Section I. The Church

I. The idea of the Church and its kingdom in the mind of Christ.

1. Its royalty the Man Christ Jesus King above nationalities subject to no other power in spirituals represented -in prophecy as the enemy of empires highest and most mysterious of allegiances quite a fearful vision to see it starting on its journey across the world.

2. Its exclusiveness in government in doctrine in tone and temper.

3. Its supernaturalness image of Christ subject to the same misrepresentations and accusations to the same treatment yet eluding all with Christlike vitality.

4. Its sufferings, mingled with its majesty, like His within and without opposites unite in hating it.

5. Its triumph, at unexpected moments in the long run it gains its end, and survives its enemies. Hence Catholics are not proud when they compare Christ and the Church.

II. The Chronicle of His kingdom briefly sketched.

1. His preaching: little work was done hut the novitiate of the apostles.

2. The work of the apostles in the great towns seed scattered along the side of the Roman roads.

3. Melting away of the Roman Empire thus its first victory was over a state.

4. Age of heresies and of patronage heresy leans towards the civil power; it is in effect a protest against the royalty of Christ.

5. The vision of the papacy the royalty of Christ coming out still more peace to men of good will, to others war.

6. Feudal system, and temporalities of Popes to secure freedom from states, and freedom to teach.

7. Age of the Council of Trent saints spirituality missionary life laws of the Church.

8. Age of saints of modern life, their characte ristics, 1. love, 2. simplicity, 3. love of derision, 4. devotion to Mary, 5. love of Holy See, 6. upon the whole not being learned, 7. full of visions.

9. Progress and civilization of today, in which the Church keeps her ground.

III. Marvels of that Chronicle.

1. Unity of faith, in spite of heresy, controversy, free opinion, or increase of science.

2. Succession of Popes, so long, so holy, so clear on the whole, righting itself after troubles.

3. Preservation of one city, in spite of exiles, sieges, &c. &c.

4. Dying out of heresies the Church simply outliving them.

5. Similarity and reproduction of saints.

6. Two homages to the Church in all ages, intellect and fear i. e., the faith of devils.

7. That it should be still a living, energizing power, frightening grave men out of their proprieties, even at the present day. The late commotion may be thus accounted for the reappearance of the royalty of the Church, which always frightens men we were obscure before. Will England reject Christ? Ecce Homo, a King crowned, but with thorns!

THE VICISSITUDES OF THE CHURCH.

I. Why the Church, being what she is, should have vicissitudes.

1. To be like her King, and to represent His royalty.

2. For the perfection of her children.

3. Because it is a conflict between good and evil, and man is free Michael s war in heaven.

4. Because God is glorified by them.

5. Because faith and loyalty are tested by them.

6. Because God punishes the world by them.

7. Because her children are not true to her high exclusive principles.

II. Kinds of vicissitudes.

1. Vicissitudes in conflicts for doctrine, e. g., near triumph of Arianism.

2. Vicissitudes of missionary success, e. g., Japan and Paraguay.

3. Vicissitudes of toleration, e. g., Eussia and England.

4. Vicissitudes of temporal power, e. g., in the Middle Ages, and now according as God provides work for her.

5. Vicissitudes of saints 1. in times 2. in places Ireland and England have had none canonized for three hundred years.

III. Examples of vicissitudes.

1. Momentary triumph of Arianism, illustrat ing royal patronage, the supernaturalness of truth, and the necessity of a celibate body of unworldly heroes to checkmate evil powers.

2. Lives of immoral Popes even this lesson might be wanted to show the royalty of the Church as distinct from her grace, yet it is a pious belief that no Pope is lost, on account of St. Peter s prayers for them.

3. The Greek schism court intrigues incest of Bardas pride of Photius heroism of Ignatius absence of human respect in the Holy See providence in the legate s treachery and sin all how like Henry VIII., save that we had no Ignatius.

4. The Eeformation immense evil, of course, and frightful loss of souls yet how it has brought out the vitality of the Church, and is now refuting itself by death or fresh division.

5. Eecent vicissitudes of the papacy like Pius VI. and Pius VII. as if a drama of history, which we had come to regard as almost poetical, were acted over again before our eyes.

IV. Lessons learned from these vicissitudes.

1. Supernaturalness of the Church: no need of arm of flesh: English Catholics should lay this to heart.

2. Detestation of compromise boldness, openness, yet prudent concession to any limit when no principle is compromised: e. g. in concordats: yet for this the Church is called double-dealing.

3. Increased intensity of loyal love what can we fear, when all imaginable vicissitudes but those of Antichrist are exhausted? no new thing can befall us, but his coming.

4. Not to be in a hurry: we can afford to sacrifice today for the sake of tomorrow, which the world cannot afford to do; picture of the Godlike patience and providencelike policy of the Holy See.

The world s fear at the resurrections of the Church. Whilst England is busy building glass palaces, quays and custom houses filled with the productions, planning to fit the city to receive earth s foreigners, out comes the risen Church, with her defunct hierarchy, and England is filled with rage, fear, convulsions, self-contradictions, fighting, like a possessed demoniac.

THE EMPIRE OF THE CHURCH.

The Church was to be a kingdom in Christ s intention: whosoever should fall on it should he broken, and on whomsoever it should fall, it should grind him to powder. I. The difficulties it had to encounter.

1. Sin and selfishness its power was to be in selfdenial and unworldliness.

2. Prejudices and traditions it introduced an entire set of new associations celibacy vocation the royalty of the Church attained by its militia of religious orders.

3. It had to persuade supernatural doctrines, which shocked men on two opposite counts, 1. either by being without analogy, or 2. too analogous to bygone superstitions.

4. To overwhelm nationalities: this is the essence of the Gospel.

5. To ignore castes making the laity as subservient as the clergy.

6. To stand independent of civil power and where half belonged to the Church to claim the whole, because the temporal half cedes to the spiritual.

7. Yet it had to compel civil governments, not to ignore it, but to notice and provide for it: e.g. in England.

II. "Wherein its empire consists.

1. The voluntary homage of the understanding: how the world frets at this in men of intellect W 7 ho are Catholics.

2. Homage of the conscience occasional romance of this in civil history, but nothing equal to it as a characteristic of the empire of the Church.

