offered in Sacrifice of complete homage to the Eternal Father; and the Church fulfils all this fully and unreservedly in those whose whole being, by the Vows they make, and the sublime consecration given to them by the Church, is absorbed into the RELIGION and perfect oblation of Christ Jesus the Eternal High Priest.

Though all Christians do not, and can not, lead the life of RELIGION in the perfect and untramelled way that we have been just describing, yet are they all called upon, if they would enter heaven, to attain to such a degree of Union with Christ, as will make them his true and real Members. Now, that Union, even supposing it to be the lowest degree, unites them to the Man-God, who is Victim and Priest, and whose Oblation is the highest worship that can be given to the Most High God. It is RELIGION. The Apostle teaches us, that this Union with the Incarnate Word is absolutely requisite for salvation.1 That Union began when we were baptised, when, as the same Apostle says, we not only put on Christ, but we were ingrafted into Him as the great Immolated, which the sacred text expresses by the words in the likeness of his Death. The unction of the Chrism, given to us the moment after Baptism, attests the existence, in all the Baptised, of the Kingly priesthood, which gives them a share in the Oblation (the RELIGION) of the High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ.

2

These truths form the basis of the moral teaching contained in the Epistles of Saints Peter and Paul. For them, as the purest and sublimest teaching, the science of Christian life is summed up, as might be expected, in our seeking God's glory; in RELIGION and in the SACRIFICE of the Head, passed on to his Members; so that, his worship becomes shared in by

5

5 1 Cor. x. 31.

them. Let us again think on the meaning of that anointing in Baptism, which gives to every Christian the impress of the Great High Priest Jesus: it implies the share Christians have in the SACRIFICE, the RELIGION of Christ; it enables them to transform into a sharing in Christ's eternal Holocaust all their victories over sin, and all their Sacrifices, and all their virtuous acts, here on earth. So that the newly-baptised Christian who is just born to the supernatural life, could say, as Christ did on his first coming into this world, that he had received his Body only for the one purpose of immolating it to God's glory. The Christian is told by St. Paul, that he, too, must present his body a living sacrifice, as a service, a worship, due unto God.2 Rendered, as he thus is, a sharer in the Priesthood of the ManGod, he must remember what is the purpose of that participated honour: it is, as St. Peter shows him, that he make his good works be so many spiritual sacrifices offered unto God by Jesus Christ, and, therefore, acceptable.3

8

6

Those same two Apostles teach us that we Christians are, also, living stones of the Temple built by the Holy Ghost on the corner-stone. Nay, that we ourselves are Temples; and, as such, we should resemble our Lord, in this, as in all other things; now He, in his sacred Humanity, was the sanctuary of the adorable Trinity. A Temple should be what its name implies; therefore, adoration, prayer, praise, and the great Sacrifice above all, should be uppermost in our thoughts, and should tell upon our whole conduct. If RELIGION be not the very atmosphere of ourselves, who are God's Temples, the divine Majesty who dwells in them would be justly displeased.

But, what is it makes us sanctuaries of the Divinity? It is the coming into us of the Holy Ghost. What puts upon us the sublime obligation of glorifying and carrying God in our bodies, is the reign of the Paraclete within us. If any one love me, said our Lord, my Father will love him, (that is to say, "will "give him that Holy Spirit who is Love); and we will come unto him and will make our abode with him3 The promise was formal; it was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit, "proceeding from "the Throne," filled with the divine stream,5 which flows, together with him, from the sacred heart of Jesus, filled, I say, the Baptistery where the Church, in the person of the three thousand neophytes,' was awaiting her own birth. The three divine Persons came down upon that first baptismal font; and, whilst the water was yet moist on these first converts of the Spirit of Christ, there descended upon them what the sacred Liturgy enthusiastically terms, "an inundating grace "of the Deity." Blind and poor as they were before, they then were enriched with light and love. Not only was the mystery of the Trinity made known to the world; but, by the all-efficacious formula of holy Baptism, the Trinity took up its abode in those regenerated creatures, making them all and each, as St. Augustine says, its true Temple."

