Section I. Our Blessed Lady
There is much in the world to make us sad, the present sorrows of the Church, and our own little love of God. Yet can we help a certain jubilee of heart in thinking that the Month of God s Mother has now hegun, that each day of it is bringing more and more glory to God, and more and more help to the Church, because millions upon millions of souls, in every clime and of every blood, are daily growing in the deep reverence and the deeper love of the Immaculate Mother of God? that the days were longer, and would pass more slowly, that we might fill them fuller of that sweet enthusiasm for Jesus, whose natural outburst is devotion to His dearest Mother! I. The gifts of God.
The pleasure of receiving gifts huge plea sure to the generous gifts from those we love.
What then must be the pleasure of receiving them from God? vet all life is this.
But our Lord says it is more blessed to give than to receive.
How immense then the pleasure of God, arid so in proportion His love.
The wonderfulness of our receiving gifts from God: the way it makes us love Him and bumble ourselves.
II. The gifts of Jesus.
A peculiar sweetness in receiving gifts from Jesus.
He has one gift, an immense gift, of huge importance for time, and still more for eternity.:;
Not only an immense gift, but a choice one, one that He gives most of to His dearest saints.
One that was and is part of His own Heart and Character and one which He is not so much ready to give us, as intensely burning to give us.
This gift is the grace to love His Mother! O if we did but prize and value this grace as we ought to prize it, as He Himself prizes it, we should be already halfway to heaven, because we should have half ensured our final perseverance.
III. It is the characteristic grace of Jesus: be cause He would give us such a gift
As would make us love Himself most.
As would make us most like Him.
As would most honour His Mother.
As would be most advantageous to ourselves.
As would make Him love us most.
All these things are comhined in the love of Mary.
"What an intense joy it is in any way to resemble Jesus! How then ought we to cultivate and multiply this queenly grace of loving Mary! 0, happy you who have it, happier you who greatly prize it, happiest you who are all on fire with it, for it is a fire which Jesus Himself has kindled in your hearts! The fair light of eternity, the sensible touch of God, the golden prophecies of a happy death, the cheerful securities of a joyous judgment are upon you. Happy, happy you! God be praised for your abounding happiness.
But oh unhappy souls, most unfortunate of men, most unfortunate at least of all men who are not yet the victims of the eternal prison, you who have not this devotion! There is much on earth, which bears, and rightly, the title of misfortune, but of all God s creatures upon earth, they are the most unfortunate, who have no devotion to God s Mother!
Dearest brethren, there can be no repentance in heaven else when we see Mary we shall wish we had known her better, prayed to her oftener, and loved her more; for we shall see brighter places than our own, further forward in the glory of heaven, where we might have been had we loved her more!
MARY THE MOTHER OF SINNERS, i
I. The dreadful condition of a man not in a state of grace.
Cut off from God,
Having no part in the redemption of Jesus.
The sport of demons,
Having already hell begun in himself.
Chance of sudden death, and then eternal fire.
Horror of the angels, and hatred of God, exemplified in the brand of Cain.
II. One thing is still left to him the motherly solicitude of Mary. This is his hope his treasure his last resource.- He goes about the world linked to Heaven by this one thing.
Because she is the Mother of Mercy, not of Justice.
Because God has willed it so, in love to her and love to us.
Because experience shows that many who through a sinful life have hung on to her by some little devotion get grace at last.
III. How it is that, when she so approaches God in His hatred of sin, she so perseveringly loves sinners.
Because of the glory of God.
From a thirst to extend the harvest of Christ s Passion.
Because all souls are the hrothers of Jesus.
Because of her vehement enmity with the devil.
Because of her very hatred of sin.
Because she knows that Jesus saw each of us in His sufferings, and specially suffered for each.
Because of her intense joy in heholding the triumph of grace.
Because of her desire to exercise that peculiar empire of mercy which God has entrusted to her.
Because of the unspeakable tenderness of her Maternal Heart,
Address the hardhearted, or the despairing, to have unbounded confidence in Mary. You cannot better magnify the love of God or show more welcome trust in His mercy than by unlimited confidence in the Heart of Mary j
MARY THE SAFETY OF SOULS.
I. The opposite views which God and the world take of men.
The world s view according to science, or politics, or intellect, or wealth, or friendship.
