CORAM SANCTISSIMO
BEFORE THE MOST HOLY
(CORAM SANCTISSIMO)
BY
MOTHER MARY LOYOLA
OF THE BAR CONVENT, YORK
EDITED BY
FATHER THURSTON, S.J.
ST. LOUIS, MO.
B. HERDER
17 SOUTH BROADWAY
LONDON: SANDS & CO.
1904
Nihil obstat.
HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.,
_Censor Deputatus_.
Imprimatur.
HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN,
_Archiep. Westmonast._
_15th September, 1900._
TO
JESUS CHRIST
YESTERDAY
TO-DAY
AND THE SAME
FOR EVER
PREFACE.
The custom of honouring the Eucharistic presence of Christ our Lord by
paying “Visits” to the Blessed Sacrament may be quoted as one of the
most conspicuous examples of development in the devotional practice
of the Catholic Church. Down to the latter part of the Middle Ages
such an usage seems to have been entirely unknown. As far as regards
England, the late Father Bridgett, if I mistake not, says that in
all the researches made by him while compiling his _History of the
Holy Eucharist in Great Britain_ he had not come across one clear
example of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in pre-Reformation times.
Even on the Continent the idea of any extra-liturgical _cultus_
of the Blessed Eucharist seems to have grown up very tardily. There
were many saints as late as the fifteenth century, say, for example,
St. Frances of Rome, whose lives show no trace of such a conception,
though nothing could be more strongly emphasised than their devotion
to the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion.[1] It is remarkable to
notice that even St. Ignatius Loyola, in the book of the _Spiritual
Exercises_, when directing attention to the abiding presence of God
with His creatures as a motive for awakening love, says not a word of
the Blessed Sacrament. One must not, of course, press the negative
argument too far. No prudent man would infer in this latter case that
the practice of visiting churches to commune with our Lord in the
Tabernacle was unknown in the sixteenth century, but it is reasonable
to conclude that the uninterrupted Eucharistic presence of God with His
people did not then play the same conspicuous part in the devotional
life of the faithful that it does in our day.
This late and gradual development of a devotion, which seems to us
now so natural and so unmistakably involved in premises that all men
accepted, is certainly a remarkable fact. Even to the present day
the Greek Church, though its belief in transubstantiation is no less
explicit than our own, has never drawn the inference that our Lord has
come in the Blessed Sacrament to be our companion and refuge as well
as our food. It seems to have been part of the Divine dispensation,
in this as in some other matters, to hold men’s eyes that they should
not know Him. Throughout the long centuries our forefathers seem to
have regarded the Eucharistic presence as if Christ had wished to
preserve His _incognito_ while He dwelt amongst them, or as if
He were sleeping as of old in the bark of Peter and would rebuke the
want of faith of those who too importunately disturbed His repose.
But surely we are right in thinking that if they so apprehended God’s
purpose in remaining on our altars, their appreciation of His boon
was but inchoative and imperfect. To us now it seems so obvious that
the work of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was not meant to be
intermittent, limited to the time of Mass and Holy Communion, that it
is hard to believe that Christians who truly recognised this presence
in their midst can ever have conceived otherwise. Perhaps we may draw
the lesson that if the fulness of understanding were long delayed in so
plain a matter, it is not surprising that in other dogmas and practices
which justify themselves less obviously there may be developments
in the Church’s teaching not suspected or at least not clearly
apprehended by our forefathers in the faith.
As things are, no devout Catholic would wish to be deprived of the
privilege of drawing near to our Saviour in the Tabernacle and making
Him the daily confidant of hopes and fears, of joys and troubles. But
what distresses many pious souls is that having Him ready and willing
to listen they should so often find themselves tongue-tied in His
presence. The set forms of prayer which they know by heart are worn
threadbare by routine, and books too often prove stiff and artificial.
The heart has many wants and longings, but hardly knows how to put them
into words. In such a case real help, I think, is likely to be found
in this very miscellaneous collection of musings, self-arraignments,
out-pourings of spirit, to which the authoress has given the apt name
of _Coram Sanctissimo_, “in the presence of the Most Holy”. They
are not intended to be taken in rotation, or to be used every day, but
there are times when a troubled worshipper, turning over the leaves,
may light upon something here which will chime in with his mood and
will make the task of prayer more easy to him. And if for one or
another the thoughts of this little book may serve to break the ice and
to render the soul for the nonce more at home in that holy presence, I
feel sure that the authoress will consider the labour spent in writing
it to have been abundantly repaid.
It will be noticed that in the pages which follow verse finds a place
as well as prose. It would not be fair to let this go forth to the
world without stating that it has been written, so to speak, under
protest, and that without strong encouragement Mother Mary Loyola would
hardly have suffered it to see the light. Although the verses are
perhaps unequal, I do not in any way repent the share I have had in
urging the writer to let them stand. It would have been worth a greater
risk of failure and a longer expenditure of time to have secured even a
few such happy lines as may be read for instance in the chapter headed
“In Silence and in Hope,” describing St. Mary Magdalen:--
She came with her crushing memories,
She came with her secret fears,
She brought Him her hidden misery
And her bitter, burning tears.
Or again:--
Absorbed in her loving ministries
She knelt at His feet apart,
The scandal of every eye save one
That soundeth the secret heart.
