder St. Paul said so powerfully: "That
which is at present momentary and light of our
tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceed
ingly an eternal weight of glory." Behold the love
of God, the uncreated love of the Sacred Heart for
man! O Mary, Queen of heaven and Mother of
beautiful love, obtain for us the grace of reaching
heaven, that home of never-ending happiness and
lovel

EIGHTH CONFERENCE.
"HE DWELT AMONG US."

' I ""HERE being in Christ two complete natures,
the divine and the human, there must also be
in Him two distinct and complete operations: He
must have divine thoughts and human thoughts,
divine inclinations and human inclinations, divine
love and human love. Having studied His divine,
uncreated love as manifested in Creation, in the In
carnation and in Heaven, there remains for us to
consider His human and created love.

According to a general opinion, from the first
moment of His conception in the womb of His
Mother, our Lord had the full use of all the facul
ties of His human soul. His human intellect, as
we have already seen, was from its creation, gifted
with infused science, and since love follows knowl
edge, His human will was also from its creation
glowing with human love. This human love mani-

71

72 nHe Dwelt Among Us."

fested itself in many ways, and first of all, in our
Lord's private life.

In the created love of the Sacred Heart as mani
fested in the private life of Christ, the first trait
that impresses us, is His Poverty. He made Him
self poor because He loved the poor and desired
their love. Real poverty is indeed hard to bear.
The poor man often wants bread to sustain him,
clothing to cover him, fire to warm him, a time of
relaxation in his fatigues, a physician and remedies
in his sickness. He has no choice, — he takes what
is given to him. His life is a laborious, rough and
troubled one. From early dawn till late into the
night he must pursue his painful task. He does
not regard weariness and discomfort, if only he
can obtain work. He does not rest when he is
weak; he does not complain when his hands are
toil-worn and the heat is almost overpowering
him ; he does not seek repose as long as he can earn
even a scanty pittance. He is satisfied with a hard
bed, coarse clothing, poor food. He does not
think of murmuring or seeking sympathy. Nor is
he less patient in suffering and sickness. He is
content with little ; he does not ask for any special
attention: and when he is left alone through the

"He Dwelt Among Us" 73

weary night, he utters no complaint, — when but a
word of consolation is spoken to him, his heart
wells up, and his eyes fill with glistening tears of
gratitude. Such is veritable poverty: and such
was the portion our Lord took for Himself on
earth. The whole world was obliged to acknowl
edge Him as its true proprietor, its Creator, its
God: all joy, all delight, all honor and beauty
could have been His : but He renounced all to win
the poor man's love. His parents were poor, and
He was born poor, not even in an ordinary dwell
ing house, but in a deserted stable, His cradle was a
manger; the breath of animals, the fire to warm
Him ; He was satisfied with the stall of the ox and
the ass. Like a hunted beast of prey He fled into
Egypt, and there in exile He was poor. He re
mained poor in Nazareth. He grew up a poor
carpenter's son. On His youthful shoulders He
carried the timber to build for His own creatures ;
till the age of thirty He labored in the sweat of His
brow with the square, the hammer and the saw.
Later on, He continued to live among the poor and
was indeed the lowliest among them. He who fed
the birds, suffered from hunger. He who created
the sun, endured the cold. He who found a hole

74 "He Dwelt Among Us."

for every fox of the field, had not whereon to rest
His head. He who clad kings with purple, wore
all His life the woolen garment woven by His
Mother's hands. He who possessed all things had
not a coin wherewith to pay the tribute. Deprived
of all, naked and bleeding away His last blood on
the cross, He was forced to cry out : "My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" It was in this
way our Lord strove to win the hearts of men ! and
why? Because He loved them: love seeks to be
loved.

But there was another way by which He sought
to draw all to Himself. In every sin there is pride,
for in every sin there is rebellion of proud self
against the will of God. Christ became man to
destroy the reign of sin by being obedient to His
Father even unto the death of the cross. Obedi
ence is a death-blow to pride. Christ came, then,
to teach men obedience. But how did He impart
the lesson? Not only by fulfilling the commands
of His heavenly Father and drinking the chalice of
the Passion to its bitterest dregs ! His Heart was
too full of love for men, to be satisfied with that.
He went further: He took no thought of the pro
found humiliation it was to cost Him ; He was de-

"He Dwelt Among Us" 75

termined in His love to give them an example
which would break down every pretext of pride
and consequent insubordination. What course did
He pursue? Of the thirty-three years He spent on
earth, He lived thirty in complete subjection to the
will of His creatures. Try to fathom those mys
terious depths of humiliation, — they were dug by
love. uHe was subject to them I" He was their
God and Creator and Lord, yet He was subject to
them. In Him were all the depth and riches of the
knowledge and wisdom of God, yet, when they
commanded, He was subject to them. It was He
who framed the laws of the universe and who
marked the courses the stars are traveling, yet He
listened to the orders of His creatures, and was
subject to them. His hand it was that held them up
and preserved them, His bounty it was that gave
to them the light of understanding, and the power
of speech; yet their directions were for Him a
law, He was subject to them. Mary and Joseph
knew that He was God, and that all wisdom was in
Him. A trial indeed then it was to be obliged
to command. Still such was their Child's will.
They must command, for He would obey. His
Mother called Him hither and He came; she di-

76 "He Dwelt Among Us"

rected Him to go thither and He went. His fos
ter-father bade Him carry this plank and He car
ried it, — to saw or fasten those joists of timber,
and He obeyed. He was subject to them! And
not only was He subject to Mary and Joseph, but
to all men. He with St. Joseph hired Himself out
to His creatures. He built them houses and made
them furniture; He asked for their directions and
followed them ; He received their advice, even their
reproofs ; no work was too menial for Him ! He
was but the carpenter's son, men engaged Him as
such, and He was subject to them! Whose heart
is not touched when meditating on this mystery of
our Lord's obedience? Remember it was all
prompted by love; His Heart was consumed with
love for man, and nothing is too difficult or humili
ating for love.

By His voluntary poverty Jesus wins our com
passion; by His obedience He gains our admira
tion. But love is excited by beauty, — beauty of
body, of soul, of character; for beauty is a certain
aspect of goodness. In its root, only the good is
beautiful; for beauty arises from order, harmony,
due arrangement and subjection, and that is good
ness. Now, our Lord came to win the hearts of

"He Dwelt Among Us." 77

men, and therefore He made Himself beautiful.
He took to Himself, not only the infirmities of
human nature, but also its goodness ; He was phys
ically and spiritually "the most beautiful of the
children of men." His humanity was a lattice
through which His divinity appeared. I know
some authors have doubted the physical beauty of
our Lord, and have fancied that there was nothing
extraordinary in His appearance, that He looked
like any ordinary mortal. This, however, cannot
be. A perfect soul requires a fitting instrument to
actuate it, that is, a perfect body; the more tender
and fine the fibre, muscle and nerve, the more
sensitive also is the human being to shame, the
more deeply does he feel degradation or dishonor.
Our Lord's body must consequently have been per
fect in form and symmetry, and a mirror of the
soul within. But our Lord's beauty was especially
and principally spiritual. Beauty of body becomes
repulsive when it cloaks a wicked soul. Christ's
outward beauty all came from within. His beauty
was too pure and holy to be equally appreciated
by all. What Jesus was in the sight of His
Mother, He was not in the sight of any other;
what He was for His Apostles and intimate

78 "He Dwelt Among Us."

friends, He was not for strangers; what He was
for the just, the pure, the humble, the faithful, He
was not for the unjust, the immodest, the proud
and the unbelieving. Still, His character was
so grand, and yet so beautifully human, that in
every age it attracts and subdues the hearts
of men. Holy Scripture indicates this when it tells
us, that He grew in grace and loveliness before
God and man. Children pressed around Him on
the streets and gathered on His knees, for He was
innocent and mild like them. Multitudes paused
to look upon Him, as He passed ; when He spoke,
though His words were often severe, men felt
strangely stirred and hung entranced upon His
lips, and the thought entered the hearts of the
women in Israel, "How happy to be the mother of
such a Son I" Yes, He took to Himself our nature
with all its littleness and lowliness so far as they
are innocent; He was one like ourselves, a man of
sorrows and acquainted with infirmity; yet His
sacred character even at this distant day appears so
beautiful and excellent, that it captivates all hearts
and causes even professed infidels in unguarded
moments, to confess that He was Divine.

One day we shall see Him. We shall con-

"He Dwelt Among Us" 79

template His holy feet, His gentle hands, His sa
cred lips, His noble brow. We shall look into His
blessed countenance, His loving eyes, His opened
side. We shall rest our heads upon His bosom
and listen to the beatings of His tender Heart.
"Dearly beloved, we know that v/hen He shall ap
pear, we shall be like to Him : because we shall see
Him as He is!" God grant it!

NINTH CONFERENCE.^
'I HAVE GIVEN YOU AN EXAMPLE."

TN our last conference we studied the human love
which our Lord showed for man in His private
life. We saw it manifesting itself in voluntary
poverty, in obedience to creatures, and in attract
iveness and grace of person and character. The
next subject that presents itself is the love of our
Lord as displayed in His public life until the hour
which ushered in His dolorous Passion. From His
birth in the stable until He reached the age of
thirty, we know very little of our Saviour, but these
years of His public life are more fully described by
the Evangelists, and therefore reveal to us more
of the wonderful and inexhaustible love that was
contained in His Sacred Heart for man.

Our Lord exhibited His love for men by reliev
ing their temporal ills and sufferings. He healed
the sick, raised the dead, restored the blind, cured
the maimed, and spoke words of comfort to the

81

82 "I Have Given You an Example."

afflicted. None ever asked in vain of the Divine
Physician. All that came to Him were relieved,
without respect of name or degree. Even though
He knew they would prove ungrateful and abuse
His goodness, His Heart was never insensible to
their misery. Still, it was not the intention of our
Lord to remove all temporal suffering from the
world : hence, we cannot very well measure the full
depth of His tenderness by the assistance which He
rendered to the poor and afflicted. If we would
understand the intensity and magnitude of His love
we must study earnestly His zeal for the salvation
of souls. The more ardent that zeal, the more ar
dent must be His love; for zeal is nothing else
than an eagerness to benefit the one loved. Since
it would have been conflicting with the plans of
Divine Providence to remove from mankind all
temporal and bodily evils and other consequences
of sin, the immense love that was throbbing in the
Sacred Heart for men induced our Lord to pursue
principally the eternal interests of their souls.

Now, who is there that does not admire the zeal
of our Saviour for the salvation of souls ? Does not
every line written by the four Evangelists bear wit
ness to that zeal ? Follow Jesus through the three

'7 Have Given You an Example." 83

years preceding His Passion. He was never at
rest. Rarely do we read of His having allowed
Himself a brief repose. By day He journeyed
from city to city, from hamlet to hamlet. In that
period there were no railroads to lend speed to the
traveler, and our Lord was too poor to have a
conveyance of His own. He walked over the dusty
roads and scaled the stony hills, only light sandals,
if any, covering the soles of His feet. When He
had traveled all day in the heat of the sun, and
at dusk had reached the neighboring village, hun
gry and spent with fatigue, it was His practice to
go up into the synagogue of the place and there
preach to the people. And at night He would
again leave the town and retire to some solitary
place, a mountain, a grotto, a garden or lake, and
there pass whole hours, frequently whole nights,
in prayer. During these three years of His public
life, there was not a village or hamlet of Judea and
Galilee, that did not receive the sublime lessons He
came to teach. Wherever the people assembled,
there He was found eager to dispense to them the
bread of heavenly truth. In the public markets,
on hills and mountains, in the open fields and mea
dows, out in the desert, on the roadside, from a

84 "/ Have Given You an Example"

skiff floating on the lake, on the banks of the river,
beside the well or at the gates of the city — every
where He taught the people; and when He had
thus instructed men in public, He did not weary
repeating and developing His doctrines in private.
Besides all this, He had no preferences; or if any,
they were for the ignorant, the poor, and for chil
dren. He visits the rich and the poor, the master
and the servant; He teaches the just and the sinner,
the learned and the illiterate, the high and the
low, — with equal zeal He labors to enlighten one
or many. Whether three thousand or five thou
sand are hanging upon every word of His lips, or
He is speaking to a few eager to ensnare Him in
His words, He is ever the same zealous teacher.
Mark the simplicity of His teachings. He could
have thrilled the world with His eloquence and wis
dom ; but no, He spoke to the people in their own
language, made use of homely similes, and clothed
His heavenly doctrines in parables taken from
every-day life. The lily of the field, the sparrow,
the grass in the meadow, the mustard-seed, the
birds of the air, the lost sheep, the lost drachm,
the lamp, the kingdom, the vine, the city, tKe net
cast into the sea, the fig-tree, — in a word, whatever

