Wednesday in Whitsun Week

Veni, sancte Spirit™, re- Come, O holy Spirit, fill pie tuorum corda fidelium, the hearts of thy faithful, and et tui amoris in eis ignem enkindle within them the fire

We have seen with what fidelity the Holy Ghost has fulfilled, during all these past ages, the mission He received from our Emmanuel, of forming, protecting, and maintaining His bride the Church. This trust given by a God has been executed with all the power of a God, and it is the sublimest and most wonderful spectacle the world has witnessed during the eighteen hundred years of the new Covenant. This continuance of a social body, the same in all times and places; promulgating a precise Symbol of faith which each of its members is bound to accept; producing by its decisions the strictest unity of religious belief throughout the countless individuals who compose the society : this, and the wonderful propagation of Christianity, are the master faots of history. These two facts are not, as certain modern writers would have it, results of the ordinary laws of Providence; but miracles of the highest order, worked direotly by the Holy Ghost, and intended to serve as the basis of our faith in the truth of the Christian religion. The Holy Ghost was not, in the exercise of His mission, to assume a visible form ; but He has made His presence visible to the understanding of man, and thereby He has sufficiently proved His own personal aotion in the work of man's salvation, ket us now follQw this ciivifte action, not in its accende. of thy love. carrying out the merciful designs of the Son of Q-od, who deigned to take to Himself a bride here below, but in the relations of this bride with mankind. Our Emmanuel willed that she should be the mother of men ; and that all, whom He calls to the honour of beooming His own members, should acknowledge that it is she who gives them this glorious birth. The Holy Ghost, therefore, was to secure to this bride of Jesus what would make her evident and known to the world, leaving it, however, in the power of each individual to disown and reject her.

It was necessary that this Church should last for all ages, and that she should traverse the earth in suoh wise that her name and mission might be known to all nations ; in a word, she was to be Catholio, that is, universal, taking in all times and all plaoes. Aooordingly, the Holy Ghost made her Catholic. .He began by showing her, on the day of Pentecost, to the Jews who had flocked to Jerusalem from the various nations ; and when these returned to their respective countries, they took the good tidings with them. He then sent the apostles and disciples into the whole world ; and we learn from the writers of those early times, that a century had scarcely elapsed before there were Christians in every portion of the known earth. Since then, the visibility of this holy Churoh has gone on increasing gradually more and more. If the divine Spirit, in the designs of His justice, permitted her to lose her influence in a nation that had made itself unworthy of the grace, He transferred her to another where she would be obeyed. If, at times, there have been whole countries where she had no footing, it was either because she had previously offered herself to them and they had rejected her, or because the time marked by Providenoe for her reigning there had not yet come. The Justorjr of the Church's propagation is one long

Wednesday in WhitsuN Week 381 proof of her perpetuity, and of her frequent migrations. Times and places, all are hers ; if there be one wherein she is not acknowledged as supreme, she is at least represented by her members ; and this prerogative, which has given her the name of Catholic, is one of the grandest of the workings of the Holy Ghost.

But His aotion does not stop here: the mission given Him by the Emmanuel in reference to His bride obliges Him to something beyond this; and here we enter into the whole mystery of the Holy Ghost in the Church. We have seen His outward influence, whereby He gives her perpetuity and increase ; now we must attentively consider the inward direction she receives from Him, which gives her unity, infallibility, and holiness — prerogatives which, together with Catholicity, designate the true bride of Christ.

The union of the Holy Ghost with the Humanity of Jesus is one of the fundamental truths of the mystery of the Incarnation. Our divine mediator is called Christ because of the anointing which He received ; 1 and His anointing results from the union of His Humanity with the Holy Ghost. 2 This union is indissoluble ; eternally will the Word be united to His Humanity ; eternally, also, will the holy Spirit give to this Humanity the anointing which makes hrist. Henoe it follows, that the Church, being the body of Christ, shares in the union existing between its divine Head and the Holy Ghost. The Christian, too, receives in Baptism an anointing by the Holy Ghost, who, from that time forward, dwells in him as the pledge of his eternal inheritance: 3 but, whilst the Christian may by sin forfeit this union, which is the prinoiple of his supernatural life, the Church herself never can lose it. The Holy Ghost is united

1 Pb. xliy. 8. 1 Acts, x. 38. * Eph. i. 14.

£A8CHAL tiMe to the Churoh for ever ; it is by Him she exists, acts, and triumphs over all those difficulties, to whioh by the divine permission she is exposed while militant on earth.