The verses at best are only an experiment. They were written in each
case for the sake of the thought, not of the metrical form, and if the
authoress could have found, as she long endeavoured to do, any suitable
religious poetry which expressed kindred ideas, and which would have
afforded that variety which is meant to be characteristic of this
little booklet, she would have been glad, I know, to escape the seeming
presumption of appearing as a writer of verse. But I do not think that
the many friends who use and appreciate Mother Loyola’s _Confession
and Communion_ and her other devotional books will be disappointed
in anything which may meet their eye in this new effort of her pen.
HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.
_11th September, 1900._
[1] The earliest satisfactory example of visits to the Blessed
Sacrament which I have so far come across occurs in the life of Blessed
Maria de Malliaco (A.D. 1331-1414), who, it is stated, “in
festis solemnibus vigilabat in ecclesia coram corpore Christi”. The
story of St. Louis of France, who in a grievous storm placed himself on
his knees before the Blessed Sacrament on ship-board, does not appear
to me to belong to quite the same category. I should be grateful to
any readers of this note who may be able to supply me with earlier
instances.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. VISITS 1
II. PRAISE 9
III. “POSSUMUS” 14
IV. THE SON OF MAN 18
V. WHAT THINGS? 21
VI. VENITE AD ME OMNES 30
VII. THE HIDDEN GOD 33
VIII. LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES 37
IX. LORD, COME AND SEE! 41
X. NEGLECT 43
XI. FAITH 47
XII. AFTER A DEFEAT 52
XIII. AFTER A VICTORY 55
XIV. A DIVINE FRIEND 57
XV. AN EVENING VISIT 59
XVI. PRIVILEGED 63
XVII. THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE 67
XVIII. CHANGES 70
XIX. I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE 73
XX. A DIVINE PLAINT 77
XXI. THANKSGIVING 80
XXII. DARKNESS 85
XXIII. “WHAT IS TRUTH?” 91
XXIV. HIS SECOND COMING 95
XXV. OUR EARTH 99
XXVI. CHRIST OUR STUDY 104
XXVII. OUR FATHER 109
XXVIII. HEREAFTER 111
XXIX. MY VINEYARD 115
XXX. WHERE WE ARE TRUE 118
XXXI. IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE 121
XXXII. GOD’S WORK 124
XXXIII. A STRONG CRY 129
XXXIV. “BE READY” 133
XXXV. “DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR” 137
XXXVI. AFTER A DEATH 142
XXXVII. GOD’S WAYS 145
XXXVIII. TWILIGHT AND NOON 153
XXXIX. RESPONSIBILITY 159
XL. LIFE 166
I.
VISITS.
Go to Him early in the morning, and let thy foot wear the steps of His
doors.--_Ecclus._ vi. 36.
How careful we are to observe the courtesies of life! How uneasy till
such social duties are discharged! In the making and returning of
calls, how fidgety if hindered, how sensible that delay demands apology!
And this where mere acquaintances are concerned. But what when there
is question of a friend, a benefactor, one devoted to us and to our
interests? If formal visits are here uncalled for, it is only because
our heart needs no prompting. Uninvited, inconsiderately often, we come
and go, “wearing the steps of his doors”.
And our best of friends--do we treat Him thus?--as affectionately, as
familiarly? If not, why not? Is He not among the benefactors whose
gifts deserve thanks, the friends whose feelings have to be considered,
the acquaintances, at least, whose attentions must be acknowledged?
Is it because He puts Himself so completely at our disposal that He
is to be neglected? Or because He is King of kings that He is to be
considered outside the circle where courtesy is exacted?
Ah, Lord, how unmindful we are of what is due to You! How unmindful I
am of Your unfailing devotedness to me! Sent into this world as into
a strange neighbourhood, I found You waiting to receive me, to make
me welcome, to offer Your services, to show me all manner of graceful
kindness. You have thrown open Your house to me. You invite me to Your
table. You press upon me Your gifts: “_All ye that thirst, come to
the waters.... Come, buy wine and milk without money and without any
price_”.[2] “_Come to Me and I will refresh you._”[3] “_Him
that cometh to Me, I will not cast out_.”[4] You make use of every
motive to draw me to Yourself; yet have to complain after all: “_You
will not come to Me that you may have life_.”[5]
“They began all at once to make excuse. I have bought a farm ... I pray
thee, hold me excused. I have bought five yoke of oxen ... I pray thee,
hold me excused. I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”[6]
Thus it was long ago; thus it is now. We have time for other
duties--for our correspondence, our shopping, our afternoon calls on
other more favoured friends. But no time for a visit to Him. Is it so
far then to the nearest church? So far that He may well accept the
distance as sufficient reason for our absence, except at times when
attendance is of obligation? Can I urge home duties and necessary
occupations, when I see who those are that can and do find time to
visit Him?
O my Lord, why these wretched subterfuges with You “the God of
truth”?[7] Why not fall at Your feet and own that it is not distance,
nor lack of leisure, nor any reasonable plea that keeps me from You,
but simply and solely _the want of love_? It is a reason I
could not give to any other friend. I should have to find some other
pretext with which to colour my neglect. But with You there need be
no dissembling. Your friendship stands alone in the perfect frankness
and confidence permissible on both sides. We may own to being cold
and half-unwilling visitors, yet we are not for that unwelcome. The
petulance, the selfishness, the waywardness of our moods that in the
very interest of other friendships call for self-restraint, may show
themselves in all their ugliness before the All-pitying, the Friend
“more friendly than a brother,”[8] whom nothing can shock, disgust,
estrange.
