place, the right posture for thanksgiving. My whole self, body and
soul, seeks to pour itself out in praise. And yet, my God, when do we
feel ourselves more helpless, more bound in by our narrowness than
when we come to thanksgiving! Our heart is freer on the path of sorrow
than on that of joy. It knows its way better. It can go further. There
are novenas of Ten Fridays, Masses and Communions, year after year of
persistent prayer. But when the answer comes at last; when suddenly
the burden is lifted; when the thrill of gladness and the stillness of
peace succeed one another in sweet alternations within the soul--how
poor, how soon ended is our _Te Deum_! A rush to Your feet--a few
tears perhaps--a few broken words of gratitude, and--our heart fails
us. In vain do we lift it up in David’s heart, that censor of glorious
praise. There weighs upon it still the stifling sense of oppression. We
can but sink back in our helplessness and long for the full freedom of
all our powers that is to come.
Oh yes, the soul never feels so powerless, so imprisoned as when the
call upon it is for thanksgiving. It is a caged bird always, but it
never beats more hopelessly against the bars than when it would soar
upward in the free flight of praise.
It is then we turn to our God with us on the altar, to the Victim of
infinite worth placed at our disposal to be offered to God as a full,
worthy, adequate return for all His goodness to us.
“What shall I render to the Lord for all He hath rendered unto me?”
I will come to the altar of God to unite my thanksgiving and my praise
with the divine gratitude of the God-Man.
I will offer with Him His sacrifice and mine, a gift of infinite value
from my grateful heart.
I will receive into my poor heart, whose powers, stretched to their
utmost, fall infinitely short of what is due to Him, the Heart of the
Man-God.
* * * * *
My God, I rejoice beyond measure that in Mass and Holy Communion I
can offer You a thanksgiving that is adequate because infinite, a
thanksgiving worthy of Your acceptance. Look not on the poverty of my
praise, but “look upon the Face of Thy Christ”.[68] _Per Ipsum, et
cum Ipso, et in Ipso ... omnis honor et gloria. Amen._
[57] _Cf._ 2 Esdras xii.
[58] 1 Kings v.
[59] Tobias viii.
[60] Psa. cii.
[61] _Ibid._ cvi.
[62] Psa. cxxxiv.
[63] _Ibid._ cxlvi.
[64] 1 Kings i.
[65] Psa. lxv.
[66] 1 Par. xxix.
[67] _Ibid._ xvii.
[68] Psa. lxxxiii.
XXII.
DARKNESS.
My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?--_Matt._ xxvii. 46.
_My God!_ as if You belonged to no one else in the wide world.
As if You and I were alone in creation. As if neither in heaven above
nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, You had a
single other creature!
_My God!_ as if for me alone you had done all in the orders of
nature, grace, and glory; working for me from the beginning, through
all causes, by all creatures, in all events. As if for me alone were
the earth and the sea and all within them. For me all the ordering
of Your Providence in the affairs of time. For me the heaven of
heavens and all the concourse there. For me the Saints and Mary; the
Incarnation, the Life, and death, and teaching of Christ; the Church
and Sacraments; the Eucharist, and Mass, and Communion. For me life
everlasting and the Blessed Vision of Yourself.
_My God!_ for Whom I am made. Without Whom happiness for me were
the wildest of impossibilities. The Supreme Good able to satisfy to the
full every want of my complex nature. Infinite Goodness providing for
all and for each with an exquisite discrimination of my need.
_My God!_ in a sense known to myself and You alone--father,
mother, sister, brother, lover, friend--all in all to me.
_My God!_ as if You belonged to me rather than to Yourself;
belonged to me rather than I to You. As if You were for my sake rather
than I for Yours. Or at least as if we so belonged to one another as of
necessity to imply and supplement each other--as hill and valley, light
and shade, the ocean and the void it fills.
* * * * *
_My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_ Why this darkness in
which I grope for You in vain, in which I seek in vain to find Your
Face? Why these nameless fears, this dread of You, this shrinking from
You?
Or, harder still to bear, this heaviness of soul, this hardness of
heart, this weariness of You, my God, this restlessness in Your
presence, this impatience of Your ways--why all this inconsistency and
perversity?