God s view, simply and exclusively as souls with one work to do.
The difficulty of learning God s view and keeping to it: yet this is the very science of a Christian.
II. God s love of souls.
The only treasure of His own creation He vouchsafes to set value on.
The immense love of Jesus for souls.
The whole Church simply a contrivance for souls.
The way all heaven is engrossed day and night on behalf of souls.
The characteristic of the saints is ttnforgetting enthusiastic zeal for souls.
The value of the soul itself death being better than sin its unutterable penalties, its inconceivable rewards. Nay, God Himself is its only sufficient reward*
The interests of the soul eminently unite the glory of God and the honour of Jesus,
III. What Mary does for souls.
By what she suffered.
By her example; the model of all ages, and simply a creature, simply imitable.
By the conversion of sinners by missions, scapulars, medals, &c.
By the perfection of the saints.
By the religious orders she has founded either by vision or by love: and all they are doing at all hours all the world over, whether in the active or contemplative life.
By her peculiar winningness and familiarity as Mother of Mercy.
All she does for the Church and the Faith by her prayers is so much work for souls, as the peace of the Church is the salvation of the souls of the masses and multitudes.
The way she uses her angels on behalf of souls, and pursues them into Purgatory.
As the neck of the mystical body of Christ all graces pass through her.
IV. Conclusions to be drawn.
The little we can do for souls.
The immense privilege of being allowed to do that little.
The joy at the immensity which Mary does; this is another reason for loving her.
Also by our devotion we may continually get her to do more.
Thus devotion to our Blessed Lady is an essential part of true zeal for souls.
IV. DEPENDENCE ON MARY.
I. Our Lord is our example as well as our Eedeemer.
Hence the necessity of studying the four Gospels as our rule of life.
In these things which seem the least fitted to His Divinity, He would seem also to he most our example;
And these things are chiefly under the heads either of humiliation or submission.
Instances: The Forty Days Fast His remaining in the Temple at twelve years old. I select these instances as on the surface least likely to he imitahle.
But ahove all, so much of the thirty-three years given to Mary, thirty out of thirty-three wholly, the other three very much.
II. His dependence on Mary.
He waited her consent for His Incarnation, and fixed the time because of her.
His Infancy with use of reason, yet dependent on her.
He seems to leave His Father s business and returns from the temple to Nazareth.
The eighteen years He was simply subject to her.
The tradition that He asked her leave to go on His Ministry, and again to His Passion.
At her word He anticipated His time for working miracles.
He perpetuated this dependence in the Church by transferring her to us through St. John.
III. Our dependence on Mary.
Her position to us is thus simply what it was to Him.
All true devotion to her is nothing but dependence upon her.
This dependence is based on
Belief in her power.
Confidence in her love.
All good things which fail, fail because they have not enough of Mary in them.
We must put things in her hands, and look to her for results.
She must be imbedded in our lives, as she is imbedded in the office of the Church.
Holiness is impossible for us without Mary for God has made it one consistent system, and she is part of it ordained by Him.
if we would but throw ourselves more upon Mary than we do, with the whole weight of our love, with the whole weight of our necessities. She is loving each one of us at this moment with a surpassing love. No friend, no parent, no saint, no angel has ever been to us what she has been. It is wonderful what she has done for us without our asking, more wonderful still what she has done for our little asking, but most wonderful of all is what she can do and will do, if we will ask more, believe more, and trust more. wo who call earth our exile, and heaven our home, and Mary the Queen of heaven, how is it we do not see that there can he no heavenly-mindedness which is not full of loyalty to heaven s great Queen?
MORE LOVE OF MAEY.
Time goes differently with different people j and differently in different years even with the same person. Sometimes we live slowly; sometimes we live quickly. But the years are always speeding, a quiet speed, but an incessant one. Are we speeding on the way to heaven? Speeding! yes! are we speeding on the way to heaven? It is a road on which nothing is safe but speed; nothing is prudent but impetuosity; nothing is cautious but bravery. What is age to the Christian eye? only this more work, and less time to do it in.