3. Love of it superior to patriotism or love of country.

4. Zeal to do or suffer, without any discouraging doubt of ultimate victory.

5. Arbitrary regulation of private life which men will not allow to civil government: e.g. marriage, fasts, &c.

6. Recognition of its right to meddle with third persons, as in the case of occasions of sin, excommunicated persons, &c.

7. Submission to spiritual punishments.

Thus its empire rests on what men call blindness, i.e. on the cultus of a mysterious region of the soul, which the sanctions and prohibitions of the Church alone can reach: i. e. faith.

III. The character of this empire.

1. It cannot be touched it eludes the world it gives way to pressure, and yet loses no volume.

2. It invites persecution as being a kind of persecution itself.

3. Its apparent insincerity, simply because it eludes grasp; it seems like a huge conspiracy against the temporal welfare of mankind.

4. Its appearance and disappearance on the sur face of society it frightens and wearies men hunted in one city, it flies into another.

5. Its arrogance and historical pretension, with little or no outward dignity: it seems to be always proving too much about itself, and no two men see it in the same light.

6. It is catching, and proselytizes without car ing much to do so, and by putting forward its weak points; e.g. a lecture on the help lessness of the Church is more converting than one on its historical glories.

7. Suffering and constraint consolidate it; it compels its enemies to the savagery of physical force; irritable humiliation of this, e.g. newspapers lately.

Look at this empire! What can men do but curse it, or submit?

4. THE CHURCH AT WAR WITH THE WORLD.

We have seen that the Church is a kingdom, and what manner of kingdom it is: now look at the Church and world alongside of each other. I. What the world thinks of itself.

1. That it is going to last for ever: so it plants and builds and projects and dreams, over valuing its dreams, and, poor blindfold thing, not seeing that they are dreams, realizing not that it is a victim condemned to be burnt, with its sentence uncertainly de layed.

2. That there are no other interests but its own; ignoring the personality of God.

3. That there is nothing like itself anywhere; yet the devil could contrive many equal manifestations of his ability.

i/

4. That religion was made for its convenience, to satisfy an appetite, and must not forget itself.

5. That there cannot be two opinions about its own value; its case is selfevident.

6. That of all vulgar things spirituality is specially vulgar, cowardly, and little.

7. It sees no disgrace in eating its own words, when convenient unlike the infallibility claimed by the Church. Leading articles of modern newspapers an instance of the hold the world has on men without their knowing it, and irrespective of sin. II. What the Church thinks of the world.

8. No middle course she judges it enmity with God calls it a devil the Holy Ghost bids her do so. Here war to the knife is proclaimed at once.

9. Foolishness of temporal affairs; and how the Church contrives to take all interest out of them: the world retaliates builds glass houses shows what it can do without the faith as at the tower of Babel.

10. The literary character the Church enforces moral element purity needed for divine science.

11. The mercantile character woe to it danger of it severe dealing with it in foro conscicntice usury, &c.

12. The political character the Church frus trates it ensnares it plays it false without deceit despises it.

13. The domestic character truth not peace vocations confessional precept of almsgiving.

14. Her quiet faith in her contempt for the world; she assumes it, hardly taking the trouble to reason it out.

III. State of the case with the two kingdoms. 1. Both claim to be exclusive, and infallible, and imperial, and hereditary.

2. The Churcli will not admit the state to co -reign with it:

3. While the world, because of its weakness, is ready to admit the Church to share its empire, and is maddened because the Church will have all or none.

4. The mystery of the Church s obedience to the powers of the world is beyond all else, and the ease wherewith she can shift from favour to suffering one of her most graceful movements.

5. By the longsuffering of her obedience she attains her end in the course of years.

6. Hence implacable hatred the world paying the Church the dread homage of its anger, its hatred, and its fear.

A Franciscan monk amid the Apennines shown the leaders in the Times he quietly philoso phizes on them. My son! this is but noise, empty noise: these are words of today, not of yesterday, nor of tomorrow: God s words effect what they say, so do in her degree the Church s words this will soon be forgotten like the babbling of a nightmare, humorous even in its horror.

THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND.

I. What do we mean by the Conversion of Eng land? 1. Anything sudden?

2. Large masses?

3. Government or nobles?

4. Science or universities?

5. The poor in an influx?

II. Is there any appearance of this?

1. None whatever.

2. Neither is it God s usual way save in cases of simpleminded nations.

3. Neither does the looking out for it produce a good habit of mind, but

4. Eagerness about conversions and gossip: while the Pope and our principles are at stake.

5. Forgetfulness of asceticism, which is our only strength.

6. Neglect of the little ones of Christ.

7. It is contrary to the tranquillity necessary for high graces.

8. Neither is it likely in England, because of 1. Money: 2. National pride: 3. Political power: 4. Adherence to traditions. The servility of Anglicanism is convenient.

9. We can only look for great successes through sufferings which humility ought to shrink from encountering lest it should fail: e.g. it may be that the reign of Antichrist must come first.

III. The actual work of conversion in England the gradual incoming of souls.

1. Most prosperous in all classes.

2. From increasing divisions elsewhere we may grow to be a huge body, in comparative compactness, and so outweigh others. 3. Effects of the late tumult.

3. Increased enquiry: controversy against us always brings converts.

4. Effects of reaction, especially on the ani mal generosity of Englishmen.

5. Comfort of the homage of national pride to the power of Church and Holy See this is better than controversy.

IV. Have we hopes of more than ordinary success? Yes.

1. From what has actually happened in the way of conversions.

2. From the manner in which it has happened independently of Catholics.

3. From the increasing loss of all faith outside the pale.

4. From prophecies and visions of the saints.

5. From the instinct of intercession for Eng land all through the Church.

V. If we may look for supernatural help, what spirit should this breed in us?

1. Internal union.

2. Increased strictness, and unworldliness, and more abundant alms.

3. Manly assertion of high principle, and ful ness of doctrine: God will be ashamed of us, if we are ashamed of Him, and so will not show the world that we are His.

