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I have not loved thee in jest, our Lord says one day to the Blessed Angela of Foligno. "This word," writes the Saint, "struck a deadly pain into my soul, because straightway the eyes of my soul were opened and I saw clearly that what He said was most true. For I saw the works and the effect of that love, and I saw all that this Son of God worketh by reason of that love. The Saint specifies the object of her vision. 'I saw that what He underwent in life and in death, this God-Man, Who suffered His Passion by reason of His ineffable tender love, and I understood that the aforesaid word is most true, namely, that He loves me not in jest, but that by a most true and most perfect and most tender love, hath He loved me. And what was the result of this contemplation for Angela's soul? A deep sense of compunction. Hear how she judges herself in the divine light. And I saw that in me it was just the opposite... Then, too, my soul cried out and said: 'O Master... I have never loved Thee save in jest and with falsehood and hypocrisy ; and never have I desired to come near to Thee in truth, so as to feel the labours that Thou hast willed to feel and to suffer for me; and never have I served Thee truly and for Thy sake, but with double-dealing and negligently 1?

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You see how holy souls are touched and how they humble themselves when they consider Christ's sufferings. On the night of the Passion, Peter, the Prince of the Apostles to whom Christ had revealed His glory upon Thabor, who had just received Holy Communion from Jesus' own hands, Peter, at the voice of a servant-maid, denies His Master. Soon afterwards, the gaze of Jesus, abandoned to the caprices of His mortal enemies, meets that of Peter. The Apostle understands; he goes out, and bitter tears flow from his eyes Flevit amare 2.

A like effect is produced in the soul that contemplates the sufferings of Jesus with faith it, too, has followed. Jesus, with Peter, on the night of the Passion; it, too, meets the gaze of the Divine Crucified, and that is for it a true grace. Let us often keep close in the footsteps of the Suffering Christ, by making the "Way of the Cross. Jesus will say to us : See what I have suffered for thee; I have endured a three hours' agony, endured the desertion of My disciples, and having My Face spat upon, the false

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1. The Book of Visions, ch. xxxIII. Translated from the Latin by "A Secular Priest ". Publ. by the Art and Book Co, Leamington. 2. Matth. XXVI, 75.

witnesses, the cowardice of Pilate, the derision of Herod, the weight of the Cross beneath which I fell, the nakedness of the gibbet, the bitter sarcasms of My most deadly enemies, the thirst which they would have quenched with gall and vinegar, and, above all, the being forsaken by My Father. It was for thee, out of love for thee, to expiate thy sins that I endured all; with My Blood I have paid thy debts; I underwent the terrible exigences of Justice that mercy might be shown to thee!" Could we remain insensible to such a plea! The gaze of Jesus upon the Cross penetrates to the depths of our soul and touches it with repentance, because we are made to understand that sin is the cause of all these sufferings. Our heart then deplores having really contributed to the Divine Passion. When God thus touches a soul with His light, in prayer, He grants it one of the most precious graces that can be.

It is a repentance, moreover, full of love and confidence. For the soul does not sink down in despair beneath the weight of its sins compunction is accompanied with consolation and comfort; the thought of the Redemption prevents shame and regret from degenerating into discouragement. Has not Jesus purchased our pardon superabundantly: Et copiosa apud eum redemptio1? The sight of His sufferings, at the same time as it gives birth to contrition, quickens within us hope in the infinite value of the sufferings by which Christ satisfied for us, and this brings us ineffable peace, Ecce in pace amaritudo mea amarissima".

Perhaps in looking back upon the past, we see many miseries and stains. Perhaps we are tempted to say to Christ: "Lord Jesus, how shall such as I ever be able to please Thee?' Let us then remember that Christ came down to earth to seek sinners3, that He Himself has said: the angels rejoice over the conversion of one sinner more than over the perseverance of many just 4. Each time that a sinner repents and obtains forgiveness, the angels in Heaven glorify God for His mercy: Quoniam in aeternum misericordia ejus 5. Let us think too of these words: Thou, Who didst absolve Mary [Magdalen] and hear the Good Thief, hast not left me without hope®. They are words full of confidence. Christ Jesus forgave Magdalen; more than that, He loved her with a love of predilection; He made her, who had been the shame of her sex, pure as a virgin.

10.

What Christ wrought in Magdalen, He can do again in 3. Matth. 1x, 13. 4. Luc. xv, 7,

1. Ps. CXXIX, 7. · 2. Isa. XXXVIII, 17.
5. Ps. cxxxv. — -6. Sequence Dies irae.

the greatest of sinneis; Christ can rehabilitate the sinner and bring him to holiness. This is a work reserved to Divine Omnipotence: Quis potest facere mundum de immundo... nisi tu qui solus es1? He is God and God alone has this power of renewing innocence in His creature: it is the triumph of the Blood of Jesus.

