and distributes pardons, blessings, and graces far and near. Mary is a Queen, but a Queen of clemency and mercy: her goodness has no bounds, and her power is equal to her goodness.1 In return for granting us her protection, what does she ask? Hear one of her greatest servants. The blessed Berchmans, laden during his whole life with the most signal favours of this august Queen, is at the point of death. The community assemble round his bed, and the superior orders him, in the name of obedience, to tell his brethren what he has done and what should be done to merit the astonishing graces with which Mary has favoured him. What Mary asks, replies the dying saint, is very little indeed: the slightest homage, provided it is constant.2

Need more be said to excite in our hearts a childlike confidence in this good Mother? Let us therefore address ourselves to her in all our wants of body and soul. Let us, above all, implore her, through the merits of her blessed death, to obtain for us a good end, and to see that we shall quit this life either on a Saturday, a day that is consecrated to her, or within the octave of one of her festivals, a favour that she has obtained for many of her servants : among the number, especially St. Stanislaus Kostka, who died on the very day of the Assumption.

This holy young man, who had always professed a filial attachment and sincere devotion to Mary, was present, about the beginning of August, at a sermon preached by Father Canisius to the novices of the Society of Jesus. He exhorted them always to live as if they had reached their last day, and were on the point of appearing before the divine tribunal. The sermon over, Stanislaus said to one of his brothers that he felt something like a warning from God, which told him that this should be the last month for him. Whether God had actually revealed it to him or that it was merely the effect of fancy, the event justified the prediction. Four days afterwards, as he was going to St. Mary Major's, he said to a Father of the Society, with whom he conversed of the approaching festival of the Assumption, that it seemed to him as if there must have been a new paradise seen in the celestial country on the day of this event, by reason of the glory of the Mother of God, crowned Queen of Heaven and of Angels. "And if it is true," he added, "as I firmly believe, that the same solemnity is renewed every year, I hope to be present at the next celebration of it."

Chance, or rather Providence, had given Stanislaus, as his protector for the month, the martyr St. Laurence, and it was rumoured

1 Omnipotentia supplex.

2 Quidquid minimum, dummodo sit constans.

that he had written a letter to Mary, his Mother, begging her to obtain for him the favour of being present at her festival in paradise. On St. Laurence's day he communicated. He then besought the Saint to present his petition to the Queen of Angels and to obtain a happy reply to it. That very evening he was taken ill with a fever. Though it was not at all violent, he was no less convinced that his prayer had been heard and that the hour of his death drew nigh. As he lay on his bed, he could be heard repeating, with evident satisfaction, these words, "I shall never rise again." Afterwards, he turned to Father Aquaviva, who was close by, and said to him, "Father, I really believe that St. Laurence has obtained from the Blessed Virgin for me the favour of being in Heaven on the festival of her Assumption." But the Father paid no attention to him.

On the eve of the festival, though the illness still seemed far from serious, the Saint said to one of the religious that the following night he should no longer be in this world. "Ah! brother" replied this religious, "it would be a greater miracle to see you die here than to see you perfectly restored." But, about noon, the state of the patient changed very suddenly: he began to have cold sweats, and his strength forsook him altogether. The superior hastened to him. Stanislaus begged him to order that he should be laid on the bare ground, so as to die as a penitent.

To please him, he was wrapped in a blanket and laid on the ground. Here he confessed, and received the Holy Viaticum, amid the tears of all who surrounded him. On the arrival of the Blessed Sacrament, his face was seen to brighten up with a heavenly joy and to become like that of a seraph. He also received Extreme Unction, and, during all this time, he did nothing but pray, lift his eyes to Heaven, and kiss or press to his heart an image of Mary.