English Catholics do not look like a body whom God would go out of His way to help beyond the common measure; we are more likely to be holding God back!

THE LAST AGE OF THE CHURCH, AND REIGN OF ANTICHRIST.

From the first, all the troubles of the Church were regarded as types of Antichrist, as Christ had His types; so we naturally conclude with this. It is not an idle speculation: Scripture puts it before us. I. The person of Antichrist.

1. A single person. " The man of sin, the son of perdition, that wicked one."¹ " This is Antichrist, who denieth the Father and the Son."t v. Apoc. xix.

2. Many believed in a demoniacal incarnation this will not be so but he will be a man utterly possessed. (Card. Berulle.)

3. Not come yet Mahomet was not he the signs are not fulfilled.

4. He is to be a king his kingdom in visible antagonism to the kingdom of Christ so all civil oppositions have been precursors of Antichrist.

5. Certainly a Jew uncertain if of tribe of Dan origin probably obscure.

6. With, zeal for the temple, gives himself out as the Messias.

7. With immense talents, awfully assisted by the devil immense wealth, Dan. xi. immoral, Dan. vii; and xi. unparalleled in deceit deceiving even the elect.

8. His doctrine an apparent contradiction of no religion, yet a new religion. Comparison with French Revolution. 1. He denies the divinity of Christ. 2. Asserts that he is the Messias. 3. Worship of devils. 4. He is an atheist, 5. but begins by affecting respect for the law of Moses. 6. Lying miracles, false resurrection, mock ascension. 7. He hasan attendant pontiff, so separating regal and prophetic office.

II. His kingdom.

1. Not hereditary got by degrees, by fraud, talent, and iniquitous diplomacy.

2. It will begin at Babylon.²

3. It will extend in influence over the whole civilized world.

4. Jerusalem will be the metropolis.

5. When his empire is at its full, it will last only three years and a half.

HI. His persecution.

1. Unparalleled horror of it.f

2. In spiritual things 1. there will be hardly any mass, 2. but the worship of his image and the wearing his mark; 3. majority of

Christians will apostatize, 4. but the Cliurcla will not be destroyed.

3. Saints will be greater than ever martyrs greater, as the first fought against men, the latter will fight against devils,³ our Lady s Saints, vide Grignon de Montfort.

4. Enoch and Elias,t now confirmed in grace, and waiting they will preach in sackcloth for as long a time as Christ, i. e. three years and a half less nineteen days their martyrdom they w T ill lie unburied.

5. Jesus kills him, and comes to the doom fortyfive days after; some say that St. Michael will kill him on Mount Olivet.

IV. Protestantism an anticipation of Antichrist. 1. Its attitude towards the Blessed Virgin

Mary, 2. the Mass, 3. the sign of the Cross.

4. All its sects unite against the Church.

5. Its carelessness about Baptism; sixth angel drying up Euphrates. 6. It blas phemes Saints.

V. The Five-and-Foriy Days.

1. Space for repentance. 2. Full of signs. 3. The Lord comes and the weary world is judged and burnt. Lessons.

2. The reign of Antichrist is to be the last temporal reign: so the Church s last enemy is to be a kingdom, the consummation of the wickedness of all kingdoms; how significant!

3. What part should we take in this persecution? Let us measure it by the boldness of our profession now by our strictness with ourselves by our selfdenial in charity for others by our perseverance in the practices of penance by the fervour and the frequency of our prayers by the rigorousness of the examinations of our conscience. It is always to each of us the five-and-forty days: Christ will come He will not tarrv let us have

\s our loins girded and our lamps burning, that when the midnight cry is raised, and the Bridegroom cometh, we may go forward with holy awe to meet our Saviour and our Judge.

THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH.

Various true senses in which the Church is holy; select the one which, while it is the most spoken against, puts in the clearest light the difference between the Catholic and the Protestant religion, viz., the peculiarities of the Catholic saints.

1. The end of the Christian religion is not to be an engine of government, a purification of literature, a civilizer; not to give a standard of morals, but "to train men for Heaven, to form characters w r hose proper sphere is not this w r orld at all, who are awkward in it, and mostly unsuccessful in its ways; it makes men moral by the way, and in consequence of something else, but it does not aim at that as an end. Considering the shortness of life and the length of eternity, it would be almost blasphemy to suppose it could be otherwise.

2. Now look at the New Testament to see what sort of character this was to be: examples 1. The Baptist, simply man; 2. Jesus, God and Man.

I. The example of the Baptist.

1. Likeness of John to Jesus, yet discrepancy.

2. Sketch of St. John penance in innocence.

3. Fulfilment of the type in the Catholic religious life.

4. Hiddenness.

5. Carelessness of reputation.

6. Unnecessary suffering.

7. Seeking humiliations.

8. Rejoicing in persecutions.

9. Proportion of prayer to work.

10. Contempt of riches.

11. Lifelong renouncement of selfwill.

12. Joy in the world s hatred.

II. Our Blessed Lord.

1. He is our pattern.

2. Sketch of His life, and spirit of His maxims.

3. Supernatural and unworldly characteristics.

4. Parallel in the Catholic spiritual life.

5. Now look at Protestantism it makes good husbands, fathers, citizens, on tombstones let us grant it for once still it has

6. No supernatural marks.

7. No provision for evangelical counsels, as in the Church.

8. Its perfection is the very reverse of enmity with the world; yet this enmity is of the essence of scriptural holiness.

You would not at all think that the New Testament was the book on which Protestants were formed. If Catholics would well consider this whole subject, how many difficulties they would find answered! The strength of our religion is in its supernaturalism.

The prayer of Jesus to His Father how often we should read it and meditate on it verse by verse I have given them Thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world.*

THE LIVING CHUKCH.