Why, O Supreme Good, do You show Yourself to me as infinitely
desirable, only to elude my grasp when I stretch out my hands to
feel for You and draw You to myself? Why do You brush past me in the
darkness to leave me all the more desolate and disconsolate because
You were so near? Why are You deaf when I cry? Why, here in this
tabernacle, are You so near and yet so far away? Why do You make it
more and more impossible for me to find rest out of You, and then deny
Yourself to my soul? Why have You sought for me so persistently when I
fled from You, to hide from me now that I seek You? _My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?_
Is Your answer to me this--that I have forsaken You first? Is the
hiding of Your Face the just punishment of wilful deafness to Your
voice and resistance to Your leading? Are You waiting for some act
of mine as the price of Your turning to me? Is it pride or any other
passion that interposes as a cloud between us? What is it, my God? Take
it away at any cost. I am sorry for my insincerity; for all meanness in
my dealings with You; for all wilful blindness and deafness; for the
cowardice that fears to see what will call for effort and for sacrifice.
If conscience does not reproach me, I am not hereby justified, because
Your all-seeing eye may note, does note what escapes mine. I own to
whatever You see that is amiss. I am perfectly conscious that there is
more--oh, a thousand times more than enough to make You turn away Your
Face and forsake me utterly. Show me what You will have me see, that I
may amend it, and bear with what You dare not show me, lest I should be
utterly cast down and despair.
_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!_ You have taught me
by Your own meek complaint that I too may complain lovingly. I look up
through the darkness of Calvary. I hear above me that cry from Your own
lips, and I am instructed and comforted. If the well-beloved Son for
bearing the appearance of sin was thus shut out from the Father’s Face,
how shall a sinner complain? If this was done in the green wood, what
shall be done in the dry?
And if all through the blackness of that desolation He remained still
the well-beloved Son, so may the weakest of His brethren, so may I
remain--dear to the Father’s Heart through all the discipline of
chastisement, through all the needful purification of my imperfect love.
In the very midnight of His dereliction He called on the Father, clung
to the Father, threw Himself on the Father with absolute trust. So may
I, so _must_ I, in the darkness that is but the faintest shadow of
His.
_Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit_--for this trial, for
every trial, for the last trial, when the shadow of death will close
round me, and it will be hard to find Your Face. Into the hands that
created me, that redeemed me, into which I shall pass at the moment of
death, Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.
“My God, My God!”--into the night went forth
That lonely cry,
Piteous as never plaint from burdened breast
Its misery.
Went forth _for me_ into the night, that wail
Of woe divine;
His bitter dereliction bared, to draw
The sting from mine.
And yet another cry ere shades of death
Around Him stole,
Revealed the sanctuary dark and lone
Of Jesu’s soul:
“Father, into Thy hands”--a Son’s bequest,
That we might know
The filial, all unshaken trust, beneath
That depth of woe.
“Father, into Thy hands”--that we might learn
Since Jesus died
Theirs first the right to claim the Father’s love,
His crucified.
XXIII.
“WHAT IS TRUTH?”
--_John_ xviii. 38.
“Pilate saith to Him: What is truth? And when he said this he went out.”
Too often, O Lord, in my dealings with You I am like Pilate. Moved by
Your grace to desire the things that are for my peace, I come to You to
know my way: “_What shall I do to possess everlasting life?_”[69]
“_Make the way known to me, wherein I should walk._”[70] “_Teach
me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God._”[71] And when I have said
this I go out. I do not wait to hear an answer which may exact more of
me than I am prepared to give. I am afraid to remain in Your Presence,
lest You should beckon whither I am not willing to follow. And so I
ask lightly: “What is truth?” without waiting to hear what the Lord my
God will speak in me.[72]
How much more readily I pray for light than for strength. “_Lord,
that I may see!_” And when the scales begin to fall from my eyes, I
turn away lest I should find what I am seeking.
It is not Your way, O Lord, to constrain our free will. You meet us
half-way, more than half-way by a great deal. But You have decreed
that further and more abundant grace, the grace that is efficacious,
shall be the reward of correspondence. If we withhold this, we enter
upon a terrible contest between Your invitation on the one hand and the
shrinking of nature on the other.