"I Have Given You an Example" 85

was apt to enlighten His hearers and touch their
hearts, He employed as a means to illustrate the
truth. And see with what patience He labored!
We are sometimes amazed at the ignorance, the
dullness, I had almost said, the stupidity of the
apostles. It mattered not how lengthily and how
clearly He had spoken, they frequently failed to
grasp His meaning; they returned to Him again
and again with the simplest questions. For exam
ple, how often our divine Lord had referred to His
Passion and especially to His Resurrection, — yet
He was never understood by them. Only after His
Resurrection did they remember what He had so
often and so clearly indicated in His touching dis
courses. Then again, they were so stubborn, so
rude, and above all, so little-minded; even with the
great example of our Lord before their eyes, they
were frequently jealous of one another, quarreling
among themselves who was to have the first place
in His kingdom. Yet Jesus bore with all their
weakness; He repeated His instructions, He acted
towards them as if they were His masters, and He
their servant; He knelt down before Peter who was
soon to deny Him; He washed the feet of Judas
who had already betrayed Him. And just here we

86 "I Have Given You an Example."

find that His zeal was not only ardent, but gentle
and compassionate, and therefore could not spring
but from a love strong and deep and tender as a
mother's love. Zeal is naturally ardent and passion
ate ; it is very apt to become harsh and exacting, and
when it does not spring from a deep love, it is
rigorous in judging, it grows angry at sin, and
strikes against obstacles in its way. Such was the
zeal of St. James and St. John when they were yet
young in the spiritual life, and wished our Lord
to rain down fire upon those who did not listen to
His teaching. But such was not the spirit of our
Lord : His zeal was as humble and patient and kind
as it was ardent and exalted. When they accused
Him of being the Friend of sinners, and by His
leniency of encouraging sin, He answered: "I have
not come to call the just, but sinners. It is not the
healthy, it is the sick that need a physician.'1 When
they reproached Him with not obliging His apos
tles to fast, He replied: "Can the children of the
bridegroom mourn while the bridegroom is with
them? But the days will come when the bride
groom shall be taken away from them, (namely,
when the apostles were strengthened in faith and
virtue) ; and then they shall fast." When the

"I Have Given You an Example." 87

Pharisees were shocked at His eating with sinners,
He related to them the touching parable of the
Prodigal Son, and of the Good Shepherd who left
the ninety-nine in the desert and sought after the
poor lost sheep until he had found it — "I came
not to execute justice, but to grant mercy!" One
day, a poor creature taken in adultery was brought
to Him. According to the Jewish law, one sinning
thus was to be stoned to death. The Scribes and
Pharisees accused her before Him who is sanctity
itself. He said nothing, but bending over, He
wrote with His finger in the sand. They would
not, however, be put off. They repeated their
question, — what was to be done with her? He
rose and said: "He that is without sin, let him cast
the first stone." Tradition has it, that one hoary-
headed hypocrite seized a rock to fling at the cul
prit, but Jesus looked up, then traced a sin of the
wretch upon the ground. Terrified, the man fled.
Another, more daring, it is said, was about to cast
a stone, but the glance of Jesus and the mysterious
writing in the sand caused the missile to fall from
his sin-stained hands. At last the guilty woman
was alone with her Saviour. Looking upon her, He
asked: "Where are they that accused thee? Hath

88 "I Have Given You an Example."

no man condemned thee?" Trembling, she said:
uNo man, Lord." And Jesus answered: "Neither
will I condemn thee. Go and sin no more." Truly,
our Lord had reason to say : UI came not to execute
justice, but to grant mercy." Another illustration.
— Nothing shows more clearly the tender, human
zeal and, in consequence, the human love of our
Lord, than His conduct towards Judas Iscariot.
He had called him to the Apostolate ; had sent him
out to preach ; had given him the power of working
miracles; had allowed him to listen to His intimate
instructions and to share in all those marks of holy
friendship bestowed upon the other apostles. He
had even showed him a certain preference, a special
confidence, in making him the treasurer of their lit
tle society. Judas, however, was preparing to be
tray his Lord. Jesus knew this. His heart was
full of pity for His faithless disciple. He essayed
to save the wretch by signifying that He knew of
the meditated crime : "One of you is about to be
tray me!" But Judas was not moved; he even
dared ask: "Is it I, Lord?" Jesus tried again; He
knelt down before the perfidious one, His grace
spoke to that hardened heart while He silently
washed the traitor's feet. But Judas was unmoved.

"I Have Given You an Example" 89

They sat at table: Jesus instituted the Eucharist,
He ordained Judas priest with the rest of the apos
tles, and, to screen the ingrate, even gave him the
Sacred Bread of life. But Judas was not yet
moved. They arose, and were about to leave for
the garden on the mountain-side. Jesus turned
again to Judas and, to convince him that his heart
was known to his God, bade him do quickly what
he intended, but in words that the other apostles
could not understand. That night Judas entered
the garden with the band of soldiers. He ap
proached our Lord, Goodness and Sanctity them
selves, and, embracing Him, pressed his foul lips to
the cheek of the Holy One. The Heart of Jesus,
how it must have bled ! He knew that all would be
in vain; still love, though despairing, makes efforts
to win the object beloved. "Friend," He said,
"dost thou betray the Son of man with a kiss?"

O ! pray that such zeal and love may reign in the
hearts of the priests of the Church, and in the
hearts of all those who spiritually or corporally
continue Christ's mission on earth. "Behold the
harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He
send forth laborers into His harvest."

TENTH CONFERENCE.
HE LOVED THEM UNTO THE END."

have dwelt with adoring wonder upon the
scenes glowing with the manifestations of
Christ's love in His hidden life, and again in that
after-life, when He became a teacher in Israel. Let
us now follow His steps through the scenes of His
Passion, and see how Love can die to win for man
eternal life. We know that God was not obliged
to redeem the world; much less was He bound to
pass through all those exquisite sufferings which
He in reality did endure. It is true, the insult con
tained in mortal sin is infinite. Were all men to
shed their blood, it could not atone for one mortal
sin. Whatever be the extent of its sufferings,
neither man, nor angel, nor any other creature can
give adequate satisfaction to an offended God. But
our Lord is more than a creature. Having united
to His divine Person a human nature, — everything
He does or endures in His human nature is divine,

92 "He Loved Them Unto the End"

and therefore gives infinite satisfaction, and has
infinite merit. Hence, one short prayer uttered by
the human lips of Jesus, one breath, one thought,
one sigh, one tear, one tiny drop of blood would
have been infinitely pleasing in the sight of His
Father and would have been sufficient to redeem
millions of sinful worlds like the one we inhabit.
But love is not selfish, — it knows no measure ; our
Lord hungered for sufferings. "I lay down My
life for My sheep — no man taketh it away: but I
lay it down of Myself, and I have power to lay it
down, and I have power to take it up again." Why,
we ask, did our Lord wish to suffer and die? why
did He permit such torrents of pain to overwhelm
His soul? Naturally He was averse to suffering.
What then was the motive ? Love, infinite love for
man. The boundless love of the Sacred Heart
made Jesus thirst for our love, and desire to be bap
tized in His own blood, that by so doing He might
excite us to love. "I am come to cast fire on the
earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?" And,
"I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptized;
and how am I straitened, until it be accomplished."
For love is what is called ecstatic, — that is to say,
it goes out beyond itself. It diffuses and overflows.

"He Loved Them Unto the End." 93

It does not only what is sufficient; it passes on to
the excessive.

Our Lord then suffered, first of all, in His body.
The body of Christ was perfect beyond all the
bodies of men ; for had there been any imperfection
in it, it would have been due, as St. Thomas says,
either to the maker or to the material. But the
maker, the miraculous maker was God Himself.
He formed it, He fashioned it, all alone. And the
material was the pure, immaculate heart's blood
of the Blessed Virgin. It was then perfect and
beautiful beyond conception. But the more per
fect a body, the finer its organization, and the more
delicate its fibre, muscle and nerve, the more sensi
tive is that body to pain. Our Lord's body was
therefore tremblingly alive to suffering. See now,
how He permitted His body to be treated. "From
the crown of His head to the sole of His foot,
there is no soundness in Him, there are wounds and
bruises, and swelling sores." Ecce Homo, — "Be
hold the Man." Behold Him at the pillar, bound
like a criminal, to the whipping-post, and the cords
cutting into His wrists and ankles. Hark to the
cutting lashes of the whips! They raise the pur
ple welts, they tear gashes into His virginal flesh,

94 "He Loved Them Unto the End"

they make streams of blood run down His sacred
body. He sinks exhausted, His knees give way
beneath Him, and He hangs by the cords appar
ently lifeless to a felon's pillar of shame. They
cut the bands and seat Him upon a mock throne,
they scoff at Him and put a robe of purple about
His bleeding shoulders. Then, plaiting rude
thorns into a crown, they place them on His fore
head and force them in with the blows of a reed.
And the sharp thorns pierce that fair and majestic
brow, and the crimson drops ooze out beneath
them, and the silent tears mingle with the blood
that flows down His cheeks and blinds His loving
eyes. Surely, malice has now spent itself. — But
no — they hurry Him through the streets to Mt.
Calvary, they nail His hands and feet to the cross,
they hoist it into the air, they pull and push it into
the hole prepared for it, — it is fixed, and on it
hangs the mangled, dying Saviour of the world. "I
am a worm and no man, the reproach of men and
the outcast of the people. . . . They have dug
My hands and feet; they have numbered all My
bones. " Truly, He had a baptism, wherewith He
was baptized: He was baptized in His own blood.
He also suffered in His soul, and far more in-

"He Loved Them Unto the End." 95

tensely than in His body. Interior sufferings arise
chiefly from dishonor, ingratitude, and abandon
ment: our Lord suffered from all these sources.
First, from dishonor. To a high, noble-minded
soul dishonor is more than death: and Jesus per
mitted Himself to become the reproach of men and
the outcast of the people. During the three years
of His public life, He had gained the hearts of
the Jewish multitude. His miracles had won for
Him respect and veneration as a prophet and mes
senger of God. Throngs were ever following, in
love and awe, His footsteps. His power had never
yet been known to fail ; His bitterest enemies could
justly impute no fault to Him, His sanctity was
acknowledged everywhere, His wisdom respected
and men were disposed to look upon Him as the
Messiah and one of the sons of God. All at once
a revulsion took place. He was captured and
bound, He appeared wholly unable to defend Him
self. He was ignominiously treated, buffeted, even
spit upon. He seemed powerless before the storm.
He was accused of being a blasphemer, a glutton,
an impostor, a seducer of the people, and He said
not a word in His defense. Even when they
treated Him as a fool and mocked Him publicly in

96 "He Loved Them Unto the End"

the streets He opened not His mouth. He was led
as a lamb to the slaughter. He bore his own
cross, no angel was permitted to share His weary
burden. He suffered an agony as ordinary mor
tals do. Angry voices asked: "If He is so wise,
so great, so holy, why does not Heaven help Him?
Behold how He bleeds, how He suffers, how He
dies!" And men turned away from Him, mock
ing and deriding Him, and laughing at their for
mer fears. Truly could He say : "I am a worm and
no man!"

He suffered from ingratitude. Ingratitude cuts
like a two-edged sword into the heart, and if there
ever was a human heart lacerated by an ungrateful
world, it was the Heart of "the Man of Sorrows."
Think of the countless deeds of love He had
wrought for that people, — how He had instructed
them day after day, and night after night; how
He had healed their afflicted and raised their dead,
how He had multiplied His miracles and revealed
to them the brightness of His divine sanctity, yet,
like fiends, they cry: "Crucify Him, crucify Him!
We do not wish Him for our king. His blood
be upon us; nail Him to the cross." Think of the
traitor Judas ! How Jesus Christ had loved him ;

•••'• M' '-o " u#"

Oj yiiUf W^<jw..i

"#> Lo?W Them Unto the End" 97

and still this villainous apostate barters away his
God and Master for thirty pieces of silver. Again,
Simon Peter, whom our Lord had chosen as the
Head of His Church, whom Fie had instructed
more carefully than the rest, whom He had warned
and for whom He had prayed, whom He had just
ordained a priest, whom He had united to Him
self at the mystical supper of the Eucharist, — Si
mon Peter denies His Master at the word of a
weak servant-girl. And oh! what sources of grief
overwhelmed Him at thought of those innumerable
souls who will damn themselves knowingly and
freely, thoughtless of all that their Redeemer has
suffered. Hanging on the cross between heaven
and earth, with all the agony of death upon Him,
Jesus looks out into the future and sees their guilty
souls. How His Heart must have sunk with an
guish at the sight of the generations of men, who,
heedless of all that He had done, and of all that
He had suffered, would yet trample upon His
blood and fix their destiny in hell. What marvel,
that in the Garden of Gethsemane, blood oozed in
agony from His every pore !

Finally, He suffered from abandonment. Lis
ten to His cry. He had given up all He had.