He wants our intercourse with Him to be perfectly free; nothing
studied, nothing strained. He desires to have us as we are, no less
than as we would be. He wants to be taken into our confidence, to be
let into the secret chambers of our souls, into which we only peep
ourselves at stated times and with half-averted glance. He would
share in the interests and troubles of the moment; be called upon for
sympathy in every event great or small that interrupts the even flow
of our home life or of our inner life; take part in every experience
whether of sorrow or of joy. The soldier off to the front, the baby
with its broken toy, the girl with her first secret, no less than the
wife, the mother, the priest, with their burdened hearts--He wants
them all. He sees us going off here and there for help, and comfort,
and counsel. He hears our feet as they hurry past His door to wear the
doorsteps of other friends, and He calls to us in those tones divine in
their tenderness of reproach: “_You will not come to Me. My people
have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living water, and have digged to
themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water._”[9]
* * * * *
How long, O Lord, how long? When shall we wake up to the reality of
Your Presence in our midst, and to the purpose of that Presence? We
would die for it if need be, and yet we heed it not. Shall I wait
till it is brought home to me by the remorse of my last hour, or by
the long, long hours of purgatory? Oh, why did I not make use of my
Emmanuel, my God with me, whilst I had time, “whilst He was in the way
with me”?[10] Why during my dream-life down there did I not realise the
need of Him that is the one need in this real life of eternity?
A child at catechism said: “Won’t it be dreadful for those who don’t
believe in the Real Presence to find at Judgment that it _was_
real, that our Lord was there after all! Even if they didn’t know any
better, and so it was not their fault, and our Lord is not angry with
them--I think they will be so dreadfully sorry all the same.”
But if these will be sorry, what will be the case of those who did know
and neglected Him? Those to whom He will say, “_So long a time have I
been with you, and you have not known Me!_”[11] “_I was daily with
you in the temple._”[12]
Lord Jesus, let not that be my bitterest thought in purgatory, that
land of bitter thoughts. It is time that Your love should be returned,
that I should make amends for the past, that I should hasten to You
with my sorrow and my love.
* * * * *
_Go to Him early in the morning._ Is daily Mass an impossibility
in my case? He waits for me there, to offer, for me and with me, His
sacrifice and mine for the interests we share together.
_And let thy feet wear the steps of His doors._ More especially
in the afternoon or evening, when the church is quiet and He is left
all alone. With a little goodwill and ingenuity could I not include a
visit to Him in my weekly, if not in my daily programme? Could I not
so arrange my calls to other friends as to leave a few moments for my
dearest and my best? How blessed a remembrance when He is brought to my
doors at the last, to be my viaticum, that in life I was faithful to
the duties of friendship and wore the steps of His doors!
O blessed, self-sufficing God
Athirst for me,
Coming a beggar to my door
All suppliantly,
Craving with meek persistence alms
Of my poor heart,
A thought, a word of sympathy--how sweet,
How sweet Thou art!
And must Thou knock and ever knock
Till life is flown,
Seeking vain entrance to a heart
That is Thine own?
Or wilt Thou rather work this hour
Such change in me
That hither I may come “wearing Thy steps”
Athirst for Thee!
[2] Isa. lv.
[3] Matt. xi.
[4] John vi.
[5] _Ibid._ v.
[6] Luke xiv.
[7] Psa. xxx.
[8] Prov. xviii.
[9] Jer. ii.
[10] Matt. v.
[11] John xiv.
[12] Luke xxii.
II.
PRAISE.
Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, and you that fear Him,
little and great.--_Apoc._ xix. 5.
When heaven is opened for an instant it is to let out a burst of
praise. “_Glory to God in the highest!_”[13] “_Thou art worthy,
O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, and power!_”[14]
“_The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power, and divinity,
and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction.... To
Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction and honour
and glory and power for ever and ever._”[15]
We lift up our heads; we are rapt. It is an unexpected strain from
fatherland that catches the exile’s ear and thrills through every
fibre of his being. It finds an affinity, that burst of praise, in
every human soul on which the sense of exile weighs. For it is the
strain to which every soul is attuned by the very fact of its creation.
The language of praise is our mother-tongue. _Gementes et flentes
in hac lacrymarum valle_ was no part of God’s original design for
us. We took the golden harps out of His hand and strained and broke
the strings, and now the notes are plaintive when not discordant. But
Christ has restored all things. He has brought back our joy by taking
our sorrow on Himself. Because here on earth He prayed “with a strong
cry and tears”[16] the song of praise is to be put again upon our lips.
Yet a little while and “God shall wipe away all tears ... and death
shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any
more”.[17] He is here upon the altar, waiting to catch up the faint
accents of my praise, and bear them with His own before the throne of
God.
Do this for me, O dearest Lord. Praise does not come easily to these
lips of mine. The cares of life, and its failures, and its pains;
heaviness of soul, and the weight of the corruptible body, with all
the engrossingness of self, wring my heart dry of praise. A sudden
revelation of Your goodness in the removal of a trial, or the advent
of an unlooked-for joy, will lighten it for a moment and lift it up to
You in benediction. Yet even this impulse of thankful love is weak and
cannot long sustain itself, and I fall again humbled at Your feet, to
feel how little I can do and say even at my best. As to the pure praise
of heaven--free of all thought of self, where self is drowned in the
glad, triumphant, all-absorbing sense of Your greatness, and grandeur,
and all-sufficingness--of this I know nothing. Yet it is the language
of my country, the tongue I shall speak for ever--should I not be
learning it here in time? A language may be learned in a foreign land
though the accent we only catch on its own soil.