St. Augustine thus admirably expresses this doctrine in one of his sermons for the feast of Pentecost: 'The spirit, by which every man lives, is called the soul. Now, observe what it is that our soul does in the body. It is the soul that gives life to all the members; it sees by the eye, it hears by the ear, it smells by the nose, it speaks by the tongue, it works by the hands, it walks by the feet. It is present to each member, giving life to them all, and to each one its office. It is not the eye that hears, nor the ear and tongue that see, nor the ear and eye that speak ; and yet they all live; their funotions are varied, their life is one and the same. So it is in the Church of God. In some saints she works miracles ; in other saints she teaches the truth ; in others she practises virginity ; in others she maintains conjugal ohastity. She does one thing in one class, and another in another: each individual has his distinct work to do ; but there is one and the same life in them all. Now, what the soul is to the body of man, that the Holy Ghost is to the body of Christ, which is the Church: the Holy Ghost does in the whole Church what the soul does in all the members of one body.' 1

Here we have a clear exposition, by means of which we oan fully understand the life and workings of the Church. The Church is the body of Christ, and the Holy Ghost is the principle which gives her life. He is her soul — not only in that limited sense in which we have already spoken of the soul of the Church, that is, of her inward existenoe, and whioh, after all, is the result of the holy Spirit's aotion within

1 Serm. cclxvii. In die Pentecostes,

Wednesday in wHitsun week 383 her — but He is also her soul, in that her whole interior and exterior life, and all her workings, proceed from Him. The Church is undying, because the love, which has led the Holy Ghost to dwell within her, will last for ever: and here we have the reason of that perpetuity of the Church, whioh is the most wonderful spectacle witnessed by the world.

Let us now pass on, and consider that other marvel, whioh consists in the preservation of unity in the Church. It is said of her in the Canticle: 4 One is my dove; my perfect one is One/ 1 Jesus would have but one, and not many, to be His Church, His bride: the Holy Ghost will, therefore, see to the accomplishment of His wish. Let us respectfully follow Him in His workings here also. And firstly, is it possible, viewing the thing humanly, that a sooiety should exist for eighteen hundred years, and never change ? Nay, could it have continued all that time, even allowing it to have ohanged as often as you will ? And during these long ages, this sooiety has necessarily had to encounter, and from its own members, the tempests of human passions, which are ever showing themselves, and whioh not unfrequently play havoc with the grandest institutions. It has always been composed of nations differing from each other in language, character, and customs ; either so far apart as not to know each other, or, when neighbours, estranged one from the other by national jealousies and antipathies. And yet, notwithstanding all this — notwithstanding, too, the political revolutions which have made up the history of the world — the Catholio Church has maintained her changeless unity: one faith, one visible head, one worship (at least in the essentials), one mode of deoiding every question, namely, by tradition and authority. Seots have risen up in every age, eaoh

1 Cant. vi. 8.

PASCHAL Tlilfe sect giving itself out as the true Church: they lasted for a while, short or long according to circumstances, and then were forgotten. Where are now the Arians with their strong political party? Where are the Nestorians, and Eutyohians, and Monothelites, with their interminable oavillings? Could anything be imagined more powerless and effete than the Greek schism, slave either to Sultan or Czar? What is there left of Jansenism, which wore itself away in striving to keep in the Churoh in spite of the Church P As to Protestantism, the produce of the principle of negation, was it not broken up into sections from its very beginning, so as never to be able to form one society P And is it not now reduced to such straits, that it can with difficulty retain dogmas, which, at first, it looked upon as fundamental, suoh as the inspiration of the Scriptures, or the Divinity of Christ P

Whilst all else is change and ruin, our mother the holy Catholio Churoh, the one bride of the Emmanuel, stands forth grand and beautiful in her unity. But how are we to account for it P Is it, that Catholics are of one nature, and sectarians of another? Orthodox or heterodox, are we not all same passions and errors ? Whenoe do the children of the Catholio Church derive that stability, which is not affected by time, nor influenced by the variety of national character, nor shaken by those revolutions that have changed dynasties and oountries? Only one reasonable explanation can be given: there is a divine element in all this. The Holy Ghost, who is the soul of the Churoh, acts upon all the members ; and as He Himself is One, He produces unity in the body He animates. He cannot contradict Himself: nothing, therefore, subsists by Him, which is not in union with Him. To-morrow, we will speak of what the Holy Ghost members of the same human does for maintaining faith, one and unvarying, in the whole body of the Churoh ; let us, to-day, limit our considerations to this single point, namely, that the holy Spirit is the source of external union by voluntary submissson to one centre of unity. Jesus had said: ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rook I will build my Churoh:' 1 now, Peter was to die; the promise, therefore, could not refer to his person alone, but to the whole line of his successors, even to the end of the world. How stupendous is the action of the Holy Ghost, who thus produces a dynasty of spiritual princes, which has reached its two hundred and fiftieth Pontiff, and is to continue to the last day ! No violence is offered to man's free will ; the holy Spirit permits him to attempt what opposition he lists; but the work of God must go forward. A Deoius may succeed in causing a four years' vacancy in the See of Rome; antipopes may arise, supported by popular favour, or upheld by the policy of emperors ; a long schism may render it difficult to know the real Pontiff among the several who claim it: the holy Spirit will allow the trial to have its course, and, while it lasts, will keep up the faith of His ohildren ; the day will come when He will declare the lawful Pastor of the flock, and the whole Church will enthusiastically acknowledge him as such.