THANKSGIVING FOR THE DEFINITION

OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

They that are in a home, or live amid beautiful scenery, do not realize it: so is it with us in the Church, with all the blessings of her maternal love around us. Thanksgiving for being in the Church: how the Definition brings it home to us. I. The Church is one of God s most wonderfuj works in⁴

1. Its constitution.

2. Its destinies and history.

3. Its supernatural powers.

4. Its doctrine and teaching.

5. Its genius and spirit.

II. The essence of the Church is that it is o

1. It is not a literature or a philosophy.

2. Nor a merely authoritative interpreter of God s word and will: the swing it allows to mind.

3. Nor is it simply a government.

4. But it is a living participation of the life, the liberty, and the repose of God.

5. Thus it is never an ideal; but an eminently practical power and unity.

III. The Definition is a disclosure of this life.

1. We have seen a step taken which will be an historical grandeur.

2. The life and movement of the science of theology and its schools.

3. The pressure of the living devotion of the people.

4. The illustration of the Divine Monarchy of the Papacy.

5. Its width worldwide.

6. Never so naturally expressed.

7. Its all-sufficiency.

8. The whole Church receives the Definition by acclamation.

9. The total and regardless passing over of the world in this matter.

10. It concerns Mary, who has always been so deep and strong a portion of the life of the Church.

IV. Lessons.

1. Greater loyalty to the Church.

2. Greater devotion to our Blessed Lady.

3. Greater holiness, because -God has spoken in our day.

4. Perpetual thanksgiving that we are in the Church, whether as old Catbolics or converts.

V. The beauty of the heavenly Jerusalem.

IV. PEACE THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH.*

Pacem relinquo vobis, pacem meam do vobis. S. John xiv, 27,

I. Peace the legacy of Jesus to His Church.

1. Naturalness of this.

2. Because He is the Word who has lain in the Bosom of the Father from all eternity.

3. Because He is the Prince of Peace: peace was His mission.

4. Strangeness of it.

5. Because of what He said of sending a sword.

6. Because of what we see around us. When He said it, He knew all that was to come the world, heresy, coldness. Yet the peace of the Church is not only in spite of her warfare, but almost because of it:⁵

the troubles of the world are the materials of her peace.

3. The nature of this supernatural peace like that of God.

4. Active, without heing anxious or diplomatic.

5. Affectionate, not the mere privilege of being unmoved.

6. Equable, not subject to tides, not precipitate, not intermittent.

II. "Why it is that peace is the life of the Church.

1. Because she is the image of the Most Holy

Trinity.

1. Her motherhood is the extension of the Paternity of God.

2. She is the mystical Body of the Eternal Son;

3. And the Spouse of the Holy Ghost who animates her.

4. Because she is instinct with the spirit of the

Sacred Heart;

1. Uniting gentleness with zeal.

2. Love of God with love of souls.

3. Detachment from all things, but the glory of God.

4. Because of the nature of her work.

5. All work for God is complete, successful, and so full of rest and peace.

6. The knowledge and love of God is the centre of the Church.

7. This peace is not incompatible with mourning for sinners: e. g. Jesus and Mary: in pace amaritudo mea amarissima.

III. This life of peace exemplified in our present circumstances, and especially in the work of the Synod.

1. Quiet pliant energy, elastic, ready for all times and places. The Church passes grace fully, like the moon in the heavens, from phase to phase; or, like the great pontiff of the world, vests and unvests herself in majesty before the people for her successive functions, without compromising the majesty of her unchangeableness.

2. The strong spirit of the ancient traditions controls, and while it controls, intensifies her love of souls.

3. The peacefulness of her operations. Peace is her progress, her locomotive power. She is slow, gradual, supernatural, to superficial eyes timid and uncertain in her step. What ever is revolutionary lacks every characteristic of a Divine Work. It is as if she was ever before the Beatific Vision, contemplating Him who is eternal peace.

IV. If peace is the life of the Church, it must be our life

1. As children of the Church: but

2. Still more as ministers of the Church.

Peace is the perfection of the priesthood; the ecclesiastical spirit is a spirit of peace, for zeal is peace: how calm the Angels are. The Holy Spirit is peace, yet very fire.

1. Peace in our work, when we work disinterestedly for God, and leave the issue to Him.

2. Peace in our weariness, when we have worked for God.

3. Peace is our power as priests, as apostolic men.

4. In prayer and personal holiness: and the outward order of the Church protects the holiness of each one of her children.

5. Mystical life flourishes most where canonical order reigns, rather than in missionary countries.

6. The Church is most fertile when most complete.

7. The supernatural requires the strict curhing hand of authority, reform, and discipline: and they who are touched by it need hiding in the deep places of the Church.

8. In the clearness of a calm mind.

9. In the supernatural force peace gives us.

10. In our patience and faith in the action of the Church.

11. In our love of each other, as shewn in this Synod. I speak not to you, my Fathers, but to my Brethren in the priest hood. How much does every meeting increase our mutual love, our respect and admiration of each other. I have never been with my brethren, but a strong sense of being edified has kindled my heart within me. Even charitable rivalries in good works, even blameless jealousies in our diversity of gifts, fade away before the quiet charm of personal communication. my reverend Brethren, let us edify each other in the fervour of our peace. It is not the spirit of the age; it is not the wisdom of the world. It is not in this that the successful efficiency of our national vigour, or the developments of our gigantic prosperity consist. It is not man s standard of work or of success. But it is the beating of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in our hearts. It is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, which, always with us though less perceptible, we have almost beheld and handled in the peace and order and beautiful concord of this ecclesiastical congress. It is the spirit of Jesus, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.

my Fathers and Brethren, happy, thrice happy they, who sanctifying themselves and others in this heavenly tranquillity, learn to love Jesus and to make Him loved, more and more, as the vears f go by; and so press onward, weary yet cheerful, toiling yet at rest, smitten yet hopeful, persecuted yet ever unprovoked, disappearing, one after another, from the eyes of their brethren, into the bosom of Eternal and Uncreated Peace!

THANKFULNESS THAT WE ABE CATHOLICS.

I. We all pine for liberty in mountain valleys in fogs on the wide sea. The pain of blindness, deafness, lameness all is want of liberty. It is our soul which disquiets our body, yet has no true liberty but in loving God. And in love there is no feeling which fills the soul more than having received a benefit from God.