“Pilate saith to Him: What is truth? And when he had said this he went
out again to the Jews and said to them: I find no cause in Him.... Then
Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him.... And went forth again and saith
to the Jews: Behold I bring Him forth unto you that you may know that
I find no cause in Him.... Take Him you and crucify Him for I find no
cause in Him.... The Jews answered: He ought to die because He made
Himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore had heard this saying
he feared the more. And he entered into the hall again and said to
Jesus: Whence art Thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. From thenceforth
Pilate sought to release Him.... And he saith to the Jews: Behold your
King.... Then he delivered Him to them to be crucified.”
* * * * *
Oh, the agony of mind, the risk, the misery we bring upon ourselves by
our vacillations and trifling with grace! Surely the remedy is to gain
by prayer strength proportioned to the light God gives. It is as easy
for Him to give the one as the other, for “there is none strong like
our God”.[73] But I must ask, for “strength cometh from Heaven”.[74]
“Ask and it shall be given to you.” “God is my strong One, in Him will
I trust ... my rock, and my strength, and my Saviour.”[75] He will
not leave me in my weakness. If He shows me His ways, He will give me
strength to walk in them. “My God is made my strength.”[76]
[69] Luke xviii.
[70] Psa. cxlii.
[71] _Ibid._
[72] Psa. lxxxiv.
[73] 1 Kings ii.
[74] 1 Mach. iii.
[75] 2 Kings xxii.
[76] Isa. xlix.
XXIV.
HIS SECOND COMING.
They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven ... and
then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn.--_Matt._ xxiv. 30.
Dearest Lord, is there a sadder word than this in the whole of the
written Word? Did a sadder ever fall from Your sacred lips? That when
You come again to finish the work of redemption by the destruction of
the last enemy, death; to gather to Yourself those for whose salvation
You came down from heaven, and were incarnate, and suffered, and died,
and founded Your Church, and gave Your sacraments; those whom You bade
to watch and wait for You and lift up their heads at Your coming; that
when at last You come, this shall be Your reception--“_then shall all
the tribes of the earth mourn_”!
What an awful testimony to the decay of truth among the children of
men, to the unchristianising of the world! “_All the tribes of the
earth_,” as if the elect would be but as the ears of corn left
on the field after the harvesting. O Messiah, so long promised, so
earnestly expected--is this the return of those to whom You were sent,
among whom You have lived as one of themselves, for whom You have
sacrificed everything You took from our nature?
“They shall see the Son of Man coming”--not now in the midnight silence
as once to Mary, not hidden under lowly accidents as through long
centuries upon the altar, but “in great power and majesty,” “the King
in His beauty,” revealed to every eye. “_And then shall all the
tribes of the earth mourn._”
* * * * *
The awfulness of these words must have struck the Twelve as they sat
about Your feet that day on Olivet looking down upon Josaphat, for John
re-echoed them from Patmos half a century later: “Behold, He cometh
with the clouds, and every eye shall see Him.... And all the tribes of
the earth shall bewail themselves because of Him.”[77]
How our hearts would sink within us were it not for those other words
equally with these the words of truth: “He shall send His angels to
gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost
part of the earth, to the uttermost part of heaven.”[78] From every
corner of the earth will those blessed ones come trooping in--“a great
multitude, which no man can number, of all nations, and tribes, and
peoples, and tongues”.[79]
Lord Jesus! Who would not desire with desire to be one of that great
multitude, were it only to console Your Heart for the losses of that
day! Let this happiness be mine, and that of as many as can be reached
by the utmost stretching of Your mercy, the fullest and farthest
flowing of Your precious Blood!
Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti crucem passus:
Tantus labor non sit cassus.
Have mercy, O Lord, on all the tribes of earth, that they may not
perish, nor bewail themselves because of You when You come to judgment.
Have mercy, that when the day of the Lord, that dreadful day shall
come, the number of the elect may be multiplied, and the thirst of Your
Heart appeased.
[77] Apoc. i.
[78] Mark xiii.
[79] Apoc. vii.
XXV.
OUR EARTH.
_Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei._--_Psa._ xviii. 1.
_The heavens declare the glory of God._ There are hours when the
grandeur of the midnight skies draws from our hearts: “Coeli enarrant,”
and conversely: “Quam sordet tellus!” “How vile earth appears when
I look up to heaven!”[80] When we would wish to be so far away from
earth, so near to God, that we could cover it with our two hands and
shut it out with all its sinfulness from His sight.