Christians, how we dream! It was thus that
1 reproached myself the other day, and I awoke with a start, as if from sleep or from forgetfulness. More work and less time to do it in. This must be looked to; life must be put in order; I must be converted again, and at once, not tomorrow, but today, this very hour. Here is another year running round, the days are beginning to shorten again, we must quicken our speed both onward and upward. I thought I was getting hourly into God s debt; I sat down to teach my-^ self a lesson, to preach myself a sermon, to reason with my own laziness and cowardice; and some how it all went the other way, all my thoughts went into love. This was how it was; let us think the train of thought over again together.
I. The weight of our obligations to Jesus: what a delightfully hopeless debt it is.
All that He has suffered and done; let Him stand before us and show us His Wounds.
All His sweet patience lately, and at the present hour.
All the secret love He has shewn each of us, and which we alone know.
The intolerable misery of the little love we have for Him, and which we feel most when we love Him most.
We get hot; we rouse ourselves; we are determined to love Him more, and to go and do some great thing for Him immediately. Worldly things are best done coolly, things for God are best done in a heat.
II. What is our great thing to be? We must do
Him some immense service but how? 1. He is God: we must adore His Divine Per son; our adoration must grow more prostrate and more exulting every day.
- But we want something special; just as His
Incarnation was specially for us. 8. We must worship and love His created
Nature, which He so intensely loves Himself, and which makes Him Jesus.
Prayer, austerities, work for Him: how little we can do in this way! No! He wants imitation: we must copy Him: we must copy His Sacred Heart. This if I mistake not is the work of all Christian life, and of Christians lives, to widen the Sacred Heart of Jesus, to give it more room, to multiply its powers and faculties, its worships and its lives, and as it were add to it and broaden it by giving Him our own hearts to add to His own and make it larger. Now what represents His Sacred Heart most both as God and man?
Then it dawns upon us like a revelation, like one of those almost frightening sunrises at sea, when the w r hole round sun leaps all at once out of the waters with a silvery suddenness. We must immediately love Mary with an entirely new love with such a love as we never loved her with before, with such a love as nobody ever loved her with before this is what we will do for Jesus. Dearest Saviour! Dearest God, how He will delight in this. this is a sweet discovery a most happy inspiration!
III. Measures of the love of Mary.
Our own greatest love, or all our love together? No!
All the Saints love of her, e.g. Joseph, Peter, John, and her particular friendship with St. James? No!
Her own beauty, goodness, and manifold dear offices? No.
Her own love of me? No! not even that.
The love of Jesus for her. Yes that, precisely that, only that.
Alas! it is not enough; for we have more grounds for loving her than Jesus had: but we must be content with this measure.
IV. But I said to myself, it is impossible.
Impossible! what does impossible mean?
Does grace know of any such word?
Impossible! Then I said, I will spend my life, and oh what a happy life it will be, in trying to accomplish this dear impossibility!
MARY MAGNIFYING GOD.
Is heaven far off, or near? We do not know t its songs are not heard, unless it be by the dying, or by saints as they are rapt in extasy. But then the soul s ear can hear far off. Still upon the whole we incline to think that Heaven is near.
I. What is Heaven? It is the beautifulness of the outspread God.
AYhat angels think of this, and our own dear dead; it is all in all to them.
Our want of appreciation intellectually, and the unmovedness of our affections.
God is to us one of many things; hence our intolerably low views of God.
Yet how stupid any low views of God must be: our own vexation with ourselves.
To raise ourselves higher in this matter should be the one end of life.
II. Loving contemplation of Mary is the way to learn better adoration of God. Blessed art thou by thy God in every tabernacle of Jacob: for in every nation which shall hear thy name, the God of Israel shall be magnified on occasion of thee. *.
This is her office. My soul doth magnify the Lord.
She is the highest person in all God s creation, and nearest to the Divine Three.
God has most incredibly communicated to her the splendours of His Perfections.
She has led the most wonderful life, and fulfils the most wonderful office, among creatures.
She has been more mixed up with God than all creation besides.
III. What she has been and is to God.1
In His Eternity before Creation.
Of all created Persons dearest and first.
His unutterable immense complacence in her, and endless desire of her.
He designed her as seemingly necessary to Him in creation, as the Mother of the Word.
In the Kingdom of Nature.
Her perfections as a person the greatest in all creation.
Creation created subordinately to Jesus and herself.