98 "He Loved Them Unto the End"

His reputation was gone. His disciples had left
Him. His Mother was there, but He had con
signed her to St. John, to be the Mother of men.
One consolation seemed to be left for Him in the
extreme agony which He was enduring, viz. : the
thought that He was pleasing to His Father, and
that His Father was with Him. But no, even of
that joy, even of that one consolation He deprived
Himself. See Him on the cross; He lifts up His
head, the drooping eyes are cast to heaven, an
expression of intense agony passes over His dying
face, and the quivering, agonized lips cry out:
"My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken
Me?" Poor Jesus ! He holds back every consolation
from His soul; He deluges His broken Heart with
every grief the human heart is capable of knowing,
and then, when He has exhausted the chalice of
suffering, He bows His head and dies with all the
justice of the Father upon Him, as the innocent
victim of a guilty world. What could He have
done that he did not do to prove to us the love of
His Heart? Can we think of so much love and not
love in return? "If any man love not our Lord
Jesus Christ, let him be anathema! The grace of
our Lord Jesus Christ be with you!" Amen.

ELEVENTH CONFERENCE.
THE MEMORIAL.

A CCORDING to Clement XIII., one of the
aims of the devotion to the Sacred Heart is
to inspire us with love for the Blessed Eucharist
by recalling to our minds the unspeakable love
which instituted it. The divine Sacrament of the
Eucharist has been called the last effort of the
boundless love of our Saviour for man. It may be
considered under four heads: first, as a Memorial;
secondly, as a Sacrament; thirdly, as a Sacrifice,
and fourthly, as the Real Presence.

Every tabernacle is surmounted by a cross, be
cause the Blessed Sacrament is a blessed memorial
of our Lord's Passion and death. "As often as ye
shall eat this bread and drink this chalice, ye shall
show forth the death of the Lord until He come."
Why? First, because it was given as a parting
gift on the eve of the passion, and secondly, be-

99

ioo The Memorial.

cause it contains our Lord and perpetuates Him as
the Victim of the Cross.

In the first place it was given as a parting gift.
Let us recall the touching episode of the Last Sup
per. Jesus and His apostles are seated at the table
for the celebration of the Paschal solemnity. It
is the last meal they are to take together, for He
is about to leave them. They have lived in His
company for almost three years. He has been the
kindest of masters and truest of friends, and now
He is to part from them. Their hearts are filled
with sorrow. Our Lord is sorrowful too. He
knows how they will miss Him. He knows their
weakness. "You shall all be scandalized in Me,"
He says to them. Every farewell makes a pathetic
scene. He is going to meet death; to-morrow
evening at the same hour He will be in His grave,
and they will have shamefully forsaken Him;
their head and chief will have even thrice denied
Him. Jesus foresees all this, yet He will not cast
them off. "Having loved His own, He loved them
unto the end." Even in those last hours of His
life, when His soul is sorrowful unto death, He
will give them a token of His undying love. He
will give them a pledge of affection which shall

The Memorial. 101

compel them to remember Him. A death-bed gift
is always a precious gift, more especially if it be a
souvenir to which the heart of the dying one clings,
and around which entwine all the tenderest memo
ries of the dear departed one. What gift will He
bestow in that last hour? The Father had so
loved the world that He gave His only-begotten
Son. What will the Son bequeath to us, — He who
is not only God, but also man, whose kind human
Heart with all its human love is shrinking from
the impending separation, and bleeding to leave
those He loves alone, like poor sheep scattered
without a shepherd? "My delight is to be with
the sons of men!" "O Lord," we may exclaim,
"abide with us. The greatest gift Thou couldst
bestow would be Thy lasting presence in our
midst ! Alas ! that cannot be since Thou art to die
and return to Thy Father. But lo! Thy loving
pledge we hear: T am with you all days, even to
the consummation of ages.' '

Yes, love makes all things possible, — His pres
ence amongst us is indeed the gift He is about to
confer upon His children. He is to die, and yet
to remain living amid these scenes until the end of
time. Listen to His words: "I am the living

102 The Memorial.

Bread that came down from heaven. . . . Who
soever eateth Me, the same shall live by Me. . . .
Take ye and eat, this is My Body. Drink ye all of
this, for this is My Blood." And then He adds:
"Do this; do as you have seen Me do. You also
take bread and wine and consecrate them into My
Flesh and My Blood, and do this in memory of
Me." And, "As often as ye shall eat this bread
and drink this chalice, ye shall show the death of
the Lord till He come!" O Lord, is it possible?
is such Thy dying gift? Ah! yes, we too shall be
Thy guests. Blessed be Thy holy name! This
very morning we have gathered at Thy Banquet.
Thou hast fed us as Thou didst feed Thy apostles
and disciples, and Thou art still as truly, really,
and substantially present here, as Thou wert that
blessed night with Thy chosen ones in Jerusalem's
"upper room."

The Blessed Eucharist is a Memorial because it
is the parting gift of our Lord to the apostles and
to us. But it is also a Memorial because it con
tains our Lord as the Victim of the Cross; it per
petuates Him, as it were, in that state. How does
it do this? We shall have an opportunity of
studying this more profoundly, when later we con-

The Memorial. 103

sider the Blessed Eucharist as a Sacrifice. For the
present, let us dwell upon one or two ways in
which it perpetuates amongst us the Victim of the
Cross. First of all, that Victim was silent. It had
been prophesied of Him: "He shall be dumb as
a lamb before His shearers and He shall not open
His mouth." He was reviled, but He did not
revile; He suffered, but He threatened not; He
was cursed and blasphemed, but He cursed not His
guilty blasphemers. And when He was dead, His
ears did not hear the wails of His Mother and of
the women, His eyes did not see the tears of the
dear ones around Him; a corpse feels not, hears
not, speaks not. Such is the state of our Lord in
the Blessed Sacrament. He speaks not. Of course,
no one doubts that He could speak miraculously,
if He chose, but day and night there reigns per
petual silence in and about His tabernacle. He
never breaks the stillness around His altar throne.
In many a church and chapel He remains a whole
day, sometimes a whole week without receiving the
homage of a single heart, but He utters no com
plaint. In some churches, — let us blush to ac
knowledge it, — He is neglected, His tabernacle is
enveloped in dust, yet no murmur falls from His

IO4 The Memorial.

sacred lips. He sees His children frivolous and
irreverent even during the celebration of the divine
mysteries, still He does not rebuke them. He be
holds some before His very face polluting their
souls with mortal sin, but not a word of indignation
escapes Him. The unworthy communicant ap
proaches, opens his sacrilegious lips, receives Him
and hands Him over to the demons of sin in his
Judas-like soul: but Jesus is silent, except perhaps
for a whisper of reproach breathed to that con
science stained with the infamous crime committed
against His patient, long-suffering Lord. It is
night ; all is peaceful in the church ; the little lamp
alone sends a few trembling rays of light into the
dark aisles. Suddenly the gates of the church are
forced asunder by lawless, ungodly men. The
tabernacle door is ruthlessly opened, the ciborium
seized, and He is made a mockery of, He is cast
upon the floor, He may be trampled upon amid
diabolical laughter, and then He is left alone to be
wept over in anguish by His angels, His priests
and His people : but He is silent, for He is none
other than the Christ who died on Calvary, the
ancient Victim of the Cross.

The Memorial. 105

Again, as man Jesus was, until His Passion, the
most attractive and the most beautiful of the chil
dren of men. But behold Him on the cross, behold
Him dead in the arms of His weeping Mother.
All His beauty has departed, the light has van
ished from His sacred brow. Was ever a body
bruised and rent as His? His face is disfigured
with welts and blots of clotted blood, ashy, pale
and haggard beyond description because of the
terrible agony He has endured. His whole body
is disfigured by cruel blows, by piteous falls, by
lash and scourge, by hunger and thirst, and by
the sharp wind blowing that day over the Mount
of Sacrifice. The words of the Prophet Isaias
have found their fulfillment: "There is no beauty
or comeliness in Him, and we have seen Him, and
there was no sightliness in Him that we should de
sire Him. . . . He was despised and the most
abject of men." Poor outraged Jesus! Now
glance at the Blessed Eucharist and behold Him
there. Where is His beauty? Where His
strength? Where His awful majesty? Where
the splendor of His glory? He is under the
species so small that I carry them daily in my
hand. He is so concealed that He does not show

106 The Memorial.

the form of a human being. At the foot of the
cross in the arms of Mary, we do not see His
divinity, we see at least His body, — mangled, hor
ribly disfigured, it is true, — still it is His body.
But here He cannot be seen at all. We perceive
a little white veil, nothing more. Faith alone has
power to penetrate the folds of that veil. O silent
Dweller of the tabernacle, Thou art indeed a hid
den God, Thou art here, more than ever, the Vic
tim of the Cross!

My dear friends, when we look at the Blessed
Sacrament, let us recall that pathetic word of our
Lord, "Remember Me I" Let us reflect that it is
a Memorial of the greatest sorrow men ever wit
nessed, a Memorial of the greatest pain a creature
on earth ever endured, a Memorial of the tender-
est, most faithful, most unselfish, most heroic love
the world shall ever know — the last gift of a
Heart that fears to be forgotten. Oh, yes ! Lord,
we will remember Thee ! "May my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth, and my hand wither and
rot away, if I should ever forget Thee!"

TWELFTH CONFERENCE.
THE BREAD OF LIFE.

TT is an axiom admitted by all that love ever
tends to union. This springs from the very
nature of love; for love is nothing else than an
effusion and an impulse of the heart by which it
tends to the being loved. We naturally desire to
be with those who are dear to us, and when we
are obliged to separate from them, our inmost
being seems, as it were, torn asunder, and tears in
voluntarily spring to our eyes. And when again
we meet dear friends from whom we have been
long parted, — when a mother, for example, meets
her child who has been far away, does she not
eagerly fly to clasp him to her bosom? Love,
then, essentially tends to union, first of all to a
spiritual union, though of actual presence. Con
sequently, since the Sacred Heart is consuming it
self with love for man, it has devised a means to
be united to man. Oh! how admirable are the

107

io8 The Bread of Life.

artifices of Christ's love ! Behold that union mar
vellously and sweetly effected in the Blessed Sac
rament.

In receiving the Holy Eucharist, Jesus is united
to us. That is the first effect and the first aim of
Holy Communion. And that union is of the
closest possible nature. No earthly alliance is
comparable to it. Men may love one another on
earth, but their souls are ever separated. Heart
cannot melt into heart. But in the Holy Eucha
rist there is nothing, absolutely nothing between
the soul of Jesus and our own : our soul rests on
His. The most intimate material connection
known to us is that existing between us and our
food. It becomes our flesh, our blood, our bone.
It becomes part of the heart with which we love,
and part of the brain with which we think. Simi
larly, in Holy Communion Jesus unites Himself so
intimately to us, that He lives in us and we in
Him: uHe who eateth My flesh and drinketh My
blood, abideth in Me, and I in him." But there
is a vast difference : we absorb our food, it changes
into us. The reverse takes place in Holy Com
munion; here the stronger life absorbs the weak
er, — our being is transformed into His, not His

The Bread of Life. 109

into ours. I do not mean to say, however, that
the substance of our soul is changed into His, but
His life, His spirit, His virtues, His divine in
clinations enter into our souls. "I live by the
Father : he that eateth Me, the same shall also live
by Me." Mark these words, "The same shall
live by Me" ; and these others, "He who eateth My
flesh. . . . abideth, remaineth in Me." These
utterances indicate something more than a transi
tory, temporal union with Jesus, — they point out a
permanent union, a continued indwelling of our
Lord in the soul that has eaten His flesh. How
can this be, since it is certain that the Body and
Blood of Jesus leave in a few moments after our
reception of Holy Communion? Some theolo
gians explain this by saying that even after the
Body of our Lord disappears, which takes place
as soon as the outward appearances of the bread
undergo a change, — that even then, though the
Body is gone, His adorable soul remains and con
tinues the real union which was contracted when
we received the flesh and blood, the soul and
the divinity of Jesus. Try to understand this, —
it is a most beautiful explanation of the words
of our Lord: "He that eateth My flesh . . .

no The Bread of Life.

abideth in Me and I in him"; and these others,
"He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me."
And again, — when we receive Holy Communion
we receive the living flesh and blood, the human
soul and the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
His flesh and blood are with us but a short
time, a few minutes; for as soon as the species,
that is, the appearances of bread are changed, —
the flesh and blood are no longer there. Yet,
according to this teaching the human soul of Jesus
remains, and remains united to our soul in all
reality. It penetrates into the depth of our being,
it penetrates the deeper, the more fervent our
Communion is, and it will not leave us entirely
unless we fall into mortal sin. Our Divine Lord's
blessed soul takes possession more and more
of our whole nature, speaks with our lips, thinks
with our brain, and moves in all our actions.
In proportion as our old human life disappears
before His influence, human views and feelings
grow less, and the thoughts and desires of
Jesus are substituted for them. Instead of the
love of ease comes the thirst for suffering; instead
of selfishness, a devoted zeal, instead of indiffer
ence, a tender piety like that of Jesus, who lives

The Bread of Life. 1 1 1

more and more completely within us, because our
old self is dying beneath the Sacramental touch,
and the word of Scripture is realized in us, — "I
live; no, not I, but Christ liveth in me." This
truth is beautifully illustrated by that old legend
of the monk who, while our Lord was entertain
ing him with a gracious vision of Himself, heard
the bell ring that called him to his appointed task.
Duty's claim fulfilled, he returned to find his God
awaiting him, not as the Holy Child, but as grown
to man's estate. Thus had Jesus developed in the
heart of the faithful monk, while he was perform
ing the duty of the hour, and thus does He grow
in us, and become, as it were, another Christ in
our lives by His intimacy with our souls in the
Holy Eucharist.