But this ineffable renewal is only wrought upon one condition it is that one imitates the sinner of the Gospel in her loving repentance. Magdalen is truly a perfect model of compunction. Look at her, at the feast in Simon's house, prostrate at the Saviour's feet, watering them with her tears, wiping them with the hairs of her head, the adornment wherewith she had seduced souls, humbling herself in presence of all the guests, and pouring out her contrite love at the same time as her perfumes. Later, she will generously follow Christ to the foot of the Cross, upheld by the love which make her share the sorrows and reproaches with which Jesus is overwhelmed. Love again will bring her the first to the tomb, until the Risen Christ, calling her by her name, rewards the ardour of her zeal and makes her the apostle of His Resurrection to the disciples: Remittuntur ei peccata multa quoniam dilexit multum 2.

Let us too often stay with Magdalen, near the Cross. After the application of the merits of Jesus in the Sacrament of Penance, after assistance at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass which reproduces the immolation on Calvary, there is truly no surer means than the exercise of compunction for destroying sin and arming us against it.

Let us then seek to keep ourselves in this disposition of which the fruits are so precious. Nothing will give more solidity to our spiritual life, more sureness to our perseverance. Speaking of compunction, Father Faber says: "It is as life-long with us as anything can be. It is a prominent part of our first turning to God, and there is no height of holiness in which it will leave us 3.

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1. Job. XIV, 4. 2. Luc. VII, 47.

3. L. c.

SUMMARY.

A

Acts of Christian renunciation ought to correspond with sincere compunction. - I. The expiation of sin concerns, for different reasons, both Christ and the members of His Mystical Body. II. Practice of renunciation : mortifications imposed by the Church. — III. Mortifications inherent to common life and the observance of the Vows. IV. The mortifications which every one of good will may practise on his own initiative; essential condition which St. Benedict lays down on this point.

V. Practices of self-renunciation constitute only a means, and their value is derived from their union with the sufferings of Jesus.

CCORDING to the Divine Plan which the Eternal Father has traced out for us, He wills that we should only go to Him by walking in the footsteps of His Son, Christ Jesus. Our Lord has given us the formula of this fundamental truth: "I am the Way... No man cometh to the Father but by Me": Nemo venit ad Patrem nisi per Me1.

Compunction of heart, as we have seen, by fostering the habitual detestation of sin, works very efficaciously at dissolving the obstacles which would hinder us from following the Divine Model.

However our inward dispositions must logically become a part of our conduct, ruling and inspiring our deeds. To sincere compunction will necessarily correspond acts of Christian renunciation. Did not our Lord bequeath this maxim to all His disciples : If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me": Si quis vult post Me venire, abneget semetipsum et tollat crucem suam et sequatur Me2.

This precept, in one sense characteristic of Christian asceticism, has naturally passed into our Holy Father's teaching, which is the faithful reflection of the Gospel. Before detailing the practice of renunciation among the instruments of good works, the very words of the Word Incarnate are recalled to us by the Holy Patriarch: "To deny oneself, in order to follow Christ": Abnegare semetipsum sibi ut sequatur Christum3.

1. Joan. xiv, 6. — 2. Matth. XVI, 24.

3. Rule, ch. IV.

Let us then study the way wherein Our Lord has gone before us, that we, in our turn, may walk in it. And if this way appears hard to our nature of flesh and blood, let us ask Jesus Himself to uphold us; He is the Life as well as the Truth and the Way; by the unction of His Almighty grace, He will give us the power to contemplate Him as we should, and to follow Him whithersoever He goes.

I.

Since Adam's fall, man can only return to God by expiation. St. Paul tells us in speaking of Christ that He is a High Priest, holy innocent, unde filed, separated from sinners": Pontifex sanctus, innocens, impollutus et segregatus a peccatoribus1. Jesus, our Head, is infinitely far from all that is sin; and yet He has to pass through the sufferings of the Cross before entering into His glory.

You know the episode of Emmaus related by St. Luke. On the day of the Resurrection, two of Jesus' disciples set out to this town, a short distance from Jerusalem. They speak to one another of their disappointment caused by the death of the Divine Master, and the apparent downfall of all their hopes concerning the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. And behold, Jesus, under the guise of a stranger, joins Himself to them and asks them the subject of their discourse. The disciples tell Him the cause of their sadness. Then the Saviour, Who has not yet revealed Himself to them says, in a tone of reproach: "O foolish and slow of heart to believe... Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into His glory?": Nonne haec oportuit pati Christum et ita intrare in gloriam suam 2?

Why then "ought Christ to have suffered ? If He had so willed, could not God have universally forgiven sin without requiring expiation? Assuredly He could. His absolute power knows no limits; but His justice has exacted expiation, and, first of all, Christ's expiation.

The Word Incarnate, in taking human nature, substituted Himself for sinful man, powerless to redeem himself; and Christ became the Victim for sin. This is what our Lord gave His disciples to understand in telling them that His sufferings were necessary. Necessary, not only in their generality, but even in their least details: for if a single sigh of Christ would have sufficed, and far more than sufficed, to redeem the world, a free decree of the Divine will, touching 1. Hebr. vII, 26. 2. Luc. xxiv, 26.