1. Because of His infinite perfections.

2. Because of what we are.

3. Because of the difference between that gift and all earthly things.

II. The gift of faith the gate to all graces here and all glory hereafter; the unutterable joy that we are Catholics.

1. The infallible certainty and absence of all doubt.

2. The quantity of knowledge about God and grace.

3. The supernaturalness of the system; the strangeness of the faith which could only prevail by heavenly assistance.

4. The joyous wonder of the unity of various nations.

5. The lineage of the old saints.

III. Even persecutions deepen our sense of this great gift from the feeling

1. That suffering is power.

2. That God is with us.

3. That hatred of the world is a token of the true Church.

4. That ours is really quite a different religion from what we see ahout us.

5. That God is attacked in us. Whosoever shall touch you, touches Me in the apple of My eye.*

IV. How we should thank God for this gift of faith.

1. Loving thankful humility and acknowledgment that all is of God and grace.

2. More frequent and fervent prayer.

3. More abundant use of Sacraments.

4. Aiming at a higher perfection.

5. Gentle compassion for those who are astray, S. Jane Frances of Chantal took two days over the meditation on the faith. S. Teresa, when dying, often repeated these words After all, Lord, I am a daughter of the Church.

YI.

ON THE TREATMENT OF TEMPTATIONS AGAINST FAITH.

Temptations against faith are either a mystical trial or an intellectual littleness. Unbelief comes from two wants want of power of mind, or want

Zach. ii. 8.

of purity of heart. The most obstinate unbelief is that which rises from the union of the two: and as most unbelief rises from such a union most unbelief is obstinate; and what is obstinate is for the most part uninteresting. Certainly of all things unbelief is the most uninteresting. My experience is that all obstinate temptations against faith come either

1. From unconscientiousness in not acting up to what light of faith we have.

2. From want of devotion to the Sacred Humanity: trying to know God withodt Jesus, who is the way.

Is it not true in conversation as a general rule that the cleverest man is the man who makes fewest objections? How many objections against the faith would never be heard, if it were not thought clever to make them.

I. Analogy between faith and purity.

1. As essentially lifting us above our own nature.

2. Extreme sensitiveness of both.

3. Capacity of growth in both of them.

4. Instinctive character, or something like it.

5. Universal influence upon our whole character.

II. Characteristics of temptations against faith.

1. Their unseasonableness as at sacraments and prayer.

2. Their importunity.

3. Their vividness.

4. The cloud they bring along with, them, like temptations against purity.

5. The atmosphere of earthliness with which they surround us.

6. The intense pain they cause.

7. Their swiftness of conquest if we once give way.

III. Treatment.

1. Not direct repulsion.

2. But distraction.

3. Distinguish between faith, and sensation of faith we may have one and not the other.

4. Not abstaining from Sacraments in consequence.

5. Examen of conscience; this is the chief treatment. Self-knowledge is often the only way to knowledge of God: at least this is the case with msmj. There is a secret occult connection between faith and conscience: conscience is the reflection within us of the existence of God.

IV. Director s treatment.

1. Very gentle with persons who have them, if they are trying to be good.

2. Very severe if they are not trying to be good.

3. Never make light of them.

4. Sometimes, not always, let them explain.

5. Cultivate sense of sin above all things.

6. Christ is the way: now many temptations against faith come from want of devotions to the Sacred Humanity, not making Jesus the way, but trying to understand God without

Him. St. Catherine of Siena says, Don t dispute with the devil. Now God perhaps does not remove the temptations because of our want of generosity with Him in not taking Him on faith, but disputing with the devil.

VII. MAEY AND THE MODERN CHUKCH;

OK,

THE PRACTICAL WORKING OF DEVOTION TO OUR LADY IN THE CATHOLIC SYSTEM.

MARY S PLACE IN THE MODERN CHURCH.

I. Views of devotion to our Blessed Lady taken by those outside the Church, who yet generally sympathize with Catholic doctrine.

1. That it belongs rather to the extent of doc trine and devotion than to their essence.

2. That at most a certain amount of waste brightness runs over from our Lord and falls on her; i.e. that she has no divinely intended distinctive place of her own.

3. That, if allowable up to a certain point, yet it should be jealously looked to as something which mciij lower our views of our Blessed Lord.

4. That it is an ornament of Catholic worship, and suited in its fulness only to a peculiar class of minds, and that not the most masculine or saintly.

II. These persons find on a nearer view

1. That Catholics make it of the essence of devotion.

2. That she has her place everywhere and in everything, just as her throne is part of the actual scene in Heaven; Catholics seem to bring her in at awkward and unexpected times.

3. That, so far from being afraid lest Mary should obscure Jesus, they regard devotion to her quite as a condition of a true love of Him.

4. That all this seems to come out more and more startlingly in the lives of the more recent saints, and gets more and more adopted, formalized, and indulgenced by the Church.

III. What may be said on the face of things for the Catholic view.

1. The mere consistency of the view is an argument in its favour so far.

2. The view is so serious as to show that it is a grave practical question, not a mere prettiness; otherwise such a body as the Church would never have committed itself to the extent it has done e.g. in the Nihil censiira dignum to the works of the author of the Glories of Mary.

3. The fact that modern saints seem to have so developed the devotion is a call to thought, and very serious thought; as by the saints God keeps the world right, and wakes up new life in the Church, or diverts her vigour into new channels, as needed from time to time.

4. It is obviously a question involving a great deal of theology, and the fact that once at least, in the Council of Ephesus, the Catholic doctrine of the Son required a decree of the Mother s honour, should make men slow to judge.

5. What is to be said of the language of preachers, exaggerations in devotional books, and the like? They speak, or write, to Catholics. How likely men are to misapprehend language which conies from a state of mind with which they are out of sympathy. Besides, contradiction provokes real exaggeration. Also, men speak beyond their growth, just as they venture to pray beyond their growth.

6. Yet it is bad policy to keep the matter in the background: three things are against this, the loss of God s blessing on truth of Mary s help and want of tact in dealing with human, specially English, nature.

7. Run over what God really did to Mary predestination maternity place in Scripture exaltation actual estimation in the Church.

IV. The object of these lectures is to show the place of devotion to our Lady in the Catholic

Church, as a genuine integral part of the system, not as an ornamental or sentimental excrescence, or mere devotional luxury.