But even if the created soul of our Lord does
not continue its actual presence, His graces do re
main. How could he come and go without leav
ing a benediction on our lives? Even though He
remain but a little while, He assuredly confers sig
nal gifts upon the soul. And such is the doctrine
of the Church: — she teaches us, that besides the
wonderful union of Jesus with our soul which
Holy Communion effects, it moreover bestows spe-

1 1 2 The Bread of Life.

cial graces of its own. The Blessed Sacrament is
indeed the chief fountain of grace. Other sacra
ments infuse grace into our souls, but in the
Blessed Sacrament we possess Him who contains
in Himself the source and the plenitude of all
grace. I will not speak of the increase of sancti
fying grace which Holy Communion, like every
other sacrament, produces; that, I fear, would
occupy too much time. But Holy Communion,
like every other sacrament, has also a grace pecu
liar to itself, and which the other sacraments are
not intended to confer. What is this special grace
of the Blessed Sacrament? It is difficult to ex
press it in a few words, yet a brief explanation
may not prove useless.

We are supposed when receiving Holy Com
munion to be in the state of sanctifying grace, —
and Holy Communion augments this grace. But
sanctifying grace is not enough; the soul must util
ize it. A power is of no avail, if allowed to re
main inactive. A man may have great talents, a
talent for painting, for music, for philosophy, for
science, but of what profit are these gifts if not
exercised because of his negligence, sloth, or other
passions? He must stimulate himself to action,

The Bread of Life. 113

then he will derive benefit from them. In like
manner, sanctifying grace may reach immense
heights in our souls, but if it remain dormant, it
will prove almost fruitless; and indeed we incur
imminent risk of losing it forever. Hence, sanctify
ing grace with its attendant virtues must be stimu
lated to exercise by actual grace. What then is the
actual grace given us in Holy Communion? The
actual grace given us in Holy Communion is pre
cisely the causing of habitual charity to break out
into actual charity; like a fire fallen from heaven
it kindles into a bright flame the sanctifying grace
which lies, as it were, like unconsumed fuel in the
bottom of our souls. It makes our cold hearts
burn with an unwonted fervor, which may be very
brief, yet none the less real. We are able to sur
mount obstacles that before we could not overcome ;
sometimes things appear easy which but lately
seemed impossible to our sluggish, cowardly na
ture; occasionally even a sudden gush of feeling
may spring up in our hearts so as to cause us to
break out into acts of love, and to impel us to
generous resolutions. All this does not come from
ourselves, it comes from Jesus within us, it is the
actual grace of Holy Communion. At times we

114 The Bread of Life.

feel spiritually refreshed, a kind of sweetness and
holy joy embalms our souls; we experience anew
a relish for heavenly things, we arm ourselves once
more for the stern battle of life. What is all this
but the unction of actual grace? The poor sinner
who commits deeds for which he hates himself, —
who has so keen a sense of the beauty of virtue
and of the degradation of guilt, yet ever follows
a course that fills him with bitterest remorse, —
who painfully feels the shame of sin, until he is
driven to the verge of despair, — that poor sinner
kneels again and again at the altar to receive his
God. This perseverance in drinking at the foun
tain of grace will gradually but surely cool down
the blighting fever of sin ; evil images and tenden
cies will depart from his mind, slowly his falls be
come less frequent and less weakening ; in the most
awful temptations he will sometimes be victorious.
Spiritual joy, so long a stranger, at last dawns
upon his soul, habits of vice are uprooted, con
trary habits of virtue are established, — and, thank
God, that sinner falls no more ! Again, what is
all this but the actual grace conferred by Jesus in
Holy Communion?

The Bread of Life. 115

Oh, how wrong are they who deprecate the fre
quent reception of Holy Communion! How
many sinners groping in darkness would turn to
paths of virtue if they were encouraged to kneel
often at the table of the Lord ! How many souls
there are who ought to communicate frequently,
yet who refrain from approaching our Lord be
cause they do not understand the nature of love,
and have erroneous ideas concerning the effects of
this Sacrament! Oh, the Sacred Heart of Jesus
is burning with love, it is intensely longing to en
ter the hearts of creatures. "With desire I have
desired to eat this Pasch with you." Why then
refuse to give Him entrance into our hearts and
the hearts of others?

Absolutely speaking, no creature is worthy to
receive Him. Even the angels are not pure in His
sight. But He is willing to come to every one
whose «oul is not dead in mortal sin, and whose
heart makes fitting preparation to receive Him.
The confessor, of course, will judge how often it
is expedient for us to eat the Bread of Life; he
will discern whether our preparation be reason
ably sufficient to justify our approach to the

n6 The Bread of Life.

Lord's banquet table. All should, however, re
member that weekly communion is not frequent
communion. Every adult Christian who is sin
cerely desirous af avoiding mortal sin or who is
laboring to correct the criminal habits he has con
tracted, may once a week, partake of the food of
the strong and drink the wine that germinates vir
gins. "Except you eat the flesh of the Son of
Man and drink His blood, you shall not have life
in you." Let the sinner, the worldling, the imper
fect, the child approach Him, — He loves them
unutterably! Let them receive Him often, the
oftener the better, if they have but the approba
tion of the guides of their souls. The road they
have to traverse is so difficult, their daily occupa
tions so absorbing, their temptations so intense,
their faults so numerous, how shall they ever
reach the goal except in the strength of a Bread
Divine? "Arise and eat : for thou hast yet a great
way to go." "As the living Father hath sent Me,
and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, the
same shall also live by Me."

The Bread of Life. 117

"Living Bread! thy life supply;
Strengthen us, or else we die ;
Fill us with celestial grace;
Thou, who feedest us below!
Source of all we have or know !
Grant that with thy saints above,
Sitting at the feast of love,
We may see Thee face to face.

Amen."

THIRTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE SACRIFICE.

' I ^HE Blessed Eucharist is not only a Memo
rial and a Sacrament, it is also a Sacrifice,
and in instituting it as such, our Lord gave an
other proof of His love for man. What is a
sacrifice? Instead of offering you the definition
commonly given by theologians, let me rather de
scribe it. — Man must acknowledge that God has
absolute dominion over all things, that He can
give and take life as He in His adorable wisdom
sees fit. Moreover, as a sinner, man must ac
knowledge his iniquities and show himself willing
to submit to any punishment the divine justice
may inflict. How do we make this solemn, pub
lic recognition of our dependence and sinfulness?
By means of sacrifice. We commonly take things
which are adapted to represent or sustain the life
of man, and offer them in a public manner to our
Maker with a real or equivalent destruction. The

119

I2O The Sacrifice.

things which are offered and destroyed are gener
ally precious, and bear some relation to the life
of man, for we wish thereby to express our will
ingness to consecrate our lives to the service of our
Maker, nay, surrender them as an atonement for
our guilt. Thus, in the Old Law, living creatures
such as kine, lambs and birds were offered, or in
animate objects such as wine, wheat and barley,
and, in general, the first fruits of the earth. For
instance, they slew a lamb, sprinkled its blood over
the altar and the people, and burned its flesh.
Among all nations of antiquity, owing to some
vestiges of primitive traditions, there were simi
lar oblations, even among idolatrous people,
where virgins and babes were sacrificed. At all
times the object offered was destroyed, or at least
changed, to show that God is Master of life and
death, and to acknowledge that He is the Supreme
Sovereign of all things, and that we are absolutely
dependent upon Him; in other words, to confess
and profess that as He made all creatures out of
nothing, so He has power and right to destroy
them, and that we ought to be ready at all times
to be treated by Him in whatsoever manner He
pleases. Every sacrifice is, therefore, a public

The Sacrifice. 121

recognition of God's dominion over us, and of our
total dependence upon Him. Whenever a sensi
ble object is thus offered and destroyed by a priest
in his own name and in the name of his people, it
is as much as to acknowledge before the whole
world that God is our Master, that He can do
with us as He wills, that we are in His hands, as
clay in the hands of the potter. And this is the
very essence of religion, for all religion, true and
false, public and private, interior and exterior,
has for object the giving to God the honor due
Him — the recognition of His absolute sovereign
ty and dominion. A religion which has no Sacri
fice as its chief and central act, falls short of a per
fect religion and cannot be a divine religion, for it
would have in it no act which is distinctively di
vine ; its worship could not strictly be called divine
worship. Prayer, thanksgiving, praise, homage,
all enter into the object of religion, but these can
be offered to a creature. A divine religion ought
to embrace an act which can be offered to God
alone. Such an act is Sacrifice. Therefore Sacri
fice belongs necessarily and essentially to every
true religion; there can be no divine public wor
ship without it.

122 The Sacrifice.

We have then need of a Sacrifice. Our divine
Lord knew this. For, though His bloody Sacri
fice on Mount Calvary was all-sufficient to wash
away the sins of the world, and was a full and am
ple satisfaction for every injury done to God, yet
we are bound to pray and deny ourselves, we are
bound to receive the sacraments, in order that the
merits of our Saviour's death may be applied to our
souls and that the graces which He acquired may
be bestowed according to our wants and disposi
tions. Though Jesus suffered and died for us, we
cannot be saved unless by good works, prayers and
the sacraments, we apply the fruits of His suffer
ings and death to our souls. In like manner,
though the Sacrifice of the Cross is the source and
the only source of all grace, yet a continual Sacri
fice is necessary that the merits of the first Sacrifice
may be applied to our souls, and that, to the end
of time, we may have a means of approaching
God, and of publicly offering Him our supreme
homage and adoration. Our Lord with infinite
goodness made provision for our needs : He insti
tuted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Now, let
us consider how the Mass is a real Sacrifice; by
so doing we shall realize more and more the in-

\The Sacrifice. 123

effable love of the Sacred Heart for man, and we
shall find that words have no power to express our
wonder at the goodness and mercy of that ever
adorable Heart.

According to the sacred traditions of every
country and every race, a sacrifice was considered
the more perfect, the more fully it embraced the
following conditions: First, if the victim was
real and external; second, if it was innocent and
mild; third, if it was destroyed or changed;
fourth, if it was offered by a properly appointed
priest; fifth, if some shared in the oblation by par
taking of what was sacrificed. Our Lord, in insti
tuting a Sacrifice, would certainly institute a per
fect Sacrifice. The Sacrifice of the Mass can be
shown to embrace all these five conditions. First,
is the Victim in the Mass something real and ex
ternal? Yes, it is our Lord Himself, not only
as God, but as man. He is there as truly, as
really, as substantially as He was on Mount Cal
vary. Beneath the thin appearances of bread is
the body that hung on the cross, — beneath the
ruddy flash of seeming wine is the blood that tric
kled from His wounded side. Many saints have
beheld Him in the Host as a smiling babe.

124 'The Sacrifice.

Though we have not the privilege of seeing Him
thus with our eyes of flesh, we do behold Him
with the eyes of Faith: we know He is there.
Secondly, is the Victim of our altar innocent?
Oh! He is innocence itself. He never knew sin:
He is holy, spotless, undefiled. He is the Son in
whom the Father is well pleased. Mary was in
nocent, but innocent by redemption. Jesus alone
is innocent by nature: and He is our sin-offering,
He is the Victim of sin. "He was wounded for
our iniquities," says Isaias, "He was bruised for
our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon
Him, and by His bruises we are healed. All we
like sheep have gone astray, everyone hath turned
aside into his own way : and the Lord hath laid on
Him the iniquity of us all." And is the Victim of
our altar mild? He is mildness and sweetness it
self. "Learn of Me, because I am meek and hum
ble of heart." He is the Lamb of God! The
priest takes Him in his hand and lays Him on
the right, and He remains there. He lays Him on
the left and He remains there. He places Him on
the tongue of the saint or of the sacrilegious com
municant, and like a lamb led to slaughter the Vic
tim opens not His mouth. Behold the Lamb of

The Sacrifice. 125

God! Thirdly, is the Victim destroyed or
changed in the Mass? Yes. He is mystically de
stroyed by the separate consecration of bread and
wine: for the form of bread represents the body,
the form of wine represents the blood, and the
bread and the wine being separately consecrated
and lying separately on the altar, represent the
real separation of Christ's blood from His body:
the consecration is therefore a mystical destruction
of the Victim. The Victim is also really changed,
because His body and blood are changed into
food, not merely into ordinary food, — but
changed still more, i. e., from a material food into
a spiritual food for the soul. This sacramental
state of existence borders on annihilation. In the
Incarnation He clothed Himself with the gar
ment of man's mortal flesh. In His sacrifice on
the cross that garment of His flesh was rent from
head to foot. In His sacrifice on the altar, that
Body is wrapped in the swaddling clothes of the
sacred species; it lies helpless and speechless like
a child, nay more, it is as if dead, and the species
are, as it were, its shroud; still further, it exists
and lives, and yet appears to have not even a cor
poral existence. What an emptying! What an

126 The Sacrifice.

annihilation of self! Fourthly, who is the priest
in the sacrifice of the Mass? On Calvary Christ
was the priest and the victim. In Mass also,
Christ is the priest and the victim. He is the
priest, for it is in His name, and by His power,
and because of His institution, that the ministers
of the Catholic Church can change bread and wine
into His adorable flesh and blood. The priest at
the altar does not say, This is the body of Christ,
This is the blood of Christ, but: "This is My
body," and "This is My blood." Christ is the
priest forever. Fifthly, that which is offered and
sacrificed, should be participated in and partly, at
least, consumed by the priest or the people. In
the Old Law, even when the victim, called the
holocaust, was completely burned, a cake was of
fered with the holocaust, in order that man might
eat and thus communicate in the sacrifice. You
know there is such a participation and communion
in every Mass. If the people do not communi
cate, at least the priest does. He always consumes
the flesh and the blood of the adorable Victim be
fore him.