In order to understand the whole marvel of this supernatural influence, it is not enough to know the extrinsic results as told us by history ; we must study it in its own divine reality. The unity of the Churoh is not like that which a conqueror forces upon a people that has become tributary to him. The members of the Church are united in oneness of faith and submission, because they love the yoke she imposes on their freedom and their reason. But who is it, that

1 St. Matth. xvi, 18.

PASCHAL TIW& thus brings human pride to obey ? Who is it, that makes joy and contentment be felt in a life-long practice of subordination? Who is it that brings man to put his security and happiness in having no individual views of his own, and in conforming his judgment to one supreme teaching, even in matters where the world chafes at control P It is the Holy Grhost who works this manifold and permanent miracle, for He it is who gives soul and harmony to the vast aggregate of the Church, and sweetly infuses into all these millions a union of heart and mind which forms for our Lord Jesus Christ His one dear bride.

During the days of His mortal life, Jesus prayed His eternal Father to bless us with unity: ' May they be one, as we also are.' 1 He prepares us for it, when He calls us to become His members ; but, in order to achieve this union, He sends His Spirit into the world, that Spirit, who is the eternal link between the Father and the Son, and who deigns to accept a temporal mission among men, in order to create on the earth a union formed after the type of the union which is in God Himself.

We give Thee thanks, 0 blessed Spirit ! who, by dwelling thus within the Church of Christ, inspirest us to love and practise unity, and suffer every evil rather than break it. Strengthen it within us, and never permit us to deviate from it by even the slightest want of submission. Thou art the soul of the Church ; oh ! give us to be members ever docile to Thy inspirations, for we could not belong to Jesus who sent Thee, unless we belong to the Church, His bride and our mother, whom He redeemed with His Blood, and gave to Thee to form and guide.

Next Saturday, the ordination of priests and

1 St. John, xrii. 11.

Wednesday In Whitsun week 387 sacred ministers is to take place throughout the whole Church. The Sacrament of Orders is one of the principal workings of the Holy Ghost, who comes into the souls of those who are presented for ordination, and impresses upon them, by the bishop's hands, the character of priesthood or deaconship. The Church prescribes a three days' fast and abstinence; with the intention of obtaining from God's mercy, that the grace thus given may fructify in those who receive it, and bring a blessing upon the faithful. This is the first of the three days.

At Rome, the station is in the basilica of Saint Mary Major. It was but right that on one of the days of this great octave the faithful should meet together under the protection of the Mother of God, whose participation in the mystery of Pentecost, was a glory and a blessing to the infant Churoh.

We will close this day with one of the finest of Adam of Saint Victor's sequences on the mystery of the Holy Ghost.

SEQUENCE

Lux jocunda, lux insignia, Qua de throno missus ignis

In Christi discipulos Corda replet, linguas ditat, Ad Concordes nos invitat

Linguae cordis modulos.

Christus misit quod promisit

Pignus sponsae, quam revisit

Die quinquagesima; Post dulcorem melleum Petra f udit oleum, Petra jam firmissima.

The glad and glorious light — wherewith the heaven-sent Fire filled the hearts of Jesus' disciples and gave them to speak in divers tongues — invites us now to sing our hymns with hearts in concord with the voice.

On the fiftieth day, Christ revisited his bride, by sending her the pledge he had promised. After tasting the honeyed sweetness, Peter, now the firmest of rocks, pours forth the unction of his preaching.

In tabellis saxeis, Non in Unguis igneis, Lex de monte populo ; Paucis cordis novitas Et linguarum unitas, Datur in coenaculo.

0 quam f elix, quam f estiva

Dies, in qua primitiva Fundatur Ecclesia ! Vivae sunt primitiae Nascentis Ecclesise, Tria primum millia. Panes legis primitivi,

Sub una sunt adoptivi Fide duo populi:

Se duobus interjecit

Sicque duos unum fecit Lapis, caput anguli.