Often and often, dear Master, I say to You with the Twelve, “Teach
me to pray”. I say to You now, “Teach me to praise”. Teach me that
highest, purest prayer which will be the incense rising for ever from
my heart when other prayer has ceased.
* * * * *
Fuller and richer every hour grows the heavenly harmony, as part after
part is taken up by the blessed choristers arriving from earth and
purgatory. But for whom are reserved the richest notes in the anthem
entoned with human voice by Christ Himself? Surely for those who have
practised that praise even here _in hac lacrymarum valle_. Whose
hearts have never been allowed even in exile to forget the tongue
of fatherland. Which have leaped up day by day in the _Gloria in
excelsis_ and the _Magnificat_, in the _Benedictus_ and
the _Te Deum_. Which have persisted in praise when the heart was
weighted heaviest, when doubt, repining, rebellion even, sought to
stifle its voice. They heard the call: “_Arise, give praise in the
night_”.[18] And answered: “_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away, as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the
name of the Lord_”.[19] It is this praise in the night that sounds
sweetest in the ear of God. It is of these His faithful servants that
He says: “_They shall praise Me in the land of their captivity, and
shall be mindful of My name_”.[20]
What wonder that their song shall be sweetest in the City of Peace;
that their voices shall mingle more intimately than the rest with hers
whose heart was singing _Ecce ancilla_, even in its agony, with
His Who having sung a hymn went forth to Calvary!
[13] Luke ii.
[14] Apoc. iv.
[15] _Ibid._ v.
[16] Heb. v.
[17] Apoc. xxi.
[18] Lament. ii.
[19] Job i.
[20] Baruch ii.
III.
“POSSUMUS.”
“Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of?”--“We
can.”--_Mark_ x. 38, 39.
Far back in the ages before the world was, “in the beginning,” I hear
the Eternal Father treating with His co-equal Son about my redemption:--
“Canst Thou for that soul and for its salvation go down from heaven and
be made man?”
And the Divine Word answered: “_I can_”.
“Canst Thou live a life of thirty-three years, toiling and teaching
and instituting Divine means for its salvation, and end that life of
hardship and suffering by a death of pain and shame?”
“_I can._”
“Canst Thou perpetuate that Incarnation and annihilation even to the
end of time; hiding Thyself under the form of bread in order to meet it
on its entrance into life, to be its companion, its refuge, its food
all the days of its pilgrimage?”
“_I can._”
“And when, O Lover of that soul, it shall meet Thy love, Thy advances,
Thy sacrifices as Thou knowest it _will_ meet them, canst Thou
bear with it still, supporting its coldness, its waywardness, its
indifference, its ingratitude?”
And Jesus said, “_I can_”.
* * * * *
And now my Redeemer turns to question me in my turn:--
“Can you for the sake of your salvation co-operate with Me and turn
to your own profit all I have done and am ready to do for you,
resolving to avoid everything that would imperil the great work we have
undertaken--all grievous sin and all venial sin that leads to mortal?”
What can I answer but, “O Lord, _I can_”?
“Can you, as some return for My love, find it in your heart to avoid
not only sin, but the infidelities which impede My work in your soul,
obstruct My grace and hinder union between us?”
What is my answer now?
“Can you with the eye of faith see Me in My suffering members, the
poor, the sick, the outcast, the unprotected, the little helpless
children, and for My sake sacrifice leisure, or ease, or worldly means
to succour and serve them?”
“Give me the faith, Lord, to recognise You in all these, and in the
strength of that faith, _I can_.”
“Can you come after Me by taking up your cross daily, the cross I have
laid upon you to liken you to Myself?”
“Yes, Lord, for beneath will be the everlasting arms. You will not
leave me alone, and with Your help, _I can_.”
“Can you uphold My cause in the face of ridicule and disgrace, ready,
if not glad, to suffer reproach for My name?”
“In Him Who strengtheneth me, Lord, _I can_.”
“Can you bear to be overlooked, set at naught, despised by the world as
one at variance with its principles, as following another leader? Can
you bear the taunt: ‘And thou also wast with Jesus of Nazareth’?”
“Look on me, Lord, in hours of trial as You looked on Peter, and
sustained by that glance, _I can_.”
“Can you drink still deeper of My chalice--the chalice I drained for
you--bearing with constancy desolation of spirit and the hiding of the
Father’s Face, content to serve Him for Himself rather than for His
gifts?”
“In union, O my Lord, with Your desolate soul on Calvary, _I
can_.”
IV.
THE SON OF MAN.
“I also have a heart as well as you.”--_Job_ xii. 3.
Our Lord does quite simply what some of us are too proud to do. He owns
to the yearning felt by every human heart for the sympathy of its kind.
He speaks plainly of His desire to share His joy and sorrows with His
friends, and is at no pains to conceal His need of their support, His
gratitude for their devotedness, His distress at their unfaithfulness
and desertion. “Father, I will that where I am, they also whom Thou
hast given Me may be with Me: that they may see My glory.”[21] “You are
they who have continued with Me in My temptations.”[22] “My soul is
sorrowful even unto death: stay you here, and watch with Me.... Could
you not watch one hour with Me?”[23] “The hour cometh ... that you
shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”[24]
He comes to a weak woman for her compassion and her help. He asks her
to spread abroad among His friends the words in which He unburdened His
heart to her, and beg them to come and bear Him company in His life of
solitude and neglect. To each one of us He says from the tabernacle:
“Stay you here, and watch with Me.... Could you not watch one hour with
Me?” Or if not one hour, one quarter?