Is not all this wonderful? Is not every one of
these five conditions an inexplicable mystery of

The Sacrifice. 127

love? Is it surprising that through the prophet
in the Old Law, God glories in this new, clean
oblation? How little we reflect upon this sub
lime truth! With what awe and love and grati
tude should we assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass! A certain writer says beautifully, and
with his words I shall conclude: "The angels were
present at Calvary. Angels also are present at
the Mass. If we cannot assist with the seraphic
love and rapt attention of the angelic spirits, let
us worship at least with the simple devotion of
the shepherds of Bethlehem, and the unswerving
faith of the Magi." Let us offer to our God the
gift of a heart full of love for Him, full of sor
row for our sins, and full of the incense of adora
tion, praise and thanksgiving for mercies flowing
from that Heart Divine, which having loved its
own, loved them unto the end.

FOURTEENTH CONFERENCE.
HE ABIDETH WITH US.

TN the consecrated Host, Jesus is really present
under the species of bread. His divinity and
His humanity, His body and His soul, His flesh
and His blood, — all are there as really, as truly,
as substantially, as they are this moment in
heaven. Within the little circle of that white
Host is the human intellect, the human will, the
human memory of Jesus. That old love with all
its human and impassioned tenderness, which
made Him weep over the children of Jerusalem
because they spurned the gift of salvation He
came to offer them, — that old love is still there
in the Eucharist throbbing and trembling in the
same kind human Heart. The body which Mary
cradled on her bosom that far-off Christmas night,
the lips which breathed to the Magdalen, "Go
in peace and sin no more," the eyes which rested
lovingly upon the rich young man who turned

129

130 He Abideth With Us.

from his high vocation, the hand which blessed
little children and traced the mystic writing on
the sand, the brow which bled beneath the crown
of thorns, the members which yielded to the
piercing nails, the gaping wound which told of
a heart broken for the sins of men ; — all are there
in the Host which abides ever in its tabernacle
home. When we kneel before the altar, the meek
eyes of Jesus are fixed upon us as once they were
upon Simon Peter, He reads our poor hearts and
He knows if we love Him. With His human
ears He heard the cry of the penitent thief, "Lord,
remember me, when Thou comest into Thy king
dom," — with these same human ears he hears
every prayer that falters on our lips. "I will not
leave you orphans," our Lord said to his apos
tles. He has kept His word. He has not left us,
He is with us forever, to welcome our coming,
to listen to our pleadings, to breathe sweet com
fort to our weary souls. There is never a moment
that we may not speak to Him, heart to heart.
"Behold I am with you all days even to the con
summation of the world." We may take to Him
the burden of our sorrows, we may confide to Him
the secret of our cares. We may choose our own

He Abideth With Us. 131

time, and we may linger in His Presence as our
love inclines. If our hearts are cold and dry, and
we know not what to say, He will take delight
even in our silence. He loves us, therefore our
mere companionship is a comfort and a joy to this
Lover of human souls. He is our chief Priest:
we can confess to Him our sins, our shameful
falls, our manifold transgressions, our humiliating
weaknesses, our cowardly shrinkings from the
claims of duty. He is our Judge; before Him
we can examine, unblinded by self-love, our daily
lives with all their hidden tendencies to the base
things of earth. He is our Father; trustful as
little children, we can reveal to Him our most
cherished hopes, our loftiest aspirations. He is
our Counsellor; we can ask Him for light to guide
us in the perplexing questions that demand from
us prudence and decision. He is our Good Shep
herd; when we have strayed away from His lov
ing care and have fed our hungry souls on husks
of sin, we can return to Him in sorrow, assured
of receiving from His blessed lips the kiss
of pardon and peace. He is our God, — how com
pletely then we can annihilate ourselves before
Him, worshipping His infinite Perfections, ac-

132 He Abideth With Us.

knowledging Him to be the Master, the Creator,
the Lord of life and death, — in a word, giving to
Him the homage of our soul's profoundest adora
tion. Finally, He is our Spouse, He belongs to
us, and we belong to Him. Dilectu* meus mihi, et
ego illi! "Neither is there any other nation so
great, that hath its gods so nigh unto them, as
our God is present to us!"

How can all this be explained, save by love?
There are no obstacles that love cannot surmount,
no chains that it cannot sever, no sacrifices that it
cannot embrace, in truth, nothing is impossible to
love. It requires a miracle for Jesus to be present
in all the consecrated Hosts, and in every part of
each Host: love works that miracle. It requires
a miracle for a body to be without weight, color
and extension : love works that miracle. It re
quires a miracle for flesh and blood to nourish a
soul : love works that miracle. It requires a mira
cle to have the outward appearances of bread
without the substance of bread, to have the spe
cies of wine without the substance of wine: love
works that miracle. It requires a miracle for a
human body to be placed at once in different posi
tions, to be borne to the right and to the left, to

He Abideth With Vs. 133

be laid in linen folds and to be held up before the
gaze of the worshippers, to remain in the chalice
and to enter the breast of the communicant, but
love works that miracle as well. uLove is stronger
than death," and the wounded Heart of Jesus is
a victim of love. No wonder that He says by
the mouth of His prophet : Deliciae meae esse cum
filiis hominum. "My delight is to be with the
sons of men." And even though they abandon
and despise Him, wandering far into paths of
sin, yet does He remain ever in the tabernacle
watching for the return of His prodigal sons.
This is the reason of the Real Presence in our
midst. '••/

The saints understood this, all without excep
tion had an intense attraction for the Blessed Sac
rament, finding their delight to be in Its presence.
Saint Liguori recounts many touching instances of
devotion to the Holy Eucharist. At one time for
some reason, Saint Aloysius was forbidden to re
main long in the presence of the Blessed Sacra
ment. But whenever he passed before It, he felt
himself so drawn by the sweet attractions of our
Lord, that only with the greatest efforts could he
tear himself away; and when constrained to de-

134 He Abideth With Us.

part he would cry: "O Lord! let me go. O
Lord! let me go!" There it was also that Saint
Francis Xavier found refreshment in the midst
of his arduous labors in India. During the day
he was engaged in traveling, preaching, instruct
ing, visiting the sick and administering the sacra
ments; at times, indeed, he was so exhausted that
it was necessary to support his weary arm while
he baptized the Indian neophyte, yet, at night, he
was wont to pass hour after hour before the
Blessed Sacrament. Saint Francis Regis had the
same tender love for Jesus on the altar; ofttimes
on finding the church closed, he remained at the
door on his knees, exposed to the elements, and
there he worshipped our God hidden in the Host.
How tender, above all, was the devotion of Saint
Wenceslaus to the Blessed Sacrament! It was
his custom to gather the wheat and the grapes
to make, with his own hands, the wafers and wine
to be used in the Holy Sacrifice. Even on winter
nights he frequently sought a church to visit the
divine Guest of the tabernacle. These visits, says
Saint Liguori, enkindled in his fervent soul such
flames of holy love, that this ardor imparted itself
to his very body, taking from the snow upon

He Abideth With Us. 135

which he walked, its wonted cold ; for, it is related
that the servant who accompanied him on those
nightly excursions suffered much from the rigors
of the season. On one occasion the holy king,
perceiving this, was so moved to compassion, that
he ordered the attendant to follow in the foot
steps; the servant obeyed and marvellous was the
result, for at once a genial warmth was diffused
through all his frame.

Oh, how dear every chapel should be to the
Christian heart. It is our Lord's dwelling-place;
there He remains day after day, to console, en
lighten, protect and defend us, to nourish and
strengthen our famished souls. Each sacramental
shrine is the home and the heaven of myriads of
angels who ever surround, like a faithful guard,
our patient Eucharistic King. Why may not the
children of men find likewise there a paradise of
pure delights? Si scires donum Del. "If thou didst
know the gift of God." O Faith 1 O Love I
draw near, and weep with angels in the shadow
of Christ's altar throne. "Could you not watch
one hour with Me?" That voice trembling down
the ages, gives its echo to the silence which lingers
around the sanctuary. The generations of earth

136 He Abideth With Us.

pass heedlessly by, unconscious of the Prisoner
waiting there bound by chains of love divine. Il
lumined by His grace, we have seen behind the
veil which shrouds Him from the worldling's
gaze. We have heard the pleadings of His
Sacred Heart. We know His longings to repair
the glory of His Father, we know His yearnings
to reclaim the souls that stray in paths of sin.
"Behold this Heart which hath so loved men, that
It has exhausted and consumed Itself to testify
to them Its love." With these words sounding in
our hearts, let us offer ourselves to our injured
God as victims of reparation and of love. With
generosity of spirit let us promise Him to give and
not to count the cost, to fight and not to heed the
wounds, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor
with the holy joy of knowing that we do His ever
blessed will, and that one day He will be our ex
ceeding great reward.

FIFTEENTH CONFERENCE.
REPARATION.

TT 7 E have seen that the devotion to the Sacred
Heart is a devotion of love to love ; hence,
these conferences on the Sacred Heart would not
be complete unless we dwelt for a brief space on
the subject of reparation. For, our divine Lord,
in revealing His Heart to Blessed Margaret
Mary, spoke not only of His love, but of His
outraged love, and desired in return not only love,
but also reparation. He complained that He re
ceived from the greater part of men only ingrati
tude, coldness and neglect; that what pained Him
most of all, was that some hearts consecrated to
Him, should treat Him thus: and therefore, He
bade her receive Holy Communion often in the
spirit of atonement and manifested His desire that
a special Feast of the Sacred Heart be instituted,
in order that public acts of reparation might be
offered to Him. Love is indeed the formal ob-

137

138 Reparation.

ject of the devotion to the Sacred Heart, as al
ready stated, but it is a love that impels to repara
tion.

Let us endeavor to arrive at a clear understand
ing of the nature of reparation; in other words, let
us study what is meant precisely by reparation.
The matter may be a little abstruse, yet, I think,
we shall be rewarded for our effort when we dis
cover that well defined truths are the foundations
of this devotion.

We will begin by reflecting that reparation is
not merely punishment, satisfaction is not satispas-
sion. Sound philosophy tells us that punishment
is medicinal, deterrent and retributive. It is me
dicinal, when it is calculated to mend the ways of
the culprit; it it deterrent, when it is calculated to
deter others from similar violations of law; it is
retributive, when it is intended simply to make
the criminal suffer for what he has done. When
a wrong has been committed, it is proper that the
offender suffer for it, not simply that he may be
taught not to repeat the wrong — in this way we
correct animals, — nor simply that others may be
deterred from doing likewise — in this way we
save the community, — but it is fitting that he suf-

Reparation. 139

fer because he has disturbed the order of things,
he has violated justice, he has unduly appropriated
to himself pleasures not lawful for him, he has
unjustly lifted himself above others; he must,
then, be made to realize his usurpation, to keep
his place, he must be deprived of what is not his,
and, to a degree, of what is his, — the balance must
be restored, the order of things must be main
tained, — restitution, retribution must be made.
This is done by retributive punishment. Thus,
instinctively we feel pained and indignant when
an atrocious crime escapes punishment; we expe
rience universally a sentiment of relief when a
criminal has expiated his offense on the gallows.
For, although there is not such a thing as ven
geance for private wrong, since God has said,
"Vengeance is Mine," yet the principle of retribu
tion for wrong committed, as well as for good
done, is right : upon it rests chiefly the justification
of eternal punishment.