THE CHURCH IN INTERCESSION.

Affection is an alarmist; the Church in all ages has seemed in a peculiar peril, and truly so; saints, even contemplatives and women, take a strange and unexpected interest in the external fortunes of the Church, especially the vicissitudes of the Holy See. What a lesson is this! I. The duty of intercessory prayer.

1. It is a Catholic peculiarity, because Catholics alone recognise the unity of the living Church.

2. Yet the comparative neglect of it.

3. The reason why it may he neglected is the jejune way of making it.

4. Two plans may be proposed, but those who have already a plan cannot do better than keep to it.

5. Each day to have 1. a saint, 2. an object, and 3. to make an act of virtue, at least interior.

6. Intercessory meditation on the state of the Church.

7. Immense consolation of this practice.

8. Rapid growth of spirituality fostered by it. 1. Spirit of penance.

9. Forgetfulness of self, and postponement of self s interest.

10. Loss of jealousy childlike joy at all good.

11. Unworldly, nay, anti- worldly habit of mind.

12. Warm espousal of the sole interests of Jesus.

II. Connection of devotion to our Blessed Lady with this matter.

1. Her place in it.

2. Our Lord s intercession, of wounds, not of prayer.

3. Mary the head of intercessory prayer now, since the Ascension.

4. Catholic ways of using her.

5. Offering the Precious Blood to the Most Holy Trinity hy her, as practised hy S. Mary Magdalen of Pazzi.

6. Keminding Jesus of her dolours and satis factions, as taught in His own revelation to B. Veronica of Binasco, and our Lady s to St. Bridget.

7. Direct prayer to her to intercede.

8. The fact of her intercession a stay and comfort, as well as a spur to us. She is not a subjective luxury, but an objective life and power.

9. Praying to Jesus by His love to her.

10. Her being connected with all the interests of the Church and souls by some one or other of her titles and offices, e. g. Piegina Angelorum, Apostolorum, Consolatrix afflictorum, &c. &c. 7. The belief that God has set her over the

Church in a peculiar way. What Grignon de Montfort says of the new saints in the days of Antichrist.

We should unite ourselves to her in this matter. Temper of mind produced by habitual intercession; how it sucks us deeper and deeper into a supernatural life, as in the case of Suor Minima di Gesu Nazareno at the time of the French invasion of Italy, and the destruction of the religious houses.*

THE CHURCH IN THANKSGIVING.

I. Comparison of Catholic and Protestant notions of worship.

1. The love of benevolence and the love of desire.

2. Protestant view, an inferior begging of and paying tribute to a superior: Catholic view, the creature s glad worship of his good Crea tor.

3. The Catholic doctrine of spoken or interior acts.

4. Objectivity and subjectivity, and the tempers of mind they respectively produce.

Vita. Roma, 1833.

5. The personality and character of God so realized in Catholic worship.

6. The three branches of love s worship 1. Acts of faith. 2. Acts of praise. 3. Acts of thanksgiving.

7. Heaven is thanks and praise, not petition, at least when intercession is over after dooms day.

8. Angelic worship. Suor Minima offered the love of all the Seraphim.

9. The mind of the saints, and the genius of indulgenced devotions.

10. The Eucharist the culminating point of worship.

II. A glance at ourselves practically.

1. Neglect of thanksgiving; so forfeiting further blessings. How we importune God for con verts: but what proportion of thanks do we give afterwards? So we come to look at the Church as a party, making God s glory and their precious souls but secondary to our esprit cle corps.

2. Sanctifying effects of thanksgiving.

3. It is the natural result of the thought of God growing into us.

III. Our Lady; what the Church intimates by having a feast of her Presentation, so using her as an oblation of praise.

1. The Blessed Virgin Mary the trophy of God s love.

2. The only sinless creature.

3. The worth of her doings, sufferings, worship, and acts of love.

4. God s predestination of her; see some of the novenas in the Kaccolta.

5. Her exaltation praises God.

6. Modern Indulgences connect her with devotion to the most Holy Trinity; and in fact she stands in a peculiar relation to the Three Divine Persons.

7. Attributes, creation, redemption, meet in her; the Sacred Humanity is the tie-heam of creation.

8. Mary s being is itself a perpetual praise to God, as men say that earth, and sea, and sky with all their beauties and their wonders are.

9. The Song of the Three Children; they call in elements, we call in Mary.

THE CHURCH AT WAR WITH HERESY.

I. The Church nowadays is mingled up with heretics; there are no purely Catholic coun tries; this is quite a feature of the times.

1. There is no civil power to coerce heresy: for good or evil the Church has lost this ally.

2. The world s scorn at the parental ways of the Church in prohibiting books, free masonry, &c.

3. Peculiar facilities of heresy printing, facility of intercourse, domestic life, scientific associations.

4. Temporal prosperity at present apparently with heretical countries.

5. The dangers in which the faithful stand.

6. Difficulties of theological study from the parochial and educational needs of the huge multitude of the baptised.

II. Now the Church mentions as a fact, Gaude Maria Virgo, cunctas Iwreses interemisti in universo mundo. How she does this. 1. Historical connection of the fortunes of the Church with movements in favour of Mary s exaltation.

1. Christian art Mary the softening element in the Middle Ages.

2. Tridentine definition about venial sin devotion to her has protected the doctrine of the Sacred Humanity ever since.

3. Battle of Lepanto her new feast of the Rosary.

4. Immaculate Conception in present needs, and against the torrent of modern impurity, and low views of sin and its stain.

5. Growth of her feasts, and cultus generally.

6. In 496 Gelasius I. instituted the feast of her Purification to destroy the Lupercalia.

7. In 847 Leo IV. added an Octave to the Assumption, because of a wild beast in festing Borne.

8. In 1096, Urban II. ordered the daily recital of her office against the Turks.

9. In 1243, Innocent IV. added an Octave to the Nativity, because of his conflict with the imperial power.

10. Gregory IX. combating with the Emperor Frederick, instituted the Angelus three times a day.

11. Boniface IX., after fifty years of schism, instituted the feast of the Visitation.

12. Paul II., in the troubles of 1464, the feast of the Presentation.

13. Pius V. and Pius VII. that of Auxilium Christianorum.

14. Pius IX. made the Visitation a greater double.

15. By the growth of doctrine about herself. 1. Council of Ephesus, 2. S. Augustine and the Pelagians.

16. Her doctrine the touchstone of heresy: almost the only doctrine unborrowed by one or other of the modern heretics, which can hardly be said of the primacy even, in a qualified and mimic way; we need not be sur prised therefore at its being a rock of offence to seekers outside the fold. Analysis of heresies woful drama of Satan s warfare against the Church all resolve themselves into a destruction of the Divine Maternity of Mary.