10

No

Nothing, therefore, could be more natural, than for the Feast of the Holy Trinity to be placed immediately after that of the glorious Pentecost. sooner would the Church, wakening into life, feel within her the divine indwelling, than she would prostrate herself in grateful adoration before that thrice-holy God, who thus deigned to fill her with

his infinite Majesty. Later on, she would be led to enrich her Year with a Festival, whose doctrinal light and teaching would so admirably harmonise with the rest of her Liturgy.

If that Festival of Trinity rightly followed Pentecost, it, with equal appropriateness, preceded the one of Corpus Christi,-for the manifestation of the Three divine Persons, and the creature's acknowledgment of the homage it owes to the adorable Unity, really preceded the Union, in the Sacrament of Love, between Christ and his Church. The Feast of the Eucharist would, from the very fact of its following that of Trinity, tell the Bride that the glorification of God, One in Three Persons, was to be the fruit justly expected from the divine Nuptials. The children of the Church, invited so high up by divine Wisdom, though from no merits of their own, would now clearly understand, why it was that our Lord did not wish to give himself to his servants, except in the very celebration of that Sacrifice, which gives infinite glory to the Blessed Trinity. The Union which was to exist between the Church and her divine Spouse was to be on this condition, that the holiness of the Son of Man was to be communicated to that Church, whom he chose for his Bride. Let us give respectful attention to certain most mysterious words recorded by the Evangelist as having been addressed by Jesus to his Father. Father, said he, sanctify in the Truth, them whom thou gavest me; sanctify them in the Truth, which is thy Word; for it is for them that I do sanctify myself, that they, also, may be sanctified in the Truth.1 What means this? that Jesus, who is sanctity itself,2 and is the source of sanctity to all creatures, should speak of sanctifying Himself? The Fathers of the Church3 explain it as being the consecration of the

! St. John, xvii. 17, 19. 2 Ps. xv. 10; St. Mark, i. 24.

3

Among others, St. Cyril, in Johan, lib. x. c. 10.

4

Sacrifice, by which Jesus, who is the great High Priest, gives to God, in the name of the whole world, the infinite homage which is due to infinite Majesty. In human language, as also in the inspired Scriptures,1 Justice and Sanctity are one and the same. If, then, infinite Sanctity is one with infinite Justice, is not the essentially sanctified and sanctifying Act, that Sacrifice of the Son of Man, which so loudly proclaims, and so amply, yea so infinitely, satisfies THE RIGHT OF GOD, the eternal Right, whence all other Rights derive their existence, the RIGHT which is the origin of all justice? Sacrifice, then, thus sanctifying the Head3 and the Members, is also the consummation of Union between Christ and his Church. With this before us, we shall have no difficulty in understanding, how it is that the Holy Sacrifice, in its imposing and simple unity, should be the very centre and soul of a Season, which signifies, and celebrates, and gives ever new perfection to, that divine union. We must not expect to find, in the series of the Sundays after Pentecost, that connexion of dramatic design, that interesting gradation, working up to some fixed Day of a Mystery, as was the case in the preceding periods of the Liturgical Year. In those other Seasons, the Church was in search of her divine Spouse; she was approaching closer to him by the gradual celebration of his several mysteries, each celebration did its glorious share in the work of incorporating her with him; till at length, being all transformed into him, there was nothing to prevent the longed-for Union. True, it was precisely then, that the Man-God hid himself from her view, and seemed to be leaving her for further probation; but, that was the very time when he sent the Holy Ghost upon the earth; and he, the Spirit, revealed to the Church the sense of the word spoken by the Divine Spouse in the Canticle: Till the day break, and

1 Acts, iii. 14.

2 Rom. iii. 26.

3 Heb. ii. 10.

4 Ibid. x. 14.