And there are hours when we re-echo David’s other cry: “_The earth
is the Lord’s._”[81] Studded with millions of stars--its sanctuary
lamps--here in grand constellations, there in solitary beauty amid the
darkness, it lies outstretched before its Creator, a very heaven. Yes,
speck as it is in creation, our world has a beauty all its own in the
eyes of Him Who made it. “There is not found the like to it in glory.”
Marred and sin-stained, it is still the dear world of the Incarnation,
the world God so loved as to give to it His Son. Its highways, its
fields, its waters have felt the tread of His feet; to the end of
time He has made it His home. “I have chosen and have sanctified this
place, and My eyes and My heart shall be there always.”[82] Always.
His interest in it is as keen, as human, as when, a wayfarer here, He
shared its joys and sorrows. Its every man, woman, and child to-day has
a distinct place in His heart.
His sacramental Presence sanctifies it from pole to pole. On each of
its altars a divine sacrifice is offered day by day. In each of its
tabernacles is gathered up the worship of all creation. From each an
unceasing praise goes up to the Throne of God, infinitely transcending
the paltry outrages of man. From each radiates a divine life,
communicating itself to all the members of the Body of Christ. From
each as from a well-spring go forth all graces of light and strength;
all holy impulses and high resolves; all courage, steadfastness,
perseverance in well-doing; all works of love to the members, born
of love to the Head. All spiritual energy, from the robust virtue of
the saint to the weakest supernatural act of the repentant sinner, is
flowing this hour from earth’s countless tabernacles, giving to God a
glory before which the material glory of the starry heavens pales into
insignificance.
O hidden God, I adore You as the source of all this glorious life. Who
would not love the world, which You have so loved as to make it Your
home all days even to the end of time? Who would not strive with You
and for Your sake to light up its dark places, to cleanse its foul
places, to spread far and near the saving knowledge of its Redeemer,
that so the love poured out upon it, the Blood shed for it, may not
have been in vain?
What can I do, O Lord, within my narrow sphere to help on the coming of
Your Kingdom in the world? What have You given me to give away again in
Your service? As to what do You say to me: “Freely have you received,
freely give”?[83] Is it health, wealth, talent, influence, leisure for
good works in any of the various fields calling for my aid and open
to me? Is it devotedness and self-sacrifice in the apostolate of home
life? Or is it the noblest and most far-reaching of works for God, the
training of young souls in His love and service? Am I doing good work
for You in my allotted sphere? What account am I preparing to give You
of the talents entrusted to me? How could I bear it, O my Lord, should
You ever have to reproach me, as “an evil and slothful servant,” with
hiding the talent given me for Your service? What am I doing with my
life, with its energies, its opportunities, its responsibilities, its
graces? Where are the souls I am helping to save? Where is the lot I
am brightening, the cross I am lightening for Your dear sake? In what
direction am I furthering Your interests and sacrificing self to Your
glory? Unless I can lay my hands in Yours, and look up trustfully into
Your Face with “Lord, Thou knowest” my daily prayer, “Thy Kingdom come”
is a mockery, a self-delusion, a sham.
[80] St. Ignatius.
[81] Psa. xxiv.
[82] 2 Par. vii.
[83] Matt. x.
XXVI.
CHRIST OUR STUDY.
You have not so learned Christ.--_Ephes._ iv. 20.
It behoves us to have right conceptions of the great spiritual
realities which affect our life here and our destiny hereafter. Above
all must we learn aright Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Gradually, from our earliest childhood, the idea of Christ has been
forming, developing, taking definite shape in our minds. May-be it
is stereotyped by this time. It is all-imperative for us that the
Christ we have so conceived should be the true Christ--“the Christ,
the Son of the Living God”. _Tout sort des idées._ Our idea of
Him will not affect Himself or alter our fundamental relations with
Him, but it will affect the whole moulding of our spiritual life, our
whole character, our every thought, word and deed here, and our whole
eternity hereafter. Surely, then, we must examine our impression of
Christ, and should we find that the influence of early education, of
a false creed, of unwholesome reading or association, or the trend of
our character has distorted in our minds the true Christ as reflected
in the Gospels, we must at all costs correct that impression. If it has
become stereotyped we must break up our mould and start our work afresh.
Meditation upon the Gospels; the quiet, steady gaze of the inward eye
on Christ; the study of Him day after day under all circumstances and
amid ever shifting scenes, and not of His outward bearing, His words
and actions only, but of the Heart from which these spring--thus it was
that the saints built up His image in their souls, a true living image
which transformed them into the likeness of itself, and became a power
within them, drawing all things to Him Who was to them all in all.
