by God and for God-forsaken in His sufferings that we might not be forsaken in our sins, dying to give us life, rising again to show us the life which He has prepared for us, ascending to heaven to draw us up thither also, -this simple contemplation of Jesus and also of His Blessed Mother-not only in the mysteries of the Passion, but likewise in the mysteries of the glory of her Son, as in those of the Incarnation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, and of the Finding of that Divine Son in the Temple-this simple gaze of the poor and lowly Christian, who does not pretend to reason, but to see and learn, will teach him more divine truths than the books of the learned. We designedly repeat the expression "simple gaze," that it may not be supposed we wish to turn the holy Rosary into a laborious meditation. No; let the Rosary continue to be a sweet and simple prayer, which will not prevent it from being a real prayer of the heart; a prayer in spirit and in truth; true mental prayer, if we only repeat the Pater and Ave with our thoughts fixed on Jesus and Mary. The Pater is a Divine prayer, and the soul of all other prayers, since by it we ask for all that man ought to desire and ask for. What ought we to desire? Our end. For what end has God created us? For His glory and our happiness. "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name;" this is the end of God. "Thy kingdom come;" this is the end of man. But how shall we come to reign in heaven with God? By letting Him reign in us on earth. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The glory of God and heaven; this, then, is our end, and the accomplishment of the will of God is the way which leads to it. But strength is necessary for us, in order to walk day by day in this path. "Give us this day our daily bread;" both for soul and body, the word and the bread of life. We have the end, and the means of attaining it, but we must also overcome the obstacles which we encounter by the way. The first of these obstacles is sin, which makes us unworthy of God: "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us." Jesus Christ teaches us to be merciful, in order to obtain mercy. Temptations are the second obstacle; the wars waged against our soul by the world, our passions, and that irreconcilable enemy of our salvation, the fallen angel and his companions: "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil;" from the moral evil of sin, and from the evil of the punishment which is due to it. Amen ("So be it”). Thus we see every thing is comprehended in this prayer; but that which shows us still more clearly its Divine origin is the inexhaustible fertility of its meaning. We have indeed just considered its true signification, but this true signification contains many others, according to the state and wants of our souls; especially when we offer the prayer to Jesus, and contemplate His life and passion, His death and His glory. For His life is the rule of our life, His sufferings the explanation of our sufferings, His death the consolation of our death, His glory gives us hope in our trials. Every thing, indeed, in Jesus Christ is full of light and instruction, which He freely bestows on all who seek them. It is then that great desires are kindled in us, and the Aves of the holy Rosary scarcely suffice to allay the blessed thirst for the graces which we seek in Jesus through Mary: Gratiam quærentes, et per Mariam quærentes ("Seeking graces, and seeking them through Mary"); the graces of faith, humility, purity, charity, obedience, patience, resignation, increase of the love of God, and of that divine confidence which shall never be confounded. Prayer. Yes, I will seek these graces, and I will seek them in Jesus Christ by thy prayer, O Mary! holy and true Mother of my soul! I should be very ungrateful if I were not faithful to the recitation of thy sweet Rosary, if I did not love this Chaplet, which has withdrawn me from the world and drawn me to God, and which continues daily to draw down upon me so many graces. The remembrance of the past, the experience of the present, the certain expectation of mercies yet to come, —all bind me to the Chaplet, which I lovingly kiss, as one of the most sure means of perseverance. O Mary, hearken to me! I have worn it about me for a long time past, and thou knowest that I have never found it a burden. Wilt thou suffer me to die without it? No, thou wilt never permit this to happen. And as its links have bound me to thee on earth, so by them thou wilt also raise me up to thee in heaven; where thou wilt unite me to thy Father and my Father, to thy Saviour and my Saviour, to the Spouse of thy soul and of mine, in the bosom of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. CHAPTER XXXII. THE SCAPULAR. LOVE is essentially active. It is a flame tending continually to its centre. The loving soul seeks always to please the object of its love, to manifest and prove its love, and thus to attract the love of the object beloved. If this be true of unlawful affections, which sully and delude the heart, and which always perish self-punished, how will it be with the true love, the love of souls, the love which comes from God and leads to God, and, above all, with the love of God Himself? It will be more active than any other, more anxious to manifest itself, to prove its strength and reality, and thus to attract in an increasing measure the love of God, Who is at once the Father, Brother, Friend, Lover, and Spouse of souls. The soul which loves Jesus Christ naturally feels drawn to love all that He loves, and will not require to be urged to love the one amongst all creatures whom Jesus loves the best,-His most sweet and Blessed Mother. The love of Jesus, then, leads to the love of Mary, and the love of Mary, being the fruit of the love of Jesus, will be like that from which it springs,—active, anxious to make itself known and felt, and thus to attract the love of the Mother of God and of men. For this reason the affection of the children of Mary is not satisfied with the pious acts of devotion which we have already mentioned, and by which they seek daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to please her. What they want is an act of love, which shall be in some sort permanent, as that of the foolish lovers of the world, who carry about with them every where a remembrance of the object of their love, thus expressing the invariable and constant attachment of their heart and thoughts to the vain idol which has seduced them. The affection of the children of Mary is not less than that of these blind votaries; wherever they may be, they always wear some remembrance of their Mother, some medal or image of her Immaculate Conception, of her Heart, of her Love, and of her Sorrows, and still more constantly that blessed sign of her protection, the holy Scapular, which is at the same time the noble badge of an innumerable family, and the sure pledge of a union of prayers, which necessarily brings many graces. There are persons who fancy themselves clearsighted, but who are only purblind, who will tell us that these remembrances are the amulets of Christians. In reply, we say of amulets and other superstitious badges of false religions, what we say of the religions which inspire them, that they are an adulteration and a profanation of the truth. Magical signs themselves are Union of prayers is one of the advantages of pious associations. See what S. Alphonsus has written in the Glories of Mary of the utility of these associations. In only chimeras in the eyes of the half-educated. reality they are a badge of sacrilegious servitude or bondage, a means of procuring the fatal assistance of fallen and wicked spirits, who only aid men temporally in order to ruin them eternally, when the justice of God lets them take their own course, and permits them to give this fatal assistance to ungrateful and obstinately faithless men, and thus to lead them into sin, "because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved;"1 "giving heed to the doctrines of the spirits of error," "by which they perish."3 An intelligent being never gives, receives, or wears such tokens in vain, because they are the expression of a thought, an affection, or a desire. Are not the Sacraments tokens from God? Undoubtedly they are the visible sign of His love, and the channel of His invisible gifts; but Divine Omnipotence alone can give to the expression of His will that marvellous efficacy which no creature can attach to any sign whatsoever. But though these tokens of our affections do not, like the Sacraments, possess efficacy in themselves, they still have power to influence those whom they concern on earth or in heaven. We do not yet see God, nor the elect, nor the Angels, nor the Queen of Heaven, because we do not yet enjoy the light which they enjoy; but if our eye perceives from this spot in the universe, which we call earth, the physical light of the stars at an immeasurable distance, how clearly must our souls be perceived by beings illuminated by the light of God Himself, in whose eyes they are greater than a thousand worlds! You would yourself be touched by hearing that a person, out of affection for you, always wore something belonging to you. Be not uneasy, then; the inhabitants 1 2 Thess. ii. 10. 2 1 Tim. iv. 1. |