Now, observe, an offender may have suffered
adequately for the injustice he has committed,
still there may not be in this suffering what is
called reparation. In other words, there may be,
as philosophers term it, satispassion, but there is

140 Reparation.

not satisfaction, — satisfaction supposes some
thing more. Satisfaction, reparation aims at un
doing, destroying, repairing an offense; it desires
reconciliation, it seeks to regain the good will and
affection of the one who has been offended, it
wishes to undo the evil committed, mainly as an
act of justice, but also as an act of love. It is
urged thereto by love. It knows that the one in
jured is rightfully displeased, that, in consequence,
there is a separation, a chasm between them; love
induces it to remove this obstacle, to close up this
chasm, to atone for this offense by apology, by
voluntary suffering, or by sacrifices which are the
promptings of love. This is what is called repar
ation. The first difference, therefore, between
satisfaction and satispassion, or in other words,
between reparation and punishment, is this: rep
aration is voluntary, — punishment is not so. Re
tributive justice requires that the order disturbed
be restored, and it does restore that order by the
infliction of punishment. By means of punish
ment the offender is made to suffer because he al
lowed himself illegitimate pleasure; he is lowered
because he unjustly elevated himself. That is
satispassion. But if the offender willingly inflicts

Reparation. 141

the same punishment upon himself, if he himself
satisfies retributive justice, then we have repara
tion In the first instance, it is the judge who de
crees the amount of punishment and inflicts the
same; in the second instance, it is the offender
himself who satisfies justice. The second differ
ence between reparation and punishment is found
in the end that both strive to attain. Punishment
as such does not seek to remove the offense given,
but rather the disorder, the unlawfulness, the self-
inflation inherent in every offense. The judge in
flicts punishment to restore the order violated, not
precisely to restore honor, for honor cannot be
recovered by simple punishment. But reparation
aims at removing the offense itself, and returning
every honor to the person offended. Reparation
therefore accomplishes far more than punishment ;
reparation not only re-establishes order where
there existed disorder, but moreover, removes the
offense itself, effects reconciliation, and restores
peace and friendship between the offender and the
person offended.

To impress this distinction more deeply and to
show the Importance of this distinction between
satisfaction and satispassion, that is, between

142 Reparation.

reparation and punishment, let us consider the
nature of our Blessed Saviour's atonement for sin.
Was that atonement a real satisfaction for sin,
or was it only a satispassion for sin? According
to Protestant teaching, the essence of our Lord's
atonement consisted in this — that He took upon
Himself all the punishment of our guilt. He sat
isfied for sin, by suffering for sin. He made Him
self the victim of the Divine wrath, He was a
child pierced by the darts of His Father's venge
ance : that is to say, His atonement was only a satis
passion, for He did not seek to honor and glorify
His Father ; He did not aim to satisfy for the of
fense itself, by giving Him as much honor as sin
had taken from Him, but He wished merely to
satisfy His anger, His justice, by enduring the
punishment that sin deserved. This is the Prot
estant theory. But according to Catholic teach
ing, our Lord's atonement was a veritable satis
faction. uHe was bruised for our iniquities, He
was wounded for our sins," that we might be re
conciled to His Father, not merely that we might
not suffer. Of His own accord, He was led like
a lamb to the slaughter. He assumed all our debt
through love of His Father and in obedience to

Reparation. 143

the Divine Will, and by that love and obedience,
even unto death, He glorified His Father as much
as sin had dishonored Him, — nay, the homage
rendered was greater than the malice of sin, be
cause it was the oblation of the Infinite to the
Infinite. Saint Thomas lucidly explains this doc
trine in these words: "He truly satisfies for an
offense who offers to the offended person some
thing which the latter esteems in an equal or
higher degree than he hates the offense. But
Christ suffering through love and obedience of
fered God something more than was demanded
by the malice of the offense of the entire human
race: first, because of the greatness of the love
with which He suffered, secondly, because of the
worth of His life, it being the life of God and
man, thirdly, because of the universality of His
suffering and the greatness of His pains. And
therefore His Passion was not only a sufficient,
but a superabundant satisfaction for the sins of
the human race." This passage from Saint
Thomas casts light upon the distinction that I
have endeavored to point out, viz.: that satisfac
tion is more than satispassion, that reparation is
more than mere suffering or punishment, — that

144 Reparation.

punishment contents justice, reparation contents
justice and love, — that punishment removes the
disorders consequent upon, or inherent in every
offense, reparation removes both the disorders and
the offense, — that punishment springs from neces
sity, reparation springs from a desire of regaining
the esteem and love of the person offended.

May our good Master deign to penetrate us
more and more with the spirit of reparation. Let
us pray that He will imprint upon our hearts the
holy maxims of penance and self-denial, that He
may thus find in us devoted repairers of His in
jured love, generous spouses and faithful apostles
of His Sacred Heart !

SIXTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE MALICE OF SIN.

"1T7E now understand the significance of rep
aration. Reparation implies the commis
sion of some wrong or the omission of some duty,
in other words, it implies sin. It remains for us
then to consider in the light of theology the exact
nature of sin.

In creating the world, God necessarily had an
end in view. That end was His own glory. The
Scriptures accordingly tell us that He made all
things for Himself. He was free to create, but
having determined to create, He could not create
but to manifest His glory. We exist ultimately
for that. His majesty, His love, His wisdom, all
require that we serve to that end, and that all our
interests, spiritual and temporal, private and pub
lic, be subordinate to His honor and glory. His
end as Creator is necessarily our end as creatures ;
hence, we are not to serve God solely with a view

145

146 The Malice of Sin.

to our own salvation, but above all, to promote
His interests, His glory. Yet, how it can be truly
said, that God created the world out of love, and
that He made all things for man's sake, would
involve long explanations and thus lead too far
from our present subject. Only let it be well un
derstood that the glory of God is .the end of cre
ation, and that all creatures exist for that end.

Now, what is sin? Sin is a violation of this
supreme law of creation, that all things must tend
to God's greater glory. The sinner breaks through
the order that divine wisdom has necessarily es
tablished, he virtually makes for himself another
end, he relegates God, the supreme Good, to an
inferior place, and practically substitutes for God
a created thing, by living for it as his end. Sin
is likewise an act of disobedience to the highest
Lawgiver, an ingratitude to our greatest Benefac
tor, an impiety to our best Father, a folly because
a surrendering of our true peace and happiness:
but the quintessence of sin lies in the offense given
to God, the wrong done to Him, by making a
creature occupy the place that is and must be His.
He must be the highest, the first and the last, He
must be the end for which all creation exists, lives

The Malice of Sin. 147

and moves: to deny it by substituting a creature
in His place, is a species of idolatry, it is casting
Him from His throne, it is necessarily a wrong
done Him, an insult offered Him. True, God
cannot be deprived of His own infinite peace and
happiness; and because supremely wise and pow
erful, He can draw good out of evil. He can,
even in hell, force the sinner to acknowledge His
justice and might and holiness, yet it is also true
that sin virtually desires the destruction, the an
nihilation of God. To reduce the Supreme Being
to the order of a creature, to put Him after a
creature, is to dethrone Him, to destroy, to anni
hilate Him. That is precisely what sin does. In
effect, that is, in reality, it cannot destroy God, but
in desire, as far as possible, it does destroy God.
Here we have the very essence of sin.

At this point the question arises : Is this offense,
which constitutes every mortal sin, infinite? Every
mortal sin is an insult offered to God, an injury
inflicted upon Him, — is this insult, this injury, in
finite? To answer this question correctly, we
must carefully distinguish between what theolo
gians now call active and passive injury. Active
injury is the act itself which inflicts injury. Sin,

148 The Malice of Sin.

taken in this sense, is not infinite. Sin often re
quires but a moment for its commission, then it
becomes a thing of the past. The act is transi
tory, the act of a creature, and limited and there
fore finite. The so-called stain that sin leaves
upon the soul is also finite, for that stain is noth
ing else than the deprivation of grace, and grace
is something created, something finite. The turn
ing to a creature as to its end is likewise finite, for
that creature is finite. Hence, we say, the offense
which constitutes mortal sin, is finite in as far as
it is an act. But there is also a passive offense,
a passive injury. Passive injury is the wrong
which the person who is injured suffers. An illus
tration may reflect a stronger light upon the truth
of this statement. I injure my neighbor by de
stroying Ris dwelling. My guilt may be increased
or lessened by circumstances. It may have been
carelessness on my part, or vindictiveness; the
crime may have been committed consciously, with
great deliberation, or in a fit of passion, etc., etc.
Circumstances of time, place, manner, motive, all
affect the measure of my active injury. But there
is also the damage inflicted on my neighbor. That

The Malice of Sin. 1149

damage is independent of my guilt: it may be to
the amount of one or five thousand dollars; its
magnitude is not influenced by my personal culpa
bility. He suffers an injury — that injury is called
a passive injury. Thus we see the offense of sin,
as an act, is not infinite ; we ask, is the offense, the
wrong which God suffers from mortal sin infinite?
Sound theology answers, yes. For the magnitude
of an offense is measured, first, by the worth, the
dignity, the greatness of the one offended. The
more elevated the person offended, the greater
the insult which is offered him. And since God's
dignity and excellence are unlimited, since His
rights to the creature's submission are bound
less, since his sovereignty, His goodness, His
perfections are simply infinite, the insult by which
His majesty is outraged, and a creature substi
tuted as last end, must consequently be infinite.
Such is the argument of Saint Thomas: He who
commits mortal sin, loves the creature more than
he loves God. Loving the creature more, he pre
fers it to God. But to prefer the less worthy to
the more worthy is to offend the more worthy,
and the offense is the greater, the greater the dif-

150 The 'Malice of Sin.

ference between the two. Consequently, mortal
sin, in a sense, is an infinite offense because of the
infinite majesty of God.

There is an objection urged against this conclu
sion, the refutation of which will throw light upon
the utility of the distinction between active and
passive injury. The matter may present some
difficulties, but the attempt to solve them will
without doubt enable us to understand a long
series of practical truths. The objection is as fol
lows: The injury inflicted grows indeed with the
dignity of the person offended, but not in arith
metical proportion, that is to say, not altogether
in the same degree. For otherwise we might also
argue thus: the excellence of an act grows with
the excellence of its object; the object of an act of
divine love is infinitely excellent, is God; hence an
act of divine love is an act of infinite excellence,
which would be false. Therefore, it is said, the
argument of Saint Thomas is illogical and false.
The answer to this objection is plain. An act is
not yet infinitely excellent, because its object is
infinitely excellent; a great many factors may enter
to make that act more or less perfect. If you say,
for example, to the farmer: "The more corn you

The Malice of Sin. 151

sow, the more you will reap", he will admit it.
But say to him : "Sow double the amount of corn,
and you will reap double the amount", he will
laugh at you : for the success of his act of sowing
will depend upon a great many contingent fac
tors, — on the quality of soil, weather, labor, etc.
But the status of the question is different when
you speak, not of an act, but the injury done by
an act. When I do another an injury, that in
jury must not be measured by my personal culpa
bility alone, but by the amount of damage that
the other suffers. A man can throw a diamond
into the ocean, a child can do this,— but in either
case the diamond is lost, the loss inflicted upon
the owner is equally great. In like manner, when
Saint Thomas argues that the injury of sin is
infinite, he speaks of passive injury, of the injury
that God suffers, the wrong that is done Him, the
insult that is offered Him. The sinner who com
mits mortal sin, may be more or less guilty, but in
every case, the insult offered is infinite, because, to
repeat once more, in desire at least, God is anni
hilated and a creature chosen as His substitute.

"As by one man sin entered into this world, and
by sin, death, so death passed upon all men, in

152 The Malice of Sin.

whom all have sinned." And we have our own
personal sins : how many, God only knows ! Who
can pay our tremendous debt? What reparation
is necessary? How can we make it? That, we
shall study in our next conference. May God
bless our efforts that the truth make us in more
than one sense, free!

SEVENTEENTH CONFERENCE.
THE SATISFACTION FOR SIN.

' I s HE malice of sin is objectively infinite, illim
itable; and as we advance with our
studies, we realize in fuller measure what a fear
ful injury is done to God by every mortal offense.
How appalling is the revelation that sin is with
out bounds, without limits, indeed infinite. The
question then arises, how can the sinner ever ob
tain his forgiveness, how can he ever undo the evil
he has wrought? When the angels committed
their first sin, they were probably hurled at once
into the abyss of hell without a moment's time
for repentance. Man pollutes his soul with mor
tal sin, with many sins, sins that cry to heaven
for vengeance, and he still lives, because God
wishes to spare him and therefore gives him time
for repentance. Here many questions present
themselves for solution. Why did not the Most
High spare the angels ? Why does He spare man ?
Could He have immediately abandoned the hu-

153

154 The Satisfaction for Sin.

man race after the fall of Adam? Could He
have eternally punished the race because of the
guilt consequent upon the first sin? Could He
forgive sin absolutely without demanding any rep
aration, and inflicting any punishment? Or could
He forgive sin without requiring full satisfac
tion? For example, could He have pardoned the
sinner after the sinner had cancelled only a part of
the debt contracted? In other words, was it ab
solutely required that sin be fully atoned for, be
fore God could pardon it? These questions are
deeply interesting, and, in all ages, have offered a
broad field of inquiry to the Catholic philosopher
and theologian. For our present purpose it is
needless to discuss these points. The fact is that
God did not abandon the human race, nor does
He forgive sin without satisfaction, nay, He re
quires ample satisfaction. Saint Thomas explains
why it is more becoming that God should not for
give sin without having received due satisfaction
for it. It is evident that His infinite justice is
manifested pre-eminently by demanding repara
tion and restitution. His infinite mercy is mani
fested more strikingly, because to pardon without
reparation is not so honorable to the sinner, as

The Satisfaction for Sin. 155

to pardon him after he has paid his debt. His in
finite wisdom is also manifested, in a higher de
gree, because to pardon man only after fitting
reparation has been made, is more humiliating to
Satan who first lured man into sin, and whose for
feited place man is to occupy. The divine justice,
mercy and wisdom all render it more becoming
that sin should not be pardoned, unless the malice
of sin, the injury done to God by sin, is fully re
paired.

