This prayer being ended, the Priest kisses the altar, raises his hands and eyes to Heaven, and then, turning towards the people and extending his right hand, blesses them, by making the sign of the cross and saying, May the almighty God bless you: in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost! The people answer with their usual exclamation, Amen!-May God hear the petition that you have made for us! In Masses for the dead, the blessing is omitted: it cannot serve them since it is only for the assistants.

How beautiful are the ceremonies with which the Priest accompanies this last blessing! He himself takes the blessing of Jesus Christ by kissing the altar, which represents Him. He raises his eyes and hands to Heaven, in order to show that it belongs to this eternal High-priest, who sits at the right hand of the Most High, as the true Melchisedech, to bless the faithful people, the children of the true Abraham-to bless them for time and eternity, through the merits of His mysteries and His cross.

The Gospel of St. John is the second addition made to the Mass by the joint devotion of the Priest and the Faithful. From the beginning of the Church, Christians entertained the most profound veneration for the sublime words of the beloved disciple. St. Augustine did not disapprove of the custom, already established in his time, of laying this holy Gospel on the heads of sick persons in order to cure them, and Pope Paul V. commanded that in visits to them the Gospel of St. John should be read, with imposition of hands. The Pagans themselves, struck at the depth as well as the sublimity of the same Gospel, used to say that it ought to be written in letters of gold in every place where men assembled, that it might be known to the whole world.

The Faithful so earnestly desired that it should be read at the close of Mass that they expressly asked this in making foundations for churches. The request soon became unnecessary. All Priests recited the Gospel before quitting the altar, and Pope St. Pius V. made it a law to do so. It is recited every day, unless there is a double office on account of some festival. In this case the Gospel of the Mass that could not be said, is recited. For example, when the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin falls on a Sunday, the office of this solemn festival is celebrated; but the Last Gospel is that of the Sunday whose office is suppressed.

The recital of the Gospel of St. John is accompanied with the same ceremonies as that of the ordinary Gospel. At the beginning the Priest excites the attention of the Faithful by saying to them,

1 Lebrun, p. 673.

The Lord be with you! And the people answer, And with your spirit! The Priest makes the sign of the cross with his thumb first on the chart containing the Gospel, and then on his forehead, lips, and heart, in order to declare his love and his faith. He says at the same time, Beginning of the Gospel according to St. John! The people answer, Glory be to Thee, O Lord!

The Priest resumes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," &c.

When the Priest says, And the Word was made flesh, he makes a genuflection to honour the profound abasement of the Divine Word, who, in order to redeem us, was pleased to humble Himself so far as to take the form of a slave, that is to say, of man, the slave of the devil and of sin.

The idea of concluding the prayers of the holy sacrifice with the Gospel of St. John is full of wisdom and piety. In point of fact, this Gospel is a summary of all that the Word has done for us in eternity and in time. It shows Him to us in the bosom of His Father, God of God, by whom all things were made, the Life and the Light of the world. It shows Him come down on earth, the true Sun of Justice that shines on darkness and enlightens those who sit in the shadow of death. It reminds us that it is through Him we are the children of God, for He was made flesh and dwelt amongst us that He might free us from the slavery of sin, and rescue us from eternal perdition. We have seen His glory in the crib, on Thabor, on Calvary, at the sepulchre; we see it daily in the Holy Eucharist: and we praise and bless Him, because He is full of grace and truth.1

At the end of the Gospel of St. John, all the people answer by the mouth of the clerk, Deo gratias-We return thanks to God! This short prayer is so holy, so perfect, and so worthy of God, that the celebration of the greatest of mysteries could not be closed with an expression more divine. What can we think, asks St. Augustine, what can we say, what can we write better than Deo gratias, thanks be to God? No, we cannot say anything shorter, hear anything pleasanter, imagine anything nobler, do anything more useful or fruitful than what is expressed by the prayer, Deo gratias, thanks be to God!"

Oh, yes, thanks be to God, Heaven is reconciled with earth! The august victim, expected during four thousand years, has just been immolated: God has received it by sacrifice; men, by communion. Thanks be to the Father, who has given us His Son;

1 Esprit des Cérém., p. 384; Lebrun, p. 676; le P. de Condren, p. 410. Epist. lxxvii.

thanks be to the Son, who has clothed Himself with our nature; thanks be to the Holy Ghost, who has sanctified us in Jesus Christ! Thanks be to the Three Persons of the Adorable Trinity for all their gifts, for all their infinite mercies, of which the Catholic sacrifice is an abridgment!

Let us terminate this last part of the Mass, like the preceding ones, with some pious comparisons between this part of the sacrifice of the altar and the circumstances of the sacrifice of the cross. The Priest takes the ablutions; Jesus is embalmed. The Priest, after the communion, moves to the Epistle side; Jesus rises again. The Priest turns towards the Faithful that he may say Dominus vobiscum; Jesus appears to His disciples. The Priest says the collect; Jesus converses several times with His disciples. The Priest says the last Dominus vobiscum; Jesus bids farewell to His apostles and ascends into Heaven. The Priest blesses the people; Jesus sends down the Holy Ghost. The Priest says the Gospel of St. John; Jesus, crowned with glory, reigns triumphant in Heaven and watches over His Church.'

It is needless to say that gratitude is the sentiment that ought to prevail in our hearts during the last part of Mass. Do we wish to make this sentiment livelier? Let us rouse our faith by the following questions :-Who has just been immolated? For whom has He been immolated? Why has He been immolated? By being immolated what has He given me ?