The natural gifts of her body and her soul.
In the Kingdom of Grace.
The highest sanctity of created persons is hers.
The Divine Maternity.
The Queenship of the Church on earth.
In the Kingdom of Glory.
Her incomparable throne and exaltation.
The Queenship of the angels.
She beautifies even the unspeakable life of God by her exceeding glorious loveliness.
Majesty of God, most dear, most mysterious, and yet so infinitely desirable! How shall we learn it more worthily, and worship it with more delighted awe, than by the contemplation of Mary? It will be well for us in time and in eternity to spend this month in intensest efforts to worship Mary with a more noble, more tender, more reverent worship. It is a matter in which there can be no excess; we cannot do too much: our most must be sorrowfully too little. God will leave us far behind in His love and admiration and complacency in her. then, my Brethren, let us worship the grand Mother of God with every faculty of our minds: let us worship her with every affection of our hearts: let us worship her with a magnificent worship and so shall there grow in our hearts the grand, broad, invigorating, exclusive, exulting, impassioned love of God!
VII. MARY THE LIKENESS OF GOD.
How it would sweeten death, if when we came to die, we could feel that God had allowed us to increase in one single heart the love of our dearest Lady. I believe it would be a special joy for all eternity. Let us try now again today to inflame each other s hearts with this sweet love. I. Astonishment is one of the chief joys of heaven.
Caused by the immense incomprehensible beauty of God;
And also by the inconceivable jubilee of all there.
Always new, always as it were increasing.
In saints on earth touches and glimpses of heaven bring extasy and rapture; but this is because of their mortal weakness: it is not so in heaven.
The exquisite joy of astonishment, in mind, in heart, in glorified senses.
II. The likeness of God.
It is difficult for us on earth to conceive what it is to have God all in all.
He is so completely the one Object that all blessedness tends to become more and more one with Him, with an amazing oneness which will not be put into words.
Our joy is that we remain separate selves, yet one with Him, and so can feel and enjoy our unity with Him.
This union with Him is by becoming trans formed into His likeness.
All beauty therefore in creatures, and all joy, is in their likeness to God.
III. All creation is the likeness of God.
Inanimate nature in beauty of form pro perties, &c.
Animalcules in life fecundity beauty strangeness.
Men like God.
Angels like God.
But Mary most of all.
Like the Father in being the Mother of the Son, truly and naturally. What un imaginable likenesses to that dear and Blessed First Person does not this suggest?
Like the Son.
In form and features, and human disposition.
In the character of her Immaculate Heart.
In mortal sufferings. 3. Like the Holy Ghost.
In being His Spouse.
In her love of Jesus.
Through the action of her repeated sanctifications.
There are cold, shallow controversies on earth about our Lady s greatness, while at this hour the great St. Michael is gazing on her throne with a rapture of astonishment, a delighted rapture which will grow to all eternity!
THE DELIGHT OF GOD IN THE PEKFECTIONS OF MAKY.2
There has been only one thing from eternity there is only one thing now there will never to all eternity be but one thing the glory of God. I. The Glory of God.
What it is, and His delight in it.
Its universal empire, and our own concern with it.
The glorious sovereignty of God.
The glorious sweetness of God.
The glorious exclusiveness of God.
II. Mary an immense glory of God; and God s delight
In her Predestination.
In her Office as Mother of God. 8. In her Graces.
In her Prerogatives.
In the work she does in creation.
III. The reasons of His delight.
Because He sees Himself reflected in her.
Because He is enabled for her sake to love His creation more.
Because through her a greater number of souls are saved.
Because all in her is His own gift.
Because the distance from her to Himself is simply infinite.
This night in heaven: Mary is on her throne, clothed with the sun, twelve stars around her head, sighs of earth coming up to her, and the joys of earth as well. Baptised children, saints, angels, the Sacred Humanity, the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, are all drinking joy and jubilee out of that one fountain, that dearest of all God s dear glories, the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
We too have, we trust, a place kept there, in what part of all that boundless realm of grandeur and extasy we cannot know, but it is very beautiful, strangely suited to us, and full of unimaginable delights. Though it is a land of immense dis tances every one is near to God, every one is near to Mary. Let us think of that dear unseen home, and let us hold on in virtue; let us pray hard; let us love hotly; let us sorrow holily; let us delight in God; and so, dearest children of Mary, shall our whole lives hecome one long and beautiful Procession of the Immaculate Conception!