17. Cerinthus and Ebion, by denying the reality of Christ s Sacrecl Humanity.

18. Arius attacked the consubgtantiality of the Son; so that Mary s dignity became nothing.

19. Nestorius made Mary Mother of an Human Person.

20. Eutyches taught that the human nature is absorbed in the Incarnation by contact with the Divine Word; and so that Mary is Mother neither of God nor man.

21. Pelagius had no need of Mary, his natural ism making the Incarnation an effect with out a cause, by denying original sin.

22. Mahomet denied the Divinity of Christ, and so her Divine Maternity.

23. Protestantism attacks all the consequences of the Incarnation; hence its special rage against Mary.

24. Jansenism has had an innate antipathy to the cultus of Mary; this conies of its doc trine of the invincible tendencies of concupiscence or grace.

25. Eationalism revives in the doctrine of myth the old Humanitarian heresies; and so makes all communications of Deity with humanity a mere prejudice.

26. Pantheism looks at Christ as an individual personification of humanity; and according to the Pantheist theory, every man is radically consubstantial with God; the individual is a humanised portion of the substance of God, so Mary is nothing.

27. By intercession, as the Mother of the Incarnate Truth and Wisdom.

28. By raising up saints, e. g. S. Dominic and the Rosary.

29. Devotion to her preserves men from infection. The evils of living among heretics are

30. A controversial tone of mind.

31. That we are ashamed of distinctive doc trines.

32. That we explain away to smooth preju dices.

33. Loss of enlightened and keen faith. Now, this devotion keeps up a supernatural tone, and is a running protest against low and unsound views. Thus she destroys heresy by limiting its infection.

34. Medals, scapulars, rosaries, &c. such inter positions happen by them, as though God in Mary were confounding the strong things of the world by the things that are weak, and making things of which it might almost be said that they are not, as it were contemptuously bring to nought the things that are.

THE CHURCH AT WAR WITH SIN.

I. God gave to the Church the exterior of the world for awhile in the Middle Ages. 1. The outward framework of society was Christian.

2. The civil magistrates used coercive power for the Church and her ends.

3. Estimation of the religious life.

4. Language framed upon Christianity, even down to the names of wild flowers.

5. Earth covered with material emblems and poetical admonitions of the faith.

6. Semiecclesiastical character of civil solemni ties and military enterprises.

7. The great current of ideas went along with the Church.

Rasult of all this: it was a protection to the timid: human respect and all imperfect mo tives were on the side of religion. II. Contrast of modern times.

1. Divorce between the Church and civil powers: Concordats as between enemies, or at least rivals.

2. Education and intellect taking a separate, often an antagonistic line.

3. Low esteem of the religious life, and notions of priestcraft.

4. Fewness of the clergy to grapple with the new feature of large towns.

5. Growth of pauperism, and consequent growth of crime.

6. Different idea of religion, as though it had no right to concern itself with temporal things.

7. Ideas, language, prejudices, all run counter to the Church.

Eesult of all this: we are more in the condition of the early Christians under the Roman Empire, with uncertain patronage and a fluc tuating puhlic opinion at hest.

III. Thus the Church has now to war with sin in other ways, and to be more persuasive and less magisterial. Where that warfare lies.

1. In the depths of pauperism, or the pride of science, or the world-worship of wealth.

2. With secret thoughts and refined modes of sin.

3. With commercial, political, and working-hours arrangements right against her.

4. In the confessional, the schoolroom, and at the deathbed.

5. By a series of awakenings and excitements.

6. A hidden uncheered work, a martyrdom of patient weariness.

7. Seemingly a losing and certainly an undignified battle, losing here, gaining there, in dust and smoke, with results uncertain, confusion, misunderstanding of good people, and cross purposes. How little the instinct for souls is appreciated even by Catholics.

IV. Our Lady s help in the warfare with sin.

1. The fact that devotions to our Blessed Lady spring up and are fostered and systematized chiefly among those who have to work for souls.

2. The fact of her share in the foundation of orders and congregations for this end, e. g.

3. The Jesuits. Life of S. Ignatius, Orat.

Series, vol. ii. pp. 98, 99. Da Ponte,

Orat. Series, p. 149. The Blessed Alphonso

Rodriguez said that one great end of the Society was to spread devotion to the Immaculate Conception.

2. The Passionists. She revealed their habit to B. Paul of the Cross. Life, Orat. Series, vol. ii. p. 201.

3. The Eedemptorists. S. Alphonso said that she in the early days of the Congregation mi consigliava per tutte le cose della Congregazione. With them the rank of her feasts is raised, and they keep many which are not common to the universal Church.

4. Sulpicians. She designed their Church, &c. Olier s Life, ii. 243.

5. Conceptionists, obviously.

6. Oratorians. St. Philip said that he should not have thought of founding the Congregation of the Oratory, but that the Ma donna was its Foundress and Mother.

7. Third fact: that parishes and cities most devoted to her are spiritually the most flourishing, in them the Sacraments are best frequented, &c., which shows that devotion to her is a converting power, and not only so, but also a special aid to perseverance. V. Other miscellaneous ways in which she helps in this warfare with sin.

8. Missions. "What S. Alphonso said of the sermon on the Madonna.⁶ See also the life of the Blessed Leonard of Port Maurice.

9. Devotions to her, and indulgences.

10. Her feasts; and singularly this Month of Mary, which seems to interfere with Church feasts, is encouraged by the Church to war against sin and to repair the laxities of illkept Easters by which men lose their Lenten gains.