_You have not so learned Christ._ If Christ our Lord has not as
yet drawn _me_ wholly to Himself, it is because my conception
of Him is faulty. Whether this is the result of simple carelessness
which has allowed His image in my mind to take shape anyhow, or of
Jansenistic habits of thought that have fashioned for me a Lord
stern, exacting, repellent, a very caricature of the Christ of the
Gospels, Christ our Lord; or whether it is my own character, timorous,
suspicious, selfish, unsympathising, that has inspired my present idea
of Him--from whatever source the misconception has come, it must be
set right, or its results will be simply fatal--fatal to the growth of
anything like personal love and familiar friendship with Him; fatal to
His influence on my life, my actions, my work for Him in the souls of
others.
Not any Christ, the creature of my own distorted fancy, but Him Whom
the Father has sent, I am to fall down and worship. He alone has power
as He alone has right to occupy and absorb my whole interest, my whole
affection, my whole self. He alone can be a living influence radiating
from my own life to the lives of others.
* * * * *
O Christ my Lord, give me so to know You that my knowledge may be
glory to You, and life to my own soul and the souls of others. “This
is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”[84] Be Yourself my Master in this one
thing necessary. And let me go to the source to draw--learning You
from the scenes of Your life. Let me stand by the well of Samaria, and
the pool of Bethsaida, and the bier at Nain--and watch and listen. Let
the charm of Your divine Person subdue and win me, and the sound of
Your voice be familiar to me. Let the knowledge of Your ways with the
sinner, the sufferer, the little children, grave such a picture of You
in my heart that not even its perversity can bring before me when I
say “Jesus” any other form than that of the most beautiful, the most
tender, the most compassionate of men.
Veronica wiped Your sacred suffering Face, and received as the greatest
of rewards, stamped on her veil, and still more upon her heart, that
_vera icon_--that true image of Christ which was thenceforth to be
inseparable from her memory, the very name by which all ages were to
know her.
Stamp on my heart, dear Lord, _the true likeness_ of Yourself. And
as this likeness must be ever growing, let me come often to the altar
rails to learn You more and more. The tabernacle is the Gospel history
continued. Time has not dimmed Your fairness, O beautiful One, nor
dulled the sympathy of Your human Heart. All that You were to Your own
in this world, all that You are to them this hour in heaven, is here
within the tabernacle, is here _for me_. Here then let me come to
study You--patient, tender, obedient still, meek and humble of heart,
Jesus, yesterday, to-day and for ever!
[84] John xvii.
XXVII.
OUR FATHER.
O clap your hands, all ye nations; shout unto God with the voice of
joy.--_Psa._ xlvi. 1.
My God, what would have become of us had You shown Yourself to us as
the All-just instead of the All-loving One You are? Had You been more
mindful of Your Majesty than of our need? We know so little how to
comport ourselves in Your presence, that it might have seemed more
fitting You should remain in the recesses of Your Godhead, manifest
Yourself but dimly and rarely, and restrict our worship of You to
the most distant homage. It would have been but the manifestation of
another attribute in place of that sweet mercy which has shaped the
whole course, not of redemption’s plan only, but of the inner life of
each one of us.
My God, it might have been so--and what then would have become of us?
Where would praise have been, and trust, and loving return to Your arms
after a fall? Blessed be Your name that You willed to show Yourself our
Father, willed that with the younger race, Your human family, mercy
should ever be in the ascendant.
“Blessed be You for ever, my God, my Mercy,”[85] for having shown
Yourself to our weak sight in this softened light, the light that
begets love--as One easily appeased, as One constraining trust, as
One with arms widespread to Your timid children--the All-forgiving,
All-tender, All-compassionate--_our Father Who art in heaven_.
[85] _Cf._ Psa. lviii.
XXVIII.
HEREAFTER.
Thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.--_John_
xiii. 7.
I look forward into the eternal years and see myself at last in my
rest on the bosom of God. All over! Life, and uncertainty, and death,
and judgment, and purgatory. And with my head on the Heart of Him Who
has loved me to the end, I look back. How clear everything is from
this height, in this unclouded light and this untroubled peace! All
mists swept away; all doubts dispelled; all questions set at rest; all
cravings satisfied.