_Stay with Me_ because I am going to offer My morning sacrifice,
and men are too busy to assist at the oblation of Myself for them.
_Stay with Me_ for a few moments at midday, when the glare of
the world and its rush and its din are fiercest. Turn off the crowded
pavement into the quiet church. “Come apart ... and rest a little.”[25]
_Stay with Me_ because it is towards evening and the day is now
far spent. There will be no more visitors for Me to-day, none through
the long hours of the night. Stay with Me because it is towards evening.
O Lover of men, so lonely, so forsaken, if Your object in staying with
us day and night was to win our love, have You not failed? Has it
been worth Your while to work miracle after miracle to produce Your
Real Presence upon the altar? Have I made it worth Your while to be
there _for me_? Jesus, dear Jesus, I bury my face in my hands;
I know of no heart more ungrateful, more callous than my own. I have
been miserably unmindful of Your Presence here _for me_. I have
let self, pleasure, troubles even--anything and everything furnish an
excuse for keeping away from You and neglecting You in that sacramental
life which is lived here _for me_.
[21] John xvii.
[22] Luke xxii.
[23] Matt. xxvi.
[24] John xvi.
[25] Mark vi.
V.
WHAT THINGS?
“Art Thou a stranger and hast not known the things that have been done
in these days?” To whom He said: “What things?”--_Luke_ xxiv. 18,
19.
Some of us, maybe, are deterred from visiting our Lord in the Blessed
Sacrament by a false conception of what a visit should be. We suppose
that the occupations which fill our heads and our hands from morning
till night must all be laid aside at the church door and sternly
forbidden entrance, much in the same way as we bid our dog lie down in
the porch and wait for us. We read that St. Bernard thus dismissed all
secular thoughts, and we conclude--though his biographer does not say
so--that they returned at the end of his prayer, _and not before_.
Self-mastery such as this demands an effort to which few of us feel
equal. Do what they will, the mind of the doctor and the lawyer will
run more or less upon their anxious cases, the student’s head will be
full of his examination, the mother’s of her household cares. These
thoughts if indeliberate will be at least persistent, and if quite
deliberate will become sinful. In either case they render prayer an
impossibility--hence we stay away.
Now do we find this view of prayer borne out by the practice of
God’s servants? Of David in perplexity and trouble we read: “And the
Philistines coming spread themselves in the valley of Raphaim. And
David consulted the Lord, saying: Shall I go up to the Philistines? and
wilt Thou deliver them into my hand? And the Lord said to David: Go up,
for I will surely deliver the Philistines into thy hand.... And the
Philistines came up again.... And David consulted the Lord: Shall I go
up against the Philistines?... He answered: Go not up against them.”[26]
Of David in a mood of joy and thankfulness we are told: “And King David
came and sat before the Lord, and said: Who am I, O Lord God, that Thou
shouldst give such things to me?”[27]
See, too, the simplicity and confidence of Ezechias on receiving the
threatening message of Sennacherib: “And Ezechias took the letter from
the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up to the house of
the Lord, and spread it before the Lord”.[28]
A common complaint is that daily worries and anxieties so invade our
minds that our prayer has no chance. But is this our feeling about a
talk with a trusty friend--a man of sound judgment, wide experience and
influence, on whose interest in all that concerns us we can count with
certainty? Should we say: “I had half an hour with him this morning,
but my mind was so full of that affair I could find nothing to say”;
or: “I had it all out with him this morning, and am ever so much better
already”?
Why not deal thus familiarly with our best Friend? If Ezechias could
spread out his letter before the Lord in that old Temple, which was but
a shadow of the better things to come, why may not we carry our good
news and our bad before the pitying human Heart of Christ, with us all
days on purpose to hear every day, and, if we will, every hour of the
day, all we have to tell Him, and hearing all, to help in all?
Had our Lord said to us: “I will prosper any spiritual concerns that
you commend to Me, but really you must look after your own temporal
affairs, and I shall count it an irreverence if you bring such things
into My presence”--had He said this, there might be some excuse for the
pains we take to shut Him out of the cares and business of everyday
life.
But has He said this, or does all we know of Him go to prove the exact
contrary? Did He count it an irreverence when the sick were thrust upon
Him at every step; when a paralytic let down from the roof and laid at
His feet stopped His teaching; when messengers came one upon another
to draw Him here and there for some temporal need: “Lord, he whom Thou
lovest is sick”;[29] “Lord, come down before that my son die”?[30]
Did He refuse the invitation at Cana? And if for a brief space He
delayed the miracle designed from all eternity to manifest His tender
interest in the joys as well as in the sorrows of home life, was it
not obviously to show how Mary’s heart beat in unison with His, and to
honour His Mother’s prayer?
“Lord, come and see,” said the weeping sisters as they led the way to
the grave. Look at Him between them, listening now to one, now to the
other, as they tell the history of the past three days--how they had
watched and waited for Him, and counted on His coming, and He came not.
See their tearful eyes. See the eager Heart, longing for the moment
when He may reward their trust and turn their mourning into gladness.