Today is the feast of the beautiful mystery the first function of the Church triumphant in heaven, the end for which God created the world coming into view; let us see in what light it puts the character of God before us.
I. Humility. The Assumption is God s coming to crown His own creation.
It is the proper virtue of a creature.
It was so of the angels and saved them.
It is so of the Church, and is marked in all her worship. 4. The want of humility in the world is just the evidence of its having fallen from God.
II. God cannot be humble; yet there is a characteristic of the Divine operations answering to that virtue: we cannot name it; it is shewn
In the unostentatiousness of creation.
In the renewal and conservation of creation.
In His omnipresence.
In the delay of judgment, and in silence under outrage.
In His quiet hidden way of imparting grace.
III. God came to practise humility by the Incarnation.
In His choice of poverty and suffering.
In what followed from the Incarnation the obedience of the Omnipotent, the poverty of the Lord of All, the hiddenness of the Omnipresent, the toil of the Creator.
In the Blessed Sacrament daily.
In the humiliations of His dear Spouse the Church.
IV. Mary the humblest of creatures.
- With the angel. 2. With St. Elizabeth. 3. With St. Joseph. 4. Her Purification and obedience to other laws. 5. The silence of the Evangelists.
Thus the Assumption was a consistent manifestation of the Creator s character, a revelation of His taste, a merciful disclosure of His genius.
let us fall in love with sweet humility, let us keep ourselves low, and nestle in the thought of our own unworthiness; let us wonder God should bear with us at all, and so learn sweet manners to bear with the waywardness of others, and this night from the depths of the fallen earth let us look at tins grand action of our Creator, and wor shipping His ways, use our mother s words unto Him: Magnificat anima mea Dominum, et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutari meo: and why? Quia respexit humilitatem ancillce SUCK. Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humilcs: He cast Lucifer from his throne, and set Mary nigh unto Himself.
World-wearied, sin-stained, earth-hound! What have we to do with this great glory? Yet it has lessons for all, besides the wonder and the beauty and the joy of our mother s glory, and the vision of a mighty work of God.
I. How great nature can be with grace.
She has not outstepped or outstripped her nature.
It would be hard to put a limit to what nature can be.
Yet we are always fancying we have got to our own limit.
II. How little without grace.
For what is Mary s nature in itself?
What has she from nature independent of grace?
Her nature is only visible in the fires of grace as the three children were in the furnace.
III. The abundance of grace.
See what she had in number, and in kind.
Yet she has not nearly exhausted the possi bilities of grace.
Nay, what abundance have we not had ourselves?
IV. Correspondence to grace is of itself the whole work.
Her correspondence is the nearest interpretation of the mystery of her greatness.
What correspondence is in detail, and how it multiplies grace.
Oh, the room our graces leave us, and our lost opportunities.
Mary is the manifestation of the kingdom of grace, and the type of God s way with all our souls, singular yet not singular, admirable yet imitable also, standing alone yet in the midst of us, moved up to God as His sinless mother, yet removed from us no further than a mother from her children!
ROSARY SUNDAY.
I. The position which the Kosary occupies in the
Church.
It is not a special devotion, but unites all devotions.
It distinguishes no order, but all orders.
It is to the laity almost what office is to the clergy.
A true catholic mind can hardly now be formed without it.
It is distinguished above all other devotions by the approbations of the Church.
II. The Rosary viewed as an instrument of power in itself.
Its peculiar power on earth in forming character, so that it is a catholic touchstone.
Its influence in Heaven shewn from its being revealed.
Its influence in Purgatory from the immensity of its indulgences.
As a profession of faith also.
As a shield against many temptations.
III. It is also an instrument of power as a teacher.
It illustrates the position of our Lady to our Lord, and is another way of looking at their Mysteries.
It teaches also how she is a way to Him.
Also it is what she did all her life herself: she rose to great heights by incessant meditation of Jesus.
Therefore it shews us what she wishes us to do; it is her testament, as the H. Eucharist is the testament of Jesus.
Hence it is the truest means of loving her; for love consists, 1. in obedience; and 2. in imitation.