Utres novi, non vetusti, Sunt capaces novi musti:

Vasa parat vidua: Liquorem dat Eliseus: Nobis sacrum rorem Deus,

Si corda sint congrua.

Non hoc musto vel liquore,

Non hoc sumus digni rore, Si discordes moribus. In obscuris vel divisis, Non potest hsec Paraclisis Habitare cordibus. Consolator alme veni: Linguas rege, corda leni: Nihil fellis aut veneni Sub tua prsesentia. Nil jocundum, nil amcenum, Nil salubre, nil serenum, Nihil dulce, nihil plenum,

The Law, of old, was given on the mount to the people, but it was written on tablets of stone, and not on fiery tongues: but in the cenacle, there was given to a chosen few newness of heart and knowledge of all tongues.

0 happy, 0 festive day, whereon was founded the primitive Church! Three thousand souls! Oh! how vigorous the first fruits of the new born- Church!

The two loaves commanded to be offered in the ancient Law prefigured the two adopted people now made one; the stone, the head of the corner, set himself between the two, and made both one.

New wine may not be put into old bottles, but into new: the widow prepares her vessels, and Eliseus fills them with oil: so, too, our God gives us his heavenly dew, if our hearts be ready.

If our lives be disorderly, we are not fit to receive the wine, or the oil, or the dew. The Paraclete can never dwell in dark or divided hearts.

0 dear Comforter, come ! govern our tongues, soften our hearts: where thou art, must be no gall or poison. Nothing is joyous, nothing pleasant, nothing wholesome, nothing peaceful, nothing sweet, no-

Sine tua gratia. Tu lumen es et unguentum,

Tu coeleste condimentum, Aquse ditans elementum

Virtute mysterii. Nova facti creatura, Te laudamus mente pura, Gratiae nunc, sed natura Prhi irae filii.

Tu qui dator es et donum, Nostri cordis omne bonum, Cor ad laudeni redde pronura,

Nostrse linguae formans sonum,

In tua praeconia. Tu nos purga a peccatis, Auctor ipse puritatis, Et in Christo renovatis Da perfectae novitatis Plena nobis gaudia !

Amen. thing full, save by thy grace.

Thou art light and unction ; thou the heavenly Saviour that enrichest the element of water with mysterious power. We praise thee with hearts made pure ; we that have been made a new creature; we that once, by nature, were children of wrath, but now children of grace.

O thou, the Giver and the Gift. 0 thou, the only good of our hearts! make our hearts eager to praise thee, and teach our tongues to sound forth thy glory. Do thou, 0 Author of purity, purify us from sin! Renew us in Christ; and then, give us the full joy of perfect newness! Amen.

THE GIFT OF FORTITUDE

The gift of knowledge has taught us what we must do and what we must avoid, in order that we may be such as Jesue, our divine Master, wishes us to be. We now need another gift of the Holy Ghost, from which to draw the energy necessary for persevering in the way He has pointed out to us. Difficulties we are sure to have; and our need of support is proved enough by the miserable failures we are daily witnessing. This support the Holy Ghost grants us by the gift of fortitude, which, if we but faithfully use it, will enable us to master every difficulty, yea, will make it easy* to us to overcome the obstaoles which would impede pur onward zparch.

When the difficulties and trials of life come upon him, man is tempted, sometimes to cowardice and discouragement, sometimes to an impetuosity which arises either from his natural temperament or from pride. These are poor aids to the soul in her spiritual combat. The Holy Ghost, therefore, brings her a new element of strength: it is supernatural fortitude, which is so peculiarly His gift, that when our Saviour instituted the seven sacraments, He would have one of them be for the special object of giving us the Holy Ghost as a principle of energy. It is evident that, having to fight during our whole lives against the devil, the world, and ourselves, we need some better power of resistance than either pusillanimity or daring. We need some gift, which will oontrol both our fear, and the confidence we are at times inclined to have in ourselves. Thus gifted by the Holy Ghost, man is sure of viotory ; for grace will supply the deficiencies, and correct the impetuosities of nature.