What should we have felt and said that day at Bethany if, after raising
Lazarus, He had turned to us and made Himself our listener, placing
Himself, as was His wont, at the complete disposal of the one who
wanted Him? Should we have felt shy of trying to interest Him in the
details of our life, in our little joys and troubles? Or would our
hearts have opened out to Him, and simply emptied themselves in His
presence?
Do we want an ideal visit to Christ? Let us seek it in Nicodemus’
talks by night; in the centurion’s urgent pleading for his servant; in
the unburdening of soul that we see in Zaccheus and in the sisters at
Bethany. And let us frame our own visits on such models. If a big worry
threatens to invade prayer, why not take it straight away into prayer,
giving it the place and time it wants, making it the subject-matter of
our intercourse with God, and so turning a hindrance into a help!
Of course we must do all this with reverence and a certain amount of
watchfulness, or our prayer will be no prayer at all, but distraction
pure and simple. But if we put our case before our Lord and talk
it over with Him, representing our difficulty, asking His advice,
listening to His whispered word in answer, our time of prayer will be
what He wants it to be--a time of rest, and light, and strength.
Some may say that this so-called prayer is very unsupernatural, and
that the results of such a compromise between prayer and distraction
will not be very satisfactory. It may be so; we can only reply that
there are times without number when this is the only method of getting
results at all, and that our Lord’s method of dealing with His own and
theirs with Him was _eminently natural_.
No, surely, our difficulty is not due to want of sympathy on the part
of Christ our Lord. It can only come from our failing to recognise the
full purpose of the Incarnation and its bearing on every detail of
human life. Had His act of Redemption been His one motive in coming
amongst us, He might have come straight from His throne at the right
hand of the Father to the cross on Calvary. But the proof of love
greater than which no man can give did not satisfy Him. He wanted as
“First-born amongst many brethren,”[31] as Head of the human family,
to place Himself in intimate communication with it on every side, to
touch as far as might be every point, every experience of human life,
entering personally into its mysteries of joy, and fear, and love, and
sorrow. And so we have the years of infancy and childhood and youth,
and--precious above all--the blessed years of the public life, when
“the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us,”[32] proving by every
word and act His desire to be associated with us His brethren, His
right to His name of predilection--_the Son of Man_.
He it is Whom we find waiting for us when our turn comes to pass across
the short stage of life on earth. He calls us to Him, calls us by our
name, one by one. He bids us take Him to our hearts as the nearest and
dearest of our friends, Who alone can stand by us when all others fail.
He bids us cultivate His friendship, and try it and prove it. And He
promises that we shall find Him what all have found Him who have put
their trust in Him--what Martha and Mary, and Paul and Bernard, and
Teresa and Margaret Mary have found Him--the “Faithful and True,”[33]
“Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day: and the same for ever.”[34]
[26] 2 Kings v.
[27] 1 Par. xvii.
[28] Isa. xxxvii.
[29] John xi.
[30] _Ibid._ iv.
[31] Rom. viii.
[32] Acts i.
[33] Apoc. xix.
[34] Heb. xiii.
VI.
VENITE AD ME OMNES.
--_Matt._ xi. 28.
“Come to Me, heavy-laden ones, come all!”
I hear, I rise, I hasten at His call;
’Neath burden bent, across the threshold steal,
The curtain lift, and in His Presence kneel:
There loose my load--and wide,
With none to check nor chide,
Scattering, a sorry sight, on every side,
They fall--pains, troubles, cares--lying, how meet,
About the weary, way-worn, wounded Feet;
Under the Eye of yore bedimmed with tears,
The Heart Gethsemane oppressed with fears,
The Heart that sore afraid
Strong supplication made,
And with a sweat of blood the Father prayed.
Beneath His glance, as snow ’neath sunny ray,
Some of my cares dissolve and melt away,
And some He takes and smoothes a little space
The less to chafe, and lays again in place.
’Tis mystery to me
How some He smiles to see,
And how on some His tears fall tenderly.
One I hold up to Him, and pleading pray,
“This, Lord, just this, in pity take away!”
And ever comes His word with cheering smile:
“A little longer, trust Me yet awhile;
Each pang of keen distress,
Each prayer, I mark and bless,
Each in its hour shall show forth fruitfulness”.
_That_, my life’s woe, against a bleeding Side
Is pressed, and lo! transfigured, glorified,
It glows as crystal flushed with rosy ray.
“O gem unprized! Restore it, Lord, I pray;
As costly gift from Thee
Dear shall it be to me”;
And in my heart I hide it lovingly.
A lightened load He lays on me, all sweet
With words of love--and thus I leave His Feet,
With steadier step to plod on day by day,
With stouter heart to climb the upward way;
And when anew life’s strain
Frets me with weary pain,
I take my load and go to Him again.
VII.
THE HIDDEN GOD.
Vere Tu es Deus absconditus!--_Isaias_ xlv. 15.
There is no use denying that with the exception of rare intervals,
our intercourse with God in this life is more or less laborious and
difficult. This is only saying that Heaven is not yet come. Faith was
meant to be a trial, and a trial it certainly is. The evidence of sense
is against us; the levity of imagination is against us; the inconstancy
of our desires and of our will is against us when we kneel down to pray.
