and especially in episcopal towns, is dedicated to God, under the invocation of Mary; and the greater number of cathedrals bear the name of our Lady. Lastly, instead of honouring the Blessed Virgin on one day of the year, as she honours each Saint on the day of his festival, the Church honours Mary by a succession of feasts, which embraces the whole year, because it embraces the whole life of her who is the Mother of the new life, and the model of our own.

Prayer.

I understand now, O Lord, the dying words of S. Teresa, "After all, O Lord, I am a child of the Church!" She felt an overflowing joy in death at the thought that she was dying in the great family of Thy children, which bears the threefold mark of its Father's inheritance, the mark of Thy Divine unity, by its perpetuity, its universality, and its indefectibility in all places and through all time. In that thrill of joy in death, she felt within her the ineffable life which Thou dost communicate to Thy family by Thy Holy Spirit, the Spirit of prayer: Spiritus gratiae et precum. Thou hast said, O Lord, "My house is a house of prayer 9 and by Thyself I swear that the Catholic Church is truly Thy house, because it is the true house of true prayer. Man indeed prays every where, unless he has suffered the last spark to be extinguished of that fire which Thy breath continually seeks to rekindle in our souls; but that fire does not wholly consume them except in the Church, whither thou callest us all. How many have I known who have returned to that home, and have found there that of which they have felt the need elsewhere, and found hardly a trace! It is Thy Spirit, 0 my God, which enkindles the prayers of the sacred solemnities in our temples, those sublime prayers of Thy assembled children which the spirit of man never dictated, and the force, the unction, and the sublime sim1 Zach. xii. 10. 2 Mark xi. 17.

plicity of which he is powerless to imitate. It is Thy Spirit also Who inspires the prayers of the souls who speak to Thee in secret (in abscondito), and repeat to Thee in a thousand different ways the prayer which Thou hast taught them, the "Our Father," that Abba, Pater,2 which enfolds in its supernatural depths all their desires, which suffices to the weakest among them, and expresses the full meaning of the strongest of those who are most closely united with Thee in recollection, and even in the highest contemplation. Lastly, it is Thy Spirit Who quickens all the members of the Church militant, triumphant, and suffering, making of them one body, of which that Spirit is the soul; and by it the prayer of the souls in triumph brings grace to the souls still in the conflict, and consolation to those in the place of expiation. O my God, how sweet it is to know that by the Communion of Saints we are united to all who pray upon earth, to the holy souls who pray in purgatory, to the Saints who pray in heaven, to Mary, the Mother of all, who offers the incense of that universal prayer in the sacred thurible of her heart to her Divine Son, the only Mediator of Justice, by Whom all things come to us from God, and by Whom all return to Him!

My Mother, the grain of incense which I bring thee is very poor and insignificant, but it will not burn alone in the fire of thy heart; and as "I am a child of the Church," and desire to live and die a child of the Church, I shall have my share in life and death in those graces which are brought down from heaven by the prayers of all, and above all by thine, which completes and perfects them, and I have a full confidence that I shall one day bless thee in heaven for having obtained for me on earth, by the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, faith, hope, repentance, love, and perseverance, and for having. watched over my soul unto the end, to deliver it from the arms of death into the bosom of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

1 Matt. vi. 6.

2 Gal. iv. 6.

CHAPTER XV.

THE FESTIVALS OF MARY.

The life of Mary the light of ours-Feast of the Immaculate Conception-Fidelity to grace.

Ar the end of the last consideration we pointed out, as one of the signs of the superiority of the cultus which the Church pays to Mary over that which she renders to the Saints, the chain of Festivals celebrated in honour of the Blessed Virgin,—a chain encircling the whole year, because it embraces the whole life of her who is the Mother and model of souls. It is true, that in order to lose nothing of what the Gospel reveals to us of the life of Mary, and of what the Church commemorates in her Festivals, we must never separate the Feasts of the Son from those of the Mother, so divinely united was the life of the Mother with that of the Son. If, however, we cast but a glance at her principal Feasts, we shall find sufficient proof that the life of our Mother is the model offered for our imitation.