There are two necessities, which are ever making themselves felt in the Christian life: the power of resistance, and the power of endurance. What oould we do against the temptations of satan, if the fortitude of the holy Spirit did not clothe us with heavenly armour and nerve us for the battle? And is not the world, too, a terrible enemy P Have we not reason to dread it when we see how it is every day making victims by the tyranny of its claims and its maxims ? What, then, must be the assistance of the Holy Ghost, which is to make us invulnerable to the deadly shafts that are dealing destruction around us P

The passions of the human heart are another obstacle to our salvation and sanctification ; they are the more to be feared, because they are within us. It is requisite that the Holy Ghost change our heart, and lead it to deny itself as often as the fight of grace points out to us a way other th^n that which self- love would have us follow. What supernatural fortitude we need in order to hate our life, 1 as often as our Lord bids us make a sacrifice, or when we have to choose which of the two masters we will serve ! 2 The holy Spirit is daily working this marvel by means of the gift of fortitude: so that, we have but to correspond to the gift, and not stifle it either by cowardioe or indiscretion, and we are strong enough to resist even our domestic enemies. This blessed gift of fortitude teaches us to govern our passions and treat them as blind guides; it also teaches us never to follow their instincts, save when they are in harmony with the law of God.

There are times, when the holy Spirit requires from a Christian something beyond interior resistance to the enemies of his soul: he must make an outward protestation against error and evil, as often as position or duty demands it. On such occasions, he must bear to become unpopular, and console himself with the words of the apostle: 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' 3 But the Holy Ghost will be on his side; and finding him resolute in using His gift of fortitude, not only will He give him a final triumph, but He generally blesses that soul with a sweet and courageous peace, which is the result and recompense of a duty fulfilled.

Thus does the Holy Ghost apply the gift of fortitude, when there is question of a Christian's making resistance. But, as we have already said, He imparts also the energy neoessary for bearing up against the trials, which all must go through who would save their souls. There are certain fears, whioh damp our courage, and expose us to defeat. The gift of fortitude dispels them, and braces us with such a peaceful confidence, that we ourselves are surprised at the

• St. John, xii. 25. 2 St. Matth. Ti. 24. 3 Gal. i, 10 t ohange. Look at the martyrs : not merely at such an one a* Saint Mauritius, the leader of the Theban legion, who was accustomed to face danger on the battle-field ; but at Felicitas, a mother of seven children ; at Perpetua, a high-born lady with everything this world could give her; at Agnes, a girl of thirteen ; and at thousands of others like them: and say, if the gift of fortitude is not a prompter to heroism. Where is the fear of death — that death the very thought of which is sometimes more than we can bear P And what are we to say of all those lives spent in self-abnegation and privation with a view to make Jesus their only treasure and to be the more closely united with Him ? What are we to say of those hundreds and thousands of our fellow-creatures who shun the sight of a distracted and vain world, and make sacrifice their rule P whose peacefulness is proof against every trial, and whose acceptance of the cross is as untiring as the cross itself is in its visit ? What trophies are these of the Spirit of fortitude ! and how maguificent is the devotedness He creates for every possible duty ! Oh ! truly, man of himself is of little worth; but, how grand when under the influence of the Holy Ghost !

It is the same divine Spirit who also gives the Christian courage to withstand the vile temptation of human respect, by raising him above those worldly considerations which would make him disloyal to duty. It is He that leads man to prefer, to every honour this world oould bestow, the happiness of never violating the law of his God. It is the Spirit of fortitude that makes him look upon the reverses of fortune as so many merciful designs of Providenoe ; that consoles him, when death bereaves him of those who are dear to him ; that cheers him under bodily Bufferings, which would be so hard^ to bear but for bis taking them as visits from his heavenly Father,

In a word, it is He, as we learn from the lives of the saints, that turns the very repugnances of nature into matter for heroio acts, wherein man seems to go beyond the limits of his frail mortality and emulate the impassible and glorified spirits of heaven.

0 divine Spirit of fortitude ! take full possession of our souls, and keep' us from the effeminaoies of the age we live in. Never was there such lack of energy as now, never was the worldly spirit more rife, never was sensuality more unbridled, never were pride and independence more the fashion of the world. So forgotten and unheeded are the maxims of the Gospel, that when we witness the fortitude of self-restraint and abnegation, we are as surprised as though we beheld a prodigy. 0 holy Paraclete ! preserve us from this an ti- Christian spirit, which is so easily imbibed ! Suffer us to present to Thee, in the form of prayer, the advice given by Saint Paul to the Christians of Ephesus: ' Give us, we beseech Thee, the armour of God, that we may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Gird our reins with truth ; arm us with the breast-plate of justioe ; let our feet be shod with the love and practice of the Gospel of peace ; give us the shield of faith, wherewith we may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one ; cover us with the helmet of the hope of salvation; put into our hand the spiritual sword, which is the word of God,' 1 and by which we, as did our Jesus in the desert, may defeat all our enemies! O Spirit of fortitude! hear; we beseech Thee, and grant our prayer !