“Behold He standeth behind our wall.”[35] We know He is there, close
as the priest in the confessional, with attention to every word we
say. Yet, for all that, the words and the confidences come slowly. It
is hard to prolong a conversation that is all on one side, and this,
so it seems to us, is the case in prayer. Useless to tell us that our
faith is at fault. That in the presence of the Pope, or the King, we
should be all attention. Where the conditions are so different, there
can be no parallel. The voice, the look, the question and answer, the
surroundings--all these are wanting. Such admonitions irritate us by
their injustice, and we look away wearily for help elsewhere. But
where to look? We cannot alter the present state of things or fix our
wandering thoughts and unstable heart. No, but we can accept all things
as they are in truth, and in the truth find a remedy.
“Behold He standeth behind our wall.” But the barrier between us is
not a drawback, an obstacle to union with Him--inseparable indeed
from the present condition of things--yet an obstacle for all that.
It is distinctly willed by Him as a necessary part of our trial, a
wholesome discipline, a purification of love. It has in it all the
privileges, advantages, blessings, that in this life belong to pain,
and can be won by pain alone. It is a present blessing as well as a
pledge of blessing to come. “Blessed _are_ they that have not
seen and have believed.”[36] It is a pledge of that full clear vision,
“reserved in heaven for you, who, by the power of God, are kept by
faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein
you shall greatly rejoice, if now for a little time you must be made
sorrowful.... That the trial of your faith (much more precious than
gold tried by the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honour
at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen you love; in
Whom also now, though you see Him not, you believe, and believing shall
rejoice with joy unspeakable.”[37]
“We see now in a dark manner: but then face to face.”[38] “I shall
see Him, but not now.”[39] How will that face to face vision be the
brighter and the sweeter for the dimness now! How will the joy of that
moment when we part for ever with faith be intensified by what faith
has cost us in the past!
O days and hours, your work is this,
To hold me from my proper place,
A little while from His embrace,
For fuller gain of after bliss.
That out of distance might ensue
Desire of nearness doubly sweet,
And unto meeting when we meet,
Delight a hundredfold accrue.
--_In Memoriam_
[35] Cant. ii.
[36] John xx.
[37] 1 Peter i.
[38] 1 Cor. xiii.
[39] Numbers xxiv.
VIII.
LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES.
--_Cant._ ii. 9.
But meanwhile the Beloved _is_ behind the wall. And He is there
with all the sympathy for our difficulty which His perfect knowledge
of it enables Him to have. “Jesus ... needed not that any man should
tell Him ... for He knew what was in man.”[40] He knows the weariness
of praying on against apparently unanswered prayer; against the pain
of physical restlessness, the labour of thought, the irksomeness of
concentration, the perpetual gathering together of the forces that are
playing truant in a thousand fields, recalled for a brief space only
to be off again more wayward for their capture. All this He knows.
And our remedy is to remember that He knows it. He Who has appointed
prayer to be the channel of grace, means such prayer as we can bring
Him. He does not ask impossibilities. He does not place us amid
distracting work all day long and expect us to shut it out by an effort
of will the moment we kneel down to pray. Nor even to shut it out by
repeated efforts. He would have us turn our distractions and weariness
not so much into matter for self-reproach, or humiliation even, as into
a loving, trustful plea for His pity and His help. This is prayer. Lay
the tired brain, the strained muscles, the aching head--lay them all
down at His feet without a word, just for His eye to rest on and His
Heart to help and heal.
There are times when physical lassitude, cold or heat, an importunate
thought, a trial with its sting still fresh, baffles every effort to
fix the mind on the subject of prayer, and concentrates the whole
attention on what for the moment is all-absorbing. Times harder still
to manage, when mind and heart are so absolutely vacant and callous
that there is no rousing them to action. This reflection will sometimes
be helpful then--What should I have to say were I in the presence of
the one I love best in the world; with whom I am quite at my ease;
my friend _par excellence_; to whom my trials, difficulties,
character, the secrets of my soul are known; that one in whose concerns
and welfare I take the deepest interest; whose plans and views are
mine, discussed again and again together; in whose company time flies
and the hour for parting comes too soon--what should I find to say?
Say it, make an effort to say it to Him Who is in the tabernacle yonder.
O Jesus, hidden God, more friendly than a brother,[41] I believe most
firmly that You are present, a few feet only from where I kneel. You
are behind that little wall, listening for every word of confidence,
and love, and thanksgiving, and praise. Listening when my heart is
free to pour itself out to You as the brook to the river in the days
of spring. Listening more tenderly when the stream is ice-bound; when
I kneel before You troubled, wearied, anxious about many things, about
many souls perhaps, yet dry and hard, without a word to say. Make my
heart so perfectly at ease with You, O Lord, that it may be able to
turn to You even in its coldness and inertness; to confide to You
naturally all that most intimately concerns it; to be content with
this, when discontented with all else, with self most of all--that You
know all men and need not that any should give testimony of man, for
You know what is in man.[42]
[40] John ii.
[41] Prov. xviii.
[42] John ii.
IX.
LORD, COME AND SEE!
--_John_ xi. 34.
Come to my heart as unto Bethl’hem’s grot,
A hovel-home that love despises not:
Can love transform it to a pleasant spot?
Lord, come and see!
Come to my heart as once to Bethany:
A brother’s grave is there, and piteously
Are tears and supplication calling Thee:
Lord, come and see!
How flocked of yore unto Thy blessed feet
The sick, the sad, Thy mercy to entreat!
I too have needs Thy pitying eye to meet:
Lord, come and see!
Come, lay Thy hand upon each leprous stain;
Come with Thy word of might the fiend to chain;
The open festering sore, the hidden pain,
Lord, come and see!