These Feasts are those of her Immaculate Conception, her Nativity, her Presentation in the Temple, her Annunciation, her Visitation, her Purification, her Compassion, or her Dolors, and her glorious Assumption. The ecclesiastical year does not, indeed, arrange them in this order, because the Church has fixed them on the anniversaries of those days on which those mysteries actually took place which form the links "full of grace" of the whole life of the Mother of God. The first of these links was the mystery of her Immaculate Conception. We have already explained what we mean when we say that Mary was conceived without sin; i. e. that at the very moment when the soul of the second Eve was created and united to her body, God clothed and adorned it with sanctifying grace, as He did that of the first Eve, not willing that she who was blessed among women, and destined to beChap. vi., supra. ́

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come the Mother of the Saviour of mankind, should enter into this world soiled with the stain of original sin, or devoid, like the other children of Adam, of the light and the splendour of grace; but, on the contrary, that she

should appear from the very first worthy of Him whom

she was to bear, and endowed from the first moment of her life with the merits of Jesus Christ, the gifts of the Son of God, who willed to become her Son.

Holy Scripture teaches this when it calls Mary "full of grace" grace having so filled the life of Mary, as it filled her soul, that not the smallest portion of either was left devoid of its sanctifying power.

The Church teaches us the same truth in the prayer for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception: Deus, qui per Immaculatam Virginis conceptionem dignum Filio tuo habitaculum præparasti ("O God, Who, by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, didst prepare for Thy Son a habitation worthy of Him").

The Immaculate Conception was, then, the first grace bestowed on Mary to prepare her for her divine vocation. It was the first act of God's Providence executing in time the design which He had formed regarding her from all eternity.

What is there in this to recall us to ourselves, and make us look into our own hearts?

It is, that each one of us has a divine vocation, and is called by Providence to attain to God by a way divinely appointed from all eternity; that each one of us has received gifts and graces proportioned to that end, beginning from our birth and our baptism;2 and that if we faithfully recall to mind that chain of graces, we shall find an abundant occasion for gratitude, love, repentance, 1 Luke i. 28.

2 There are three kinds of baptism: the baptism of water, the baptism of blood or martyrdom, and the baptism of desire-i. e., according to S. Thomas Aquinas, the grace to will to obtain salvation by fulfilling the will of God, a grace which He never refuses even to those who, from invincible ignorance, as yet know not the true Church.

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and filial fear lest we fill up the measure of our ingratitude. Lastly, it is that which holy Church makes us ask of God, through the intercession of Mary, and by the merits of Jesus Christ, in the prayer for this very Feast: Ut cor et corpus nostrum immaculatum tibi, qui eam ab omni labe præservasti fideliter custodiamus (Grant us faithfully to keep our hearts and bodies immaculate for Thee, Who didst preserve her from all stain").

Prayer.

Yes, Lord, Thou hast willed to do me good, and that the highest good, from all eternity. Thou hast prepared for me a way to attain to Thee, and I desire ever to remember those first rays of light which revealed it to me, and every additional illumination which Thou hast since bestowed upon me. Who is like unto Thee, O my God, in goodness and love? Who has loved me as Thou hast loved me, and who has ever given me equal proofs of love? But if nothing is like unto Thy love, O Lord, what is like to me in blindness and ingratitude? I deserve nothing more from Thee, or rather, I deserve all Thy chastisements; and yet I trust that Thou wilt give me tears, because they are due to Thee, because Thou lovest justice, and because I love it too, notwithstanding all my sins.

Mary, my Mother, thou who art so pure and so beautiful in the eyes of God, look upon thy child; and since the tears of repentance can alone render me precious in thy sight, thou wilt obtain them for me, because thou art my Mother, and wilt never cease to love me.

Grant, then, O Lord, to Mary that which she asks for me,―ut cor et corpus immaculatum tibi fideliter custodiam,-that I may faithfully keep my heart and body immaculate for Thee—this heart and this body which Thou hast given me so that, at the moment of my death, my soul may fly to my Mother and to Thee, and my body await in the tomb the glorious resurrection of Thy children. Amen.