In consequence of all these blessings the devil makes the Rosary a special subject of temptations, weariness, contempt and the like. Persevere in it, and it will itself be the chain of your own final perseverance.
THE LETTER KILLETH, BUT THE SPIRIT GIVETH LIFE.3
People who aim at doing their duty, are divisible into two classes, 1. they who follow the letter, and 2. they who take the spirit. J-. Our Blessed Lady an exemplification of the spirit, not the letter.
She got from the Scriptures a true notion of the Messias and His kingdom.
Her conduct to St. Joseph, secrecy, marriage, &c.
With our Lord, especially in the marriage at Cana.
Her receiving St. John, and us with him.
Thus the letter of our Lord s words hurt her not.
II. Conduct of those who take the spirit with regard to
Genius, and spirit, and movement of the Church as well as her doctrines.
Way of holding doctrines.
View of the spiritual life.
Promptness of obedience.
Intercourse with the world.
Supernatural tendency.
The Child of Mary ever divining the high and right path.
III. What happens to the mere disciples of the letter. They
Often miss real duty, and get gradually entangled in a positively wrong course of conduct.
Do no great works for God or the Church.
Are less winning and attractive.
The power of high principle and noble purpose and lofty aim, wherein lies the sphere and mission of the Enfants de Marie.
XIII.
MEMORIALS OF MARY AND HER SIXTY-THREE YEARS.
Her eternal predestination.
Her Immaculate Conception.
Her first use of reason.
Her first act of Divine love.
Her pure nativity.
Her obedience to SS. Joachim and Anne.
Her receiving her beautiful name.
Her presentation in the temple when three years old.
Her holy sojourn and retreat there.
Her preservation from all actual sin.
Her pure nuptials.
The Annunciation.
Her humble answer to St. Gabriel.
The Incarnation.
The perplexity of St. Joseph.
The visitation and sanctification of St. John the Baptist.
Her innocence declared by the angel and honoured by St. Joseph.
Her expectation of her delivery.
The rebuff from the people of Bethlehem.
The entry into the stable.
Her extatic contemplation of the Incarnation.
The birth of her Jesus.
The joy of her first services to Him.
Her first suckling of Him.
The devotion of the shepherds.
The adoration of the Kings.
The circumcision and naming of Jesus.
Her purification, and presentation of Jesus.
The joy of Simeon and his prophecies.
The flight into Egypt.
The return to Nazareth.
The loss of Jesus for three days.
The finding Him in the temple.
Her maternal authority over Him at Nazareth.
Her sorrow at the death of St. Joseph and St. Anne.
Her joy in following Jesus and hearing His sermons.
Her success in obtaining the first miracle at Cana.
Her farewell to Jesus when He went to His Passion.
Her meeting Him on the road to Calvary.
The nailing to the cross and the elevation of it in her presence.
Her receiving St. John as her legacy.
The death of Jesus.
The piercing of His side.
The descent from the cross.
Her receiving His body on her lap.
Her helping to bury Him.
Her tears during Saturday s solitude.
Her first visit from Jesus risen.
Her witnessing the Ascension.
Her receiving the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.
Her first Communion from the hands of St. John.
Her solicitude for the infant Church.
Her desire for death.
Her dying of love.
Her burial by the Apostles.
The resurrection of her body.
Her rising through the air.
Her entry into Heaven.
Her reception by the Eternal Father.
Her Coronation.
Her sweet empire over the Angels.
Her diligent love of the Souls in Purgatory.
Her protection of us poor sinners upon earth.
XIV. THE JOYS OF OUR DEAR LADY.
I. Her seven earthly Joys.
The Annunciation.
The Nativity.
The adoration of the Three Kings.
The Resurrection.
The Ascension.
The coming of the Holy Ghost.
The Assumption.
II. Her Seven heavenly joys, revealed by her to St. Thomas of Canterbury.
Her exaltation above the Angels.
Her seat at the right hand of Jesus.
The obedience of the Blessed to her.
Her being the new Ornament of Paradise.
Her conformity to the Will of God.
Her being the channel of all grace.
The increase of her joys up to the day of Judgment and then their eternity.
PART THIRD.
Footnotes
Chapter 7 of 18