Come to my heart, this dull cold heart of mine,
All irresponsive to a love divine;
What lacks it to become Thy hallowed shrine?
Lord, come and see!
Happier by far than in the olden days
Judea’s glorious Temple--what delays
Its song and sacrifice, its prayer and praise?
Lord, come and see!
Perchance, like Temple Courts, doth sinful stain,
The world’s loud trafficking, the greed of gain
Thy Father’s house, the house of prayer profane:
Lord, come and see!
Come, Holy One, I yield myself to Thee;
E’en scourge in hand, come, Lord and Love, to me.
What change shall make me Thine, Thine utterly?
Lord, come and see!
X.
NEGLECT.
He came unto His own, and His own received Him not.--_John_ i. 11.
How strange it seems, O Lord! For You had been promised so long. You
had been so ardently desired by the best and noblest of our race; so
gloriously prefigured, so set forth in prophecy, as to awaken the
keenest expectation and enkindle the most glowing love. How was it,
then, that Your own received You not? How is it that even now You come
unto Your own and are not welcomed, are not wanted, are left alone, not
through the night only--that perhaps were to be expected--but through
the long day hours, with Your so-called friends, and the weary and the
heavy-laden within a stone’s throw of Your door? Ah, Lord, the outrage
and the sacrilege that mark the hatred of Your enemies are less to be
wondered at, less to be deplored, than the coldness of those You call
Your own. You are not given to complain. But when along the ages a meek
remonstrance does break upon the silence, it is always the same--the
protest wrung from You by the desertion of those You love. “_Behold
... my familiar friends also are departed from me.... My brethren have
passed by me._”[43] “_Do you now believe? Behold ... you shall
be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone._”[44]
How Your Heart felt the desolation of abandonment; how, to speak human
language, You feel it still, You made known in that cry of unrequited
love, “Behold this Heart which has so loved men and is so little loved
by them”.
* * * * *
Who would have thought that God could upbraid so tenderly, or that men
could hear such reproach without being touched and won! If not to make
great sacrifices for Him, if not to give up all, at least to go a few
steps in order to keep Him company in His loneliness, and sympathise
with Him in His sorrows--surely He might have looked for this!
Dearest Lord, one would have expected You to be in such request upon
the altar, expected that there would be crowding and crushing in Your
presence as in the days of Your earthly life; that we should be seen
flocking to You early and late, to show our appreciation of Your love,
and to pour out our troubles into Your willing ear. Where is our faith
to leave You thus deserted? “Do you believe? Behold you shall be
scattered every one to his own, and shall leave Me alone.”
* * * * *
_He came unto His own_--that is, He comes as far as He can--from
heaven to the Host, and down to the altar rails. Further He cannot
come. The rest of the way must be ours. We must meet Him there in
Holy Communion, or His loving journey to us will have been in vain.
He will not force our free will. But He does so want to come. Shall we
disappoint Him? Oh, if our own love will not draw us to Him, at least
let us have compassion on His! If we think ourselves at liberty to
deprive ourselves of our communions, surely we are not free to deprive
Him of His.
You long, O Lover of my soul, to come to me. Your delights are to be
with me, cold, inhospitable as I am. Come, then; come, Lord Jesus, and
in satisfying Your own desire, enkindle mine.
[43] Job vi.
[44] John xvi.
XI.
FAITH.
Sola fides sufficit!
What mainly hinders the freedom and happiness of our intercourse with
Christ our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is the account we make _of
feelings_. In spite of all that can be said to us, we persist in
applying this untrustworthy test to our relations with God, the result
being discouragement and all its evil consequences.
Feelings are wayward children, all the more refractory often for
blandishments and coaxing. Our wisest plan is not to notice them
overmuch; to be glad certainly when they show themselves friendly, and
when they are unpropitious to let them alone.
Feelings we may dispense with, but faith never. Faith we must follow,
lean upon, cling to, with all the more tenacity as the days draw on
of which our Lord said: “The Son of man when He cometh, shall He find,
think you, faith on earth?”[45] With the vehemence that will take no
refusal we must constrain her, saying: “Stay with us, because it is
towards evening”.[46] Where faith enters and takes full possession, all
good things enter with her. We need not go about to seek anxiously for
anything else: _Sola fides sufficit!_
* * * * *
Give me, my God, a deep and lively faith in all Your Holy Spirit has
revealed and Your Church teaches. Give me this one thing necessary, and
it is enough for me. _Sola fides sufficit!_ The faith I ask is a
living faith that must needs prove its vitality by good works. Give
me the faith that lit up the lives of Your saints. Strengthen my hold
on all revealed truth. But give me above all an intense, ever-growing
realisation of the mystery of the altar, the central Mystery of our
faith.
Realised by me as it was by Your saints, what a change that Presence
would make in my life! Mind, heart, imagination, will, views, aims,
desires directed to it, absorbed by it--O Jesus, what a transformation
this would be! _Sola fides sufficit!_ Lord, increase my faith!
Thou Who of old didst love Thy hand to lay
On the dull, vacant eyes that craved for light,
Behold, I come to Thee, and crying, pray:
O Christ, O Son of David, give me sight!
A faith scarce clouded by the mists of earth,
A faith that pierceth heaven I ask of Thee,
Faith to prize all things by their lasting worth:
Thou canst, Thou wilt--O Lord, that I may see!