Let us meditate on these things, and having done so, can we avoid saying with St. Paul, If anyone love not our Saviour Jesus, let him be anathema !2

And now, how ought we to go away from Mass? What degree of sanctity ought to reign in our thoughts, in our desires, in our words, in our looks, in all our relations with God and the neighbour? Let us not forget ourselves. Heaven, earth, and hell have their eyes fixed on us: Heaven, to rejoice in our happiness; earth, to be edified by our virtues; and hell, to rob us of the fruits of the sacrifice. How much vigilance should we display!

Let us beware of rejoicing hell, grieving Heaven, and causing the Christian name to be blasphemed among men. Let us live as we should have lived on the day of the crucifixion of the Man-God, if we had been present at His immolation on Calvary. When leaving the church, we descend the same mountain, we have assisted at the same sacrifice. Shall we be like the Jews, who departed

For many other interesting particulars regarding the ceremonies of the Holy Sacrifice, see A History of the Mass and its Ceremonies in the Eastern and Western Church, by Rev. John O'Brien, A.M. (Tr.)

21 Cor., xvi, 22.

from Calvary blinder and more hardened; or like the centurion, who proclaimed aloud the glory of the Son of God; or like Mary and John, whose love for the Saviour increased with the sorrows of which they were witnesses? Let us take our choice.

Prayer.

O my God! who art all love, I thank Thee for letting Thyself be immolated for me on Calvary, and for daily renewing Thy sacrifice on our altars. I beseech Thee to infuse into my heart the dispositions of Thine own, when Thou wast dying on the cross.

I am resolved to love God above all things, and my neighbour as myself for the love of God; and, in testimony of this love, I will depart from Mass profoundly recollected.

LESSON XXIV.

CHRISTIANITY BROUGHT BEFORE THE SENSES (continued).

The Days of the Week considered from the standpoint of Faith: they are Festivals. Life is the Vigil of Eternity: how we are to celebrate it. Pagan Names for the Days of the Week; Christian Names. Profound Wisdom of the Church. Devotions connected with each Day of the Week. The Catholic Calendar: its Beauty and Utility.

SUNDAY is the leading festival of Christianity. We have just explained in detail the divine office and the august sacrifice by which the Church wishes that it should be sanctified. In a certain sense, the other days of the week are also festivals. The universe is a temple, and man a priest, whose life ought to be one long festival: such is the idea of the Fathers of the Church.

"Tell me," said Origen to the Christians of his time, "you who go to Church only on solemn days, are not the other days also festivals? are they not also Lord's Days, Sundays? It is the affair of the Jews to distinguish days. Hence, the Lord declared to them that He held their calends and their days of rest in abhorrence. Christians, on the contrary, consider all days as Lord's Days, and even as Easter Days, because the Heavenly Lamb is immolated for them daily, and they eat Him daily. And if the sacrifice is made about sunset, according to the law of Moses, it is because the present life is like a day on its decline, a night that is to be followed by the day of the Sun of Justice, at whose rising we shall enter an ocean of joy, we shall begin an eternal festival."

1 Homil. x in Gen,

Two things follow from these beautiful words: (a) that Religion, completed by Our Lord, has developed all the Old Law, so that, if the Jews had certain festivals, they were only a shadow of what should occur under the Gospel, when every day would be a festival, on which men should abstain from offending God; and (b) that festivals and life itself are only an apprenticeship for the joys of Heaventhat time is the vigil of eternity, since it is only with a view to eternity that life is given to man or time to the human race-that we can always nourish ourselves here with the Incarnate Word, as is done in Heaven.

Keeping to the idea that life is only one long festival, on which we should be as pious and holy as may be expected on particular solemnities, Origen continues thus :-The Christian who understands his Religion is convinced that every day is a Sunday for him, since he thereon gives his mind and heart wholly to the Lord; that every day is a Friday for him, and even a Good Friday, since he thereon subdues his passions and receives in his body the marks of the cross of Jesus Christ; that every day is an Easter Sunday for him, since he continually strives, by nourishing himself with the doctrine and the flesh of the Incarnate Word, to separate himself from this world of corruption, and to pass into an invisible and incorruptible world; and, lastly, that every day is a Pentecost for him, since, risen in spirit with Jesus Christ, he has been carried with Him to heaven, even to the throne of the Father, where he sits with Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ, by whom He receives the plenitude of the Holy Ghost.'

All the days of the year are therefore holy days, festival days. But, adds the same Father, as a great many Christians would not or could not resolve on spending their whole life as a single festival, it was necessary, in order to make allowances for weakness, to fix on some particular festivals. The Church, in her maternal solicitude, appointed them, so that the most distracted and lukewarm might thereon acquire new vigour, by disengaging themselves, at least for a little while, from the affairs of this world. Yet these days, according to the expression of St. Paul, are only parts of one day, parts of that continual festival which the just celebrate all their life and the blessed celebrate in eternity.'

Such is the sublime idea that Christianity gives us of the world and of time. The world is a temple, and life is a festival, but a festival during which fallen man should strive to recover himself. To characterise the life of a Christian under the Gospel, the Doctors of the Church add:

"It is a truth equally important and indisputable that the reli

' Contra Cels., 1. VIII. 2 Id., 1. VIII; Hieron., in Epist. ad Galat. c, iv.