A Father having asked him what need he had of the beads that he held in his hand, since he could no longer say them, they help to console me," he answered, "for they belong to my Mother." "You will soon be consoled," remarked the Father, "by humbly kissing the hands of Mary herself in the abode of the blessed." At these words, the Saint's face brightened up again, and he raised his hands on high as if to show his gladness at the thought of soon being with Mary. The Divine Mother next appeared to him, as those present could perceive, and a few moments afterwards, at daybreak, on the 15th of August, he passed away without pain to the peace of the blessed. He ceased to press the image of Mary to his heart, only to go and kiss in Heaven the feet of his amiable patroness.

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And we, too, let us on the day of the Assumption show our joy at having in Heaven a Mother so powerful, so good, and so easily pleased. Let us prepare for her festival by a novena. Let us receive the Holy Communion, as if it were our Viaticum, to obtain the grace of a happy death. To make thoroughly practical our sentiments of devotion and our exercises of piety towards Mary, let us ask ourselves seriously by what means she arrived at such a degree of honour and bliss. The dignity of Mother of God was doubtless something very great; yet it was not this that God crowned in Mary. Fidelity to grace: such was the measure of her glory, and such will be the measure of ours. Children of Mary, let us imitate our Mother, and take to-day as our motto, To do little things well!

Prayer.

O my God! who art all love, I thank thee for having given me in Mary a Mother so powerful and so good. Grant me the grace to deserve her tenderness by a constant fidelity in imitating her virtues, her humility, her purity, and her love for her Divine Son.

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 take the Blessed Virgin for my special friend.

LESSON XLVIII.

CHRISTIANITY BROUGHT BEFORE THE SENSES (continued). The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin: Origin of this Festival. Confidence inspired by Mary in the Cradle. Words of St. Ambrose. The Memorare. Historical Sketch. The Holy Name of Mary. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Object of this Festival. Her Appearance. Her Life in the Temple. Origin of this Festival. Mary as a Daughter, a Wife, a Mother, and a Widow, the Type of Christian Woman. Influence of the Worship of the Blessed Virgin. The Victory of Lepanto.

IF the Catholic Church celebrates the assumption of Mary with so much pomp and joy, why would she not also consecrate her blessed birth by a solemn festival? On the 8th of September, she summons all the faithful to the cradle of this Divine Child. According to the most exact calculations and the most venerable traditions, Mary was born in Nazareth, during the reign of Herod, at the time when this wicked prince was endeavouring to destroy the royal race of David, so as to render impossible the fulfilment of the prophecies, which announced that the Saviour of the world should come of the family of Jesse. This occurred in the twenty-second year of the

reign of Augustus; under the consulship of Marcus Drusus Livius and Quintus Calpurnius Piso; and consequently in the year ot Rome 738.

The birth of the Blessed Virgin took place on the 8th of September, as is established by the authorities that we have cited, and it was not without a mystery that this day was chosen to give the world a new Eve. A tradition, preserved among the Hebrews, tells that the first Eve was created on this day. A miracle of grace and beauty, the first Eve ravished Adam's heart and completed his happiness. On the same day, the new Eve, of whom the first was only a figure, appeared on the earth, and, if we may so speak, presented to the eyes of God, by her incomparable grace and beauty, the most ravishing spectacle that He had ever contemplated.1

However, for reasons set forth in the preceding lesson, and for others also drawn from the wisdom of the Church, which develops with the progress of time the means of rousing the piety of her children, the festival of the Nativity did not appear, at least with any splendour, from the origin of Christianity. The chief and most ancient monument that we have of it is the Sacramentary of St. Leo the Great and some of his predecessors, in which we find, as well as in the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, the festival of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, with Mass and prayers proper thereto.2

Before the seventh century it was generally celebrated throughout the Church, and before the end of the ninth it was one of the most solemn in France. The town of Angers seems to have distinguished itself in this matter, by its piety towards Mary and by the pomp with which its inhabitants observed the Nativity. Hence it comes, according to very probable conjectures, that the neighbouring provinces call this festival Angevine, as taking its origin from Anjou. The East soon rivalled the zeal of the West; and, from the middle of the twelfth century, we see the festival of the Nativity celebrated there with the same pomp as the greatest solemnities of the Church.5