11. Medals, scapulars, and rosaries.

12. Confraternities how much experienced mis sionaries have always encouraged them.

13. Education of the young and orphans.

14. Works of mercy to recover the fallen, and succour those in occasions of sin.

How completely she has grown into the missionary and converting system of the Church! You might as well endeavour to get a man s veins neatly out of his body, and yet leave him pretty much the same living and healthy being as before, as try to extricate devotion to Mary out of the animated and vigorous system of the Catholic Church.

THE CHURCH MAKING SAINTS.

I. The Church works by flesh and blood, by living men, not by rules, arrangements, systems, intercession: it is our part to shew how powerful and how advantageous a thing it is to lean on this Divine Mother, and how much God is pleased and honoured by our doing so.Life, Orat. Series, Tol. ii. p. 155.

organizations and material helps; she lives and works, and advances by saints.

1. Saints are raised up as heroes for special works, e. g., Athanasius, Bernard, Dominic, Francis, Charles, Alphonso; martyrs also and doctors; St. Pius V. very specially.

2. The saints are the most supernatural and Christlike part of the Church s work.

II. Mary s share, and the share of devotion to her in the training of the saints* How curious we ought to be to know what had been a distinctive peculiarity of all the very various saints.

1. The fact that all the medieval and modern saints have been noted devotees of Mary.

2. Their lives show that devotion to her was inseparable from all their growth and career; so that it was not an accident, but a property of their holiness.

3. This comes out the most in the most interior and mystical of the saints.

4. Her external share in training the saints, by visions, revelations, colloquies, and inspira tions.

5. Thus the most supernatural of the Church s work is in a special sense Mary s work.

III. The congruity of this.

1. She was the actual guardian of the Sacred Humanity, of the Saint of saints; also she had a share in training S. Joseph, and S. John Baptist.

2. She was the queen and mistress of the apos tles, specially S. Peter and S. John.

3. She was herself the highest created person in holiness, queen of all angels and of all saints.

4. The saints become transformed into Jesus, grow into His tastes and likings, so they per force imbibe His perfect and intense love of His predestinated Mother.

5. Devotion to the Most Holy Trinity is the highest point of unitive contemplation; the saints grow into the dispositions of the Three Divine Persons; and so into the dispositions of their election of Mary, and their complacence in her, as Daughter, Mother, Spouse.

IV. As a matter of fact the saints make this devotion; it grows in their hands; each one leaves something more behind him, which, as the invention of saintly men, the Church takes up and authorizes and indulgences. The science of Mary has always been the science of the saints before it became the science of the schools.

V. Conclusions to be drawn from all this.

1. That this devotion is not a mere ornament.

2. That it does not lead from God, as love of God is essence of sanctity, and what was a peculiarity of the saints must lead to God, nay, be a short road to union with Him.

3. That it cannot obscure Jesus, for to say that they are copies of Jesus is the very definition of the saints.

4. That there is no need to be jealous of this devotion, for the saints are safe men and sure guides. 4

5. Nor any need to keep it in the background among Protestants, as God has been pleased to inspire the post-reformation saints the most strongly with it.

6* That ours is a false devotion, if increased love and strictness do not keep pace with it; for it was to the saints a principle of growth.

MAEY MAGNIFYING GOD.

I. The object of all these lectures has been not so much to explain the controversial and theological difficulties or beauties of devotion to Mary, as to show the practical working of it in the system of the Catholic Church. I have endeavoured to trace this in various functions of the Church; it now remains to trace the same effect in the mind of a convert to the Church.

1. Most converts have felt it as a difficulty, either before or after their conversion.

2. In the beginning it has been with them rather an act of faith in the Church than a devotion.

3. If it has been a matter of growth, the result has been to deepen the thought of God; so much so that on looking back a few years, a convert will probably confess that Mary has been to him a new and marvellous teacher of

God, His Attributes, and the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. This is simply a fact of experience, an induction of many cases, and it should have its weight with those who are not yet in a condition to make such a retrospect. II. How she magnifies God.

1. Her predestination, Immaculate Conception, and queenship in heaven, illustrate His gracious ways as Creator; and against many

. modern heresies her whole doctrine wonder fully explains the relation between creature and Creator.

2. Her doctrine mitigates the difficulty of there being so much permitted evil.

3. She illustrates His character as Redeemer, herself having been redeemed in the highest sense, and cooperating with the work.

4. Thus she prevents low views of Jesus, forcing up our conceptions of Him, as it were, by her own height; without her we should hardly have realized His Sacred Humanity at all.

5. She magnifies God by teaching high views of grace, and of possible attainment of sanctity.

6. She throws a distinctive light on the Three Divine Persons; try to think how much of our devotional realizing of the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is from the Catholic doctrine about her.

7. She interprets the Attributes of God to us see how they reposed joyously in Mary s soul, and gave light out from it.

III. This is not a theory, hut what has actually been the process in many minds; the thought of God has grown as devotion to Mary grew; the estimate of His ever hlessed Majesty has by her means attained a height which once seemed unrealizable. This will be true to all, if their devotion to her be true; and to be true it must be

1. Closely allied to practice and to advance in strictness.

2. It must grow so do not be unreal, precipitate and insincere, or force things. She takes root t says Scripture in the office of the Church, in the elect, and roots, remember, spread 1. slowly, and 2. by means of storms.

3. Be loving, but be sober too; and do not affect novelties unsanctioned and unindulgenced by the Church.

And now may the Mother of the Creator forgive whatever has been here said of her amiss, or in ignorance, and remember her promise in the Office of the Church, Qui me elucidant, vitam ceternam liabebunt; they who explain me shall have eternal life.

PAET FOURTH.

Footnotes

1. 2 TLess. ii. 3. 1 1 John ii. 22. ↩

2. Zach. v. 11. t Apoc. xx, ↩

3. Suarez in III. Fart. Disp. liv. Sect 6. f Ecclus. xlviii. ↩

4. St. John xyii. 14. ↩

5. Preached at the Synud of Oscott, 1855. ↩

6. The innovators proclaim that devotion towards the Holy Virgin is injurious to God; they combat her power and the efficacy of her ↩