But how is this to be accomplished? Can man
ever undo an infinite injury? Man's life is like a
flower that blooms for awhile, then withers and
falls to the dust. He lives to-day, to-morrow he
is seen no more. And his mind is so feeble, his
will so fickle, his heart so frail, his powers so
finite; can the finite ever propitiate the Infinite?
Evidently, man can never singly or collectively
give adequate satisfaction for even one grievous
sin. If man cannot, no creature as mere creature
can, for every creature is finite. Consequently,
only a being equal to God can repair completely
the injury of sin. But on the one hand, God alone
is infinite; He alone is equal to Himself. There
is none like to Him: all things are before Him

156 The Satisfaction for Sin.

as if they were not, all things are absolutely His,
there is nothing that was not made by Him. And
on the other hand, God cannot apologize to Him
self, He cannot suffer, He cannot change; as He
was from eternity, so He always is; He cannot
deny His own sovereign, infinite majesty, yet He
is the one offended. Apparently, therefore, an
adequate reparation for sin seems impossible. Yet
God's justice, mercy and wisdom fitly require
complete satisfaction for sin: moreover, He has
signified that without this complete satisfaction
He is unwilling to forgive.

There was only one thing possible in this over
whelming difficulty. If the offended God de
manded full satisfaction, it was necessary that He
Himself should become a creature, that He
should remain God, and at the same time assume
in His personality a created nature, that in His
created nature, He should render the Godhead
honor, praise and obedience, and thus atone for
His creature's guilt. And therefore "The Word
was made flesh and dwelt amongst us." He was
bruised for our sins and wounded for our iniqui
ties; He was as a worm trodden under foot, the
outcast of His own people, the lamb who opened

The Satisfaction for Sin. 157

not His mouth when He was led to the slaughter.
By His wounds we are healed, by His bruises we
are saved, by His blood we are ransomed from
eternal perdition. And in heaven all the multi
tude which no man can number, the angels and the
saints, the ancients and prophets, standing before
the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed in
white robes and with palms in their hands, all cry
aloud, "To Him that sitteth on the throne and
to the Lamb, benediction and honor and glory
and power forever and ever because Thou wast
slain and hast redeemed us to God in Thy blood,
out of every tribe and tongue and people and na

tion."

Here again many questions might be raised and
many difficulties proposed. One reason why the
satisfaction of our Lord was so perfect, was be
cause it was so entirely free. All His sufferings
were voluntarily borne, His death voluntarily em
braced, because His whole human nature and all
the laws that governed it were entirely under His
command. It is true, the martyr's sufferings are
also voluntary, but, as has been frequently stated,
while the martyr is being tortured he cannot help
feeling the pain that fire and sword inflict upon

158 The Satisfaction for Sin.

him, — the wounds are made, — the members are
cut, the nerves and bones laid bare. But at any
moment our Lord could have suspended the pain,
removed the nails from His hands and feet, and
descended from the wood of the cross: hence, as
was said before, His sufferings and death were
doubly meritorious because so absolutely free. "I
lay down My life. No man taketh it away from
Me : but I lay it down of Myself, and I have power
to lay it down: and I have power to take it up
again." He was led like a lamb to the slaughter
because He willed it. Yet that very freedom of
His atonement offers a striking difficulty. The
eternal Father commands His Son to suffer. Jesus
Himself said: "This commandment I have re
ceived from My Father." It was necessary then
for our Lord to obey : had He disobeyed the man
date, sin would have been committed. But an
obedience which is necessary, appears to lose much
of meritoriousness; it can furnish satispassion, can
it offer satisfaction? For satisfaction, an act must
be free. Here is a difficulty. Thank God, as Car
dinal Newman has so luminously remarked, diffi
culties and doubts are not correlative: a thousand
difficulties do not authorize one doubt.

The Satisfaction for Sin. 159

But the question before us does present a diffi
culty: how is it answered? Theologians offer va
rious solutions, but the best answer is apparently
this simple one. The will is not free because it
has the power to commit sin. God is free, yet
He can never be unholy; the Blessed in heaven are
free, still they have not the power of again yield
ing to temptation, they are confirmed in their love
of God. The possibility of doing wrong is, as
philosophers express it, a defect of liberty, a de
fect which is essential to every free creature while
in a probationary state. Our Lord assumed our
human nature but not this defect, since it is a
blemish incompatible with His holiness as Man-
God. He was free then, absolutely free, but His
sanctity and His love of His Father would never
permit Him to go counter to that will. Propterea
exaltavit ilium Deus, ufor this reason did God lift
Him up," factus est> obediens usque ad mortem,
mortem autem crucis, ''because He was obedient
unto death, even unto the death of the cross.'*

Another reason why the satisfaction made by
our Lord was so perfect, is found in the intense,
universal and peculiar sufferings He endured.
First, in the intensity of His sufferings. Saint

160 The Satisfaction for Sin.

Thomas gives four reasons for maintaining that
the pains our Lord endured in body and soul were
the most acute that man can suffer on earth. They
can be summed up perhaps in this one reason as
signed by St. Bonaventure, — that our Lord's body
and soul were divinely framed for suffering, and
that He permitted each power to act and endure
independent of every other; it was because of
this, we know, He refused to take the wine and
gall offered Him on the cross, — He wished to die
naturally in the full consciousness of all His excru
ciating torments. Secondly, His sufferings were
quasi universal. Saint Thomas shows how our
Lord suffered at the hands of prince and pauper,
priest and levite, Jew and Gentile, man and wo
man, — how He suffered in all His members and
in all His senses, — how, finally, He died struck
by His Father, by men spit upon, mocked, bereft
of His very clothing — the outcast of His people,
as a worm trodden under foot. Thirdly, His
death was peculiarly shameful and accursed. The
Mosaic Scriptures even had said: "He is accursed
of God that hangeth on a tree !" By the fruit of
the tree sin had come into the world: He was to
make restitution for sin, and therefore had Him-

The Satisfaction for Sin. 161

self suspended to the tree of the cross, restoring
what had been robbed; according to these words
of the Psalmist, "Then did I pay that which I
took not away."

Can we marvel that the saints call the crucifix
the book which they never weary of studying and
from which they learn all wisdom? Jesus dead
upon the cross is the measure of the malice of sin,
of our personal sin. That blood-shedding, that
agony, that fearful death, all is truly, really our
work. Oh, if His Passion had never been re
peated since the consummatum est on Calvary's
Mount! It is renewed each time a soul yields to
mortal sin. Yet the arms of Jesus are ever open
to embrace us, His head is ever inclined to give
us the kiss of peace, His ear is ever ready to
hearken to our woes. When we weep, His loving
Heart becomes our blest retreat, when we tell
Him of our guilt, His gentle voice breathes in the
calm, "Go, penitent hearts, and sin no more." Ah,
loving Saviour ! how merciful is Thy heart for us.
Standing beside Thy cross we ask — What may we
do to prove our love for Thee? Heart ever ten
der and compassionate ! filled with infinite love,
broken by our ingratitude and pierced by our sins,

1 62 The Satisfaction for Sin.

accept the full oblation that we now make to Thee.
Take us, Lord, with all our hopes, our joys, our
griefs ; draw us ever nearer to Thy wounded side
and teach us all Thy blessed ways.

EIGHTEENTH CONFERENCE.
APPLICATION OF CHRIST'S SATISFACTION.

/~\ UR Lord's satisfaction was perfect; He
atoned for all sins. He suffered for all
men. Yet, despite the fulness of His atonement,
all men are not forgiven, and, even when sin is
forgiven, reparation frequently remains due.
Christ's satisfaction, then, must be applied to men
in certain ways, under certain conditions. The
holy Scripture renders ample testimony to the
truth of this teaching.

In his epistle to the Ephesians (i. 23) and again
in that to the Colossians, Saint Paul touches upon
a profound mystery. He says that the Church is
a mystical body of which we are the members, but
Christ is the head, and the Holy Ghost the soul
of that body. The life of the Head becomes
the life of the members, and it is the Holy Ghost
who transmits to the members this life of the
Head, its virtues, its powers, its merits, its

163

164 Application of Chrises Satisfaction.

graces. The members do not live and cannot live
except by reason of the Head, just as the branches
cannot live and bear fruit except by reason of the
vine and its sap. "Without Me you can do noth
ing," says our blessed Saviour. Observe, however,
that immediately after comparing the Church to
a perfect organism, Saint Paul lays down this
other truth, that the members must labor in union
with the Head for the growth of the whole body.
These are his words : "By doing the truth in char
ity, we may in all things grow up in Him who is
the head, Christ; from whom the whole body
being compacted and fitly joined together, by what
every joint supplieth, according to the operation
in the measure of every part, maketh increase of
the body unto the edifying of itself in charity."
Faith without good works is dead and of no avail ;
it must be a living faith. The just man liveth
by faith. And if, after being justified, he falls
into sin, he must repent of his sin and acknowl
edge it in the tribunal of penance, otherwise life
will not be returned to his soul. That is to say,
each member of that mystical body must partici
pate in the life of its Head. Jesus prayed, man
too must pray ; Jesus labored, man too must labor.

Application of Christ's Satisfaction. 165

Ordinarily speaking, on adults the graces of the
sacraments will not be bestowed, unless the reci
pient does his share by way of preparation. Jesus
did penance, man too must do works of penance.
4 'Unless you do penance, you shall all likewise
perish." Jesus denied Himself, man too must
deny himself. Jesus suffered, man too must suffer.
"If any man will come after Me, let him take
up his cross daily, and follow Me." But must
this be voluntary suffering? That is, must every
Christian of his own accord, inflict some species
of pain upon himself? It is sufficiently evident
that we must practice self-denial in order to fortify
our souls for temptations, that we must separate
ourselves from occasions of sin, that we must ful
fill the various duties of our state of life, that we
must observe the laws of the Church and of
all duly appointed authority, that we must ac
complish the penances imposed upon us in Sacra
mental Confession, that we must endure the an
noyances, sicknesses and afflictions which are inci
dent to human life: all this is evident enough:
but are we bound under pain of sin to do more,
to gain indulgences, for instance, in order to re
move the punishment still due to our forgiven

1 66 Application of Christ's Satisfaction.

sins? I do not know of any theologian who main
tains this opinion. We are not bound under pain
of sin to make for ourselves a purgatory in this
world. God is so good that He does not bind us
under penalty of new sin to remove all the punish
ment remaining due to pardoned sins: yet it is
equally true that He wills us to satisfy for our
sins, that He wills us to unite our satisfactions to
those of His beloved Son, that He is pleased to
see us enter into the designs of His justice and
seek to satisfy it, and that, though He loves the
soul which must wing its flight to purgatory, He
necessarily loves more tenderly that soul which
owes nothing to His justice, for He loves His
justice as He loves His mercy. He is the God
who desires order and harmony, He is the Father
who wishes to unite His children to Himself in
heaven, and He must necessarily be displeased
with all that breathes of disorder and hate every
obstacle between Him and those He loves. How
true, therefore, these words of Saint Gregory the
Great, which the Church requires every priest to
read in the office of the fourth Sunday of Advent.
"Bring forth worthy fruits of penance. I say
worthy fruits of penance, for he who has sinned

Application of Chris? s Satisfaction. 167

much should repent much, and in as far as he has
allowed himself illicit things, in so far should he
deprive himself of licit things. " Whoever, there
fore, has once sinned mortally against his Crea
tor, can never punish himself too severely for his
crime, and, if he will, he can justly deprive him
self of every comfort and pleasure.

So far, we have seen, adults must exert them
selves in various ways in order that the merits of
Christ's death be applied to their souls. But does
this rule also hold, if we wish to benefit the souls
of others? Is penance, expiation, reparation, nec
essary, that we draw down graces upon those who
do not repent of their sins and offer atonement
for them? Labor is necessary, that is evident.
Even the apostles had to travel from place to
place, to preach in season and out of season, to re
proach, correct, reprove, without ceasing, to be
ridiculed, hated, persecuted, imprisoned. Labor
is equally necessary in these latter days. Priests
are not only the dispensers of the mysteries of
God, they are also preachers, teachers, shepherds,
guardians, rulers of their flocks. A ceaseless
round of external duties engages the attention of
those who are charged with the care of souls.