1 Idem ergo mensis, secundam nobis Evam mulierum omnium et pulcherrimam et dignissimam non temere dedit, quæ singulari sui conditoris beneficio sic formata et exornata prodiit, ut si humano more loquendum sit lætioribus quidem oculis vivum in terris hominem nunquam aspexerit Deus, in quo post Christum nihil maculæ, et plus gratiæ veræque pulchritudinis et amabilitatis deprehenderit. (V. P. Canisius, de Maria V. Deip., 1. I, c. xi, p. 75.)

2 Bened. XIV, p. 513, n. 8; Baronius, Not. ad Martyrol., Sep. 8.

3 Nullius igitur nativitas celebratur in mundo nisi Christi, et ejus (scilicet B. Mariæ), atque B. Joannis, &c. St. Ildefons., Biblioth. PP., t. XII, p. 566; Walterius, episcop. Aurelian. cxviii, de Ordinib.; Bened. XIV, p. 513, n. 8.

4 Even to this day, the Fair of the Nativity is called in Brittany the Fair of Angevine.

5 Baillet, Hist. de la Nativ.

If

The very name Nativity shows the object of our devotion. high-born children look forward eagerly to the return of a loved mother's birthday and celebrate it with the greatest delight, rivalling one another in offering her bouquets and congratulations, I leave you to imagine with what sentiments the hearts of the children of Mary should thrill on the return of the day that gave them such a Mother. Parents also celebrate with rejoicing the birth of their children, and the anniversaries thereof. This custom, so proper to keep alive the family spirit, is very affecting and laudable. Yet does it not seem more just to weep over children when they arrive in this valley of tears, considering that they are born, not only without reason or merit, but also children of wrath, defiled with sin, and condemned to sorrows and death?

Hence the Catholic Church, rising with all the pride of faith above the sentiments of nature, celebrates, not the birth, but the death of her children. See the profound wisdom of her language: she calls the death of her Saints their nativity or birth! In effect, it is on the day of their decease that the elect quit this dying life in order to be born to a true life, an immortal and glorious life. To this great rule, our Catholic liturgy knows only two exceptions: St. John the Baptist and the Blessed Virgin. It celebrates the festival of the former on the day that he came into the world, because he came sanctified and confirmed in grace. With much greater reason should it celebrate the nativity of the latter, who appeared on the earth full of grace and enriched with all the gifts of God.1

Exempted from the law of original sin and predestined for the divine maternity, it is beyond a doubt that Mary was the most beautiful soul that ever came forth from the hands of the Creator, as, excepting the Incarnation, she was the most perfect and most worthy work of the Almighty in this world. For, says St. Thomas, God proportions His graces to men according to the dignity He intends for them. Wherefore Mary, before being Mother of God, received from on high all the graces that should render her worthy

1 S. Aug., in Nativ. B. Joannis Bapt.-Dicuntur quidem sanctorum festivitates natalitia, et merito; quomodo enim consuete nasci dicitur, cum quis de utero matris procedens in lucem egreditur; ita rectissime potest natus dici, qui a vinculis carnis solutus ad lucem sublimatur æternam. Et inde mos obtinuit ecclesiasticus, ut dies beatorum martyrum, sive confessorum Christi, quibus de seculo transierunt, natales vocitemus, eorumque solemnia non funebria, sed natalitia dicamus. (Raban Maur., de Instit. Cleric., c. xliii.)-Propterea post celebritatem nativitatis Joannis Baptista sacratissimam et jucundam, quia sine peccato natus est per sanctificationem, instituit Ecclesia nativitatem beatæ et gloriosa semperque Virginis Mariæ celebriter fieri, admonita prius miraculo. (Gerson., Serm. de Nativ. B. Virq.)