1 68 Application of Christ's Satisfaction.

Prayer likewise is necessary. The apostles or
dained deacons that they might give themselves
more freely to prayer and preaching. Saint Paul
begs for himself the prayers of the faithful. Again
and again the Holy Ghost by the voice of the
Scriptures exhorts us to pray for one another, to
pray for all men. Is suffering also necessary that
the merits of Christ be applied to our souls? Yes,
I prove it, first, from the fact that the Church is
a mystical body. We are the members. We
must then assist one another; the strong must help
the weak; the agile must support the lame and
the halt, every joint supplieth and maketh in
crease of the body to the edifying itself unto char
ity. When one organ of a body suffers, all the
other organs do their utmost to relieve the suf
ferings of the wounded member. I prove it, sec
ondly, from the words and conduct of Saint Paul.
He tells us he makes up for what is wanting of the
sufferings of Christ, that the Church may grow
and that sinners may be converted. The suffer
ings of Christ are wanting, are deficient accord
ing to the Apostle. He too must suffer in many
watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often,
in cold and nakedness, in prisons, in stripes, In

Application of Christ's Satisfaction. 169

death. Why? To save the souls of Jew and
Gentiles. I prove it, thirdly, from the history of
God's dealings with individuals and nations. He
required not only prayer, a sorrow for the past
and a newness of life, but a prayer and a sorrow
that impelled to works of penance, and of stead
fast penance. Job did penance in dust and ashes,
so did David, Manasses, and the Ninivites. In
the prophecy of Joel, "The Lord saith: Be con
verted to Me with all your heart in fasting, in
weeping and in mourning."v And you remember
when Amalec fought against Israel in Raphidim,
Moses prayed with uplifted hands. When he be
sought God thus, Israel overcame, but "if he let
them down a little, Amalec overcame." All day did
Moses pray thus and his arms grew weary, but
Aaron and Hur stayed them up on both sides. The
prayer of penance was mighty, — the enemy fled,
and victory crowned the arms of Israel. Yes,
penance was necessary. The same truth may be
proved from the constant tradition in the Church,
and from the practice and maxims of all the saints.
How often do we not read in the lives of the
servants of God, that when they desired to con
vert a hardened sinner, to remove a grievous scan-

170 Application of Christ's Satisfaction.

dal, or to obtain a signal grace, they not only
prayed, but fasted, deprived themselves of sleep,
scourged themselves to blood, and then imitated
the example of our Lord, "Who in the days of His
flesh with a strong cry and tears" offered Himself
to His Father that for men He might be "the
cause of eternal salvation."

He loved us and delivered Himself for us to be
our example in time and our blest reward in eter
nity. Truth is the same yesterday, to-day and
forever: its principles have their source in Him
who is the Immutable. The infinite Majesty hav
ing been outraged by sin, must be appeased in
every age, and by every man born into the world.
God exacts atonement in the Person of His Son,
and He exacts it of all upon whom rests the curse
in Adam. Penance, reparation is what our
Eucharistic Lord requires. "Weep not over Me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children."
Fill up those things which are wanting of the suf
ferings of Christ. As of old, so now, do penance.
Of old all the people cried to the Lord with great
earnestness and they humbled their souls in fast
ings and prayers, both they and their wives. And
the priests put on haircloth and they caused the

Application of Christ's Satisfaction. 171

little children to lie prostrate before the temple
of the Lord, and the altar of the Lord they cov
ered with haircloth. And they cried to the Lord,
the God of Israel, with one accord, that their chil
dren might not be made a prey, and their wives
carried off, and their cities destroyed, and their
Holy Things profaned, and that they might not
be made a reproach to the Gentiles. And God
had mercy with regard to the evil which He had
said that He would do to them, and He did it not.

If we too would avert the evils impending be
cause of our iniquities, we must take up our cross
and look out for the Divine footprints as we ascend
the mountain of life's sacrifice. We must climb its
rugged heights in our day, even as the servants of
God have ever done.

The law of suffering is a bitter yoke and its
burden is a weary weight to bear, but we may
find strength for our faltering steps along our
cross-strewn way! Again and again let us rest
our thoughts upon the Sacred Heart; let us study
Its hatred of sin, Its devotedness, Its self-sacrifice ;
let us meditate upon that love which lays down
life for a friend; let us understand Its all-absorb
ing love for the Father and for that Father's will

172 Application of Christ's Satisfaction.

and glory. Devotion to the Sacred Heart will
cast a ray of beautiful light through the valleys
of grief, tinge with heavenly brightness the rugged
mountain paths of self-denial and abnegation, and
help us to look out with larger trust for the
promised rewards of God. Yes, under the influ
ence of devotion to the Sacred Heart, prayer is a
more intimate communion of heart with heart,
labor imparts new dignity to our life, and penance
becomes a bundle of myrrh precious to him who
bears it, and precious and comforting as soothing
balm to the Heart pierced for us on Calvary.

NINETEENTH CONFERENCE.
VICTIMS WITH CHRIST.

'"~TS HERE is an apostleship of suffering as well
as an apostleship of word and prayer. A
priest is officially commissioned to exercise this
triple apostleship. Participating in the priest
hood of Jesus Christ, he must himself be like
Christ, not only a priest, a sacrificer, but also a
victim. As watchman, ambassador, shepherd,
teacher, sower and reaper, he must not only labor
and pray for souls, he must also be willing to suffer
for them. Many are found faithfully spending
their strength in quest of the strayed sheep of their
flocks, but alas! not all are willing to suffer, not
all have the spirit of unreserved self-oblation. Our
blessed Saviour therefore seeks elsewhere to sup
ply this want. He seeks victims, especially among
souls still radiant with their baptismal innocence,
or who having lost that pearl of rare price have
recovered it in the deep waters of penance and

173

174 Victims With Christ.

tears. He finds them sometimes on the highways
of the world, but more frequently in the enclosed
gardens of religious communities. And finding
souls thus generous to enter into His life of sacri
fice, He pours out upon them an abundance of
griefs and sorrows. He communicates to them
the spirit of prayer, the love of humiliations, of
sufferings and deprivations. He roots out of
their hearts pride and its succulent branches, the
love of approval and esteem, jealousy, self-suffi
ciency, ambition, and human respect, and plants
instead a profound humility and a veneration for
authority. Some of them our blessed Saviour or
dains to suffer for infidels, others for heretics and
schismatics, others again for sinners in general,
or for souls in purgatory, for the conversion of a
certain country, for this or that parish, family or
individual. Finally, our Lord ordains some to
suffer for the sanctification of priests and the mul
tiplication of earnest workmen in His vineyard,
which vocation next to that of the ministry is the
noblest that can be entrusted to souls. Such spe
cial victims we know to have been Saints Cather
ine of Sienna, Mary Magdalen of Pazzi, Aloysius
Gonzaga, Rose of Lima, Blessed Margaret Mary,

Victims With Christ. 175

and many others who, innocent themselves, suf
fered for the guilty.

But when our Lord revealed Himself to Blessed
Margaret Mary and bade her promote the Devo
tion to His Sacred Heart, He certainly did not de
sign to make of all those who should practice this
devotion special victims, such as I have described.
Out on the broad fields of the world and in the
narrower sphere of religion He meant to inflame
ordinary Christian souls with divine love, and to
appeal to them to make some reparation for the
insults, the negligences and coldness that He suf
fers from men in the Sacrament of His love; and
though He complained that what grieved Him
most was the treatment He received from some
hearts consecrated to Him, yet He imposed no
great sacrifices, suggested no heroic expiation,
asked no victims of immolation. He taught
Blessed Margaret Mary only three special ways
of honoring and pleasing Him. These were, first,
the Holy Hour, secondly, frequent reception of
Holy Communion, particularly on Fridays, and
lastly, the institution of a Feast in honor of His
Sacred Heart. He further enjoined that on this
feast a public act of reparation was to be made to

176 Victims With Christ.

atone for the insults heaped upon Him while ex
posed on the altar during the Octave of Corpus
Christi. Those were the only new special prac
tices He taught her, — practices that could without
great difficulty be devoutly observed by the faith
ful at large, as by souls specially consecrated to
God. I say, they were the only new practices He
suggested — for there was one other familiar way
of serving Him that He never tired of impressing
upon the disciple and apostle of His Sacred Heart,
and that was absolute fidelity to the duties of her
state of life, unconditional, unexceptional obedi
ence to rules and precepts, careful sanctification of
every daily action. Whenever His wishes and
commands conflicted with those of the Mother
Superior, Margaret Mary was always to obey the
latter; she was to prefer the fulfillment of the
slightest duty ordained by Rule, to the sacred joy
of communing with Him in the Blessed Sacrament;
strongly did He reprimand and punish the least
infraction of discipline, even though it were com
mitted under the false idea of sanctifying herself
or giving pleasure to her divine Spouse. In this
way He prepared her to instruct others and gradu-

Victims With Christ. 177

ally to become herself a special victim of His love
for souls.

Do we not desire to make reparation, at least
for our own sins? Do we not also long to make
ourselves pleasing to the Sacred Heart by dis
charging every debt that stands against us? And
is there any one amongst us so cold, so devoid of
apostolic spirit as not to wish to aid in saving the
souls of his brethren ? Ah, then, let us labor, first
of all, to become faithful Christians, faithful ob
servers of all the obligations of our state of life.
Faithful observance of every duty implies a moral
martyrdom. Many saints lived ordinary lives and
never attempted extraordinary things : their aim
was to do ordinary things extraordinarily well.
In this wise we shall cancel many a debt, secure
assistance for others and console the Heart of our
Eucharistic Lord.

But is not our love generous enough to under
take a little more ? Once again, who is so rich, so
powerful, and withal, so good and beautiful as
He? He is the fairest of the children of men,
whiter than the lily, gentler than the lamb, the
poorest of the poor, the lowliest of the lowly, the
humblest of the humble, the Beloved who will not

178 Fictims With Christ.

break the bruised reed or extinguish the smoking
flax, so patient, forbearing, running after the way
ward sheep, pressing the prodigal to His Heart,
yet at the same time the King of ages, the Won
derful, the Holy One, the Light of light, the
Judge of the living and the dead, the Emmanuel,
yea, the mighty God ! He is Love itself : how can
we then resist His love? What does He ask of
us? First, He pleads that we will give Him en
trance into our hearts in Holy Communion, that
we will receive Him often. "My delight is to be
with the children of men." And shall we not give
Him that delight? What can be easier? Oh!
how is it possible for Christians to stay away from
Him for an entire year? Is He not the Bread of
our souls? Where is faith, love, self-interest?
Receive Him, then, often; if not oftener than at
present, at least with more fervent love and more
generous preparation. — What else does He ask?
That we stay with Him occasionally. Can you
forget the Garden of Gethsemane? Remember
the complaint made to Peter. "Simon, sleepest
thou? couldst thou not watch one hour?" In
the Tabernacle also our Lord is alone. Few be
lieve in Him. He is amongst His own as of yore,

Victims With Christ. 179

and His own receive Him not. Throngs pass to
and fro before His churches, giving no thought
to the sacred Presence there. Men are busy with
their vain occupations, they speak of projects and
success and failure as if they are to live forever,
yet never think of the gentle Saviour who is in their
midst. He sustains them, He gives them light of
understanding and warmth of heart, He fills their
days with sunshine and their nights with whole
some rest, He is their God, their future Judge,
their eternal bliss: but He is abandoned, as He
was in the night of suffering, He is left alone with
naught to keep Him company save the dim light
of the modest sanctuary lamp. uCouldst thou not
watch one hour?" "Stay with Me!" Keep vigil
with Me for a little while! — Is there aught else
our Lord asks of those devoted to His Heart?
Yes, He asks their help in the work of saving
souls. Many a human being is this moment on
his death-bed. On the cot of a hospital ward, in
a den of sin, on the prairies of the west, in the
woods of Africa, out on the rough waves of an
ocean-storm, perhaps unknown, alone, uncon
scious, a sinner is slowly breathing out his life. A
few moments more, and all will be over for a

i8o Victims With Christ.

never-ending eternity. Oh, how many of the dying
are dead in sin! how many there are whose souls
are laden with ten thousand deeds of darkness !
how many cold and reckless, how many strug
gling in despair! Shall our Lord's blood bear no
ransom ; shall His Heart have loved in vain ; shall
He be deprived of the glory that He so justly
claims? Oh, pray with Him, suffer with Him.
Have you the courage of love? Then offer your
self a victim to Him. Let the lamp of your life
be burnt out for Him. Let sorrow darken your
pathway and thorns be strewn over its sod. Let
anguish of spirit be yours, since so often it was
His. One day the good Master will meet you
with a welcome and rest your weary head upon
His bosom, and there let you be inebriated with
the joy of His own living Heart.

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BX Brinkmeyer, Henry J.,
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,B7 Short conferences on
the Sacred Heart :