Trinity Sunday

we here insert, as it maintains, even in its scholastic phraseology, all the majesty and melody whioh characterise the compositions of that great Poet.

SEQUENCE.

Confessing the divine Unity, Profitentes Unitatein we venerate the Trinity with Veneremur Trinitatem one and the same worship ; Pari reverentia, we acknowledge three Persons, Tres personas asserentes differing from each other by Personali differentes a personal difference. A se differentia.

They have their names from their relations, for they are substantially one, and not three principles. When speaking of them as Three, thou must remember, that their Nature is one, and that their Essence is not threefold.

Their being, and power, and will, and knowledge, all are simple : the power of one is not less than that of two, or of three, Persons.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, one God : and yet have they certain things proper. One ower, one deity, one splenour, one light: what one hath, another hath.

The Son is equal to the Father; neither is that equality destroyed by the personal distinction existing between them. Equal to the Father and the Son is the Spiritual Bond, who proceedeth from both.

Haec dicuntur relative, Quum sint unum substantive,

Non tria principia. Sive dicas tres vel tria, Simplex tamen est usia,

Non triplex essentia.

Simplex esse, simplex popae, Simplex velle, simplex nosse,

Cuncta simplicia. Non unius quam duarum Sive trium personarum

Minor efEcaoia.

Pater, Proles, sacrum

Flamen, Deus unus : sed hi tamen

Habent qusedam propria^ Una virtus, unum numen, Unus splendor, unum lumen, Hoc una quod alia.

Patri Proles est aequalis, Nec hoc tollit personalis

Amborum distinctio. Patri compar Filioque, Spiritalis ab utroque

Procedit connexio.

Man's reason cannot com- Non humana ratione prehend these three Persons, Oapi possunt hae person®,

Neo harum discretio. Non hie ordo temporalis, Non hie situs, aut localis

Eerum circumscriptio.

Nil in Deo prseter Deum, Nulla causa prater eum

Qui causat causalia. Effectiva vel formalis Causa Deus, et finalis,

Sed nunquam materia.

Digne loqui de personis Vim transcendit rationis,

Excedit ingenia. Quid sit gigni quid processus,

Me nescire sum professus : Sed fide non dubia.

Qui sic credit, ne festinet, Et a via non declinet

Insolerter regia. Servet fidem, formet mores, Nec declinet ad errores

Quos damnat Ecclesia.

Nob in fide gloriemur, Nos in una modulemur,

Eidei constantia : Trinse sit laus Unitati, Sit et simplae Trinitati

Ooseterna gloria !

Amen. nor their distinction. In this mystery, there is no order of time, no position of place, no boundaries of space.

There is nought in God but God ; and, besides him, there is no cause that causeth things produced. God is cause, effective, and formal, and final ; but never cause material.

It is beyond the power of reason or genius to speak worthily of the three Persons. I confess that I know not what divine Generation and Procession are ; and yet do I believe them with undoubting faith.

Let him who thus believes, have patience; and not imprudently stray from the royal path. Let him keep his faith, correct his manners, and go not over to those errors which the Church condemns.

Let us glory in our faith; let us sing our hymns, in the constancy of one same faith ; be praise to the trinal Unity, and co-eternal glory to the simple Trinity !

Amen.

0 indivisible Unity ! 0 Trinity distinct in one only Nature ! Infinite God, who hast revealed thyself unto men ! graciously bear with us, whilst we dare to make our adorations before thee, and pour forth our heart's thanksgiving, feeling ourselves overwhelmed by the brightness of thy majesty. 0 Unity divine ! 0 divine Trinity ! we have not, as yet, seen thee ; but we know that thou art, for thou hast youohsafed to reveal thyself unto us. This earth,

TRINITY 8UNDAT. whereon we are living, has the mystery distinctly proclaimed to it, every day of its existence, — that sarfne august mystery, whose vision is the source of the happiness enjoyed by the Blessed, who are glorified, and are united with thee in closest union. The human race had to wait long ages, before the divine formula was fully revealed ; — happy we, who live in its full possession, and can, and do, delightedly proclaim unity and Trinity in thine infinite Essenoe ! There was a time, when an inspired writer spoke an allusion to this grandest of truths; but his words flashed across the minds of his hearers, as lightning traverses a cloud, and then leaves it darker than before. I have not learned Wisdom, said he, and have not known the science of saints. Who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended? Who hath held the wind (the storm) in his hands ? Who hath bound up the waters together, as in a garment? Who hath raised up all the borders of the earth ? What is his name ? and what is the name of his Son, if thou knowest ? 1

Thanks to thine unbounded mercy, 0 Lord God ! we now know thy name. Thou art called the Father ; and he whom thou begettest from all eternity is named the Word and Wisdom. We know, too, that from the Father and the Son, proceeds the Spirit of love. The Son, clad in our flesh, has dwelt on this earth, and lived amongst men ; then came down the Spirit, and he abides for ever with us, till the destinies of the human raoe are accomplished here below. Therefore is it, that we dare to oonfess the Unity and the Trinity ; for we have heard the divine testimony, and have believed ; and, having believed, we have spoken, with all certainty. 2 Accept, then, this our confession, 0 Lord, as thou didst that of thy brave virgin and martyr, Cecilia, who, when the exeoutioner had thrice

1 Prov. xxx. 3, 4. 1 Pb. cxv. 10 ; 2 Cor. iv. 13.

TIME AFTER PBJTTJ5008T. ptruok her neck with the sword, and her noble blood flowed in streams from her wound, expressed her faith, as she breathed forth her soul, and confessed, by the position of her hands, the Unity of thy Nature and the Trinity of thy Persons,

The hymn of thy Seraphim has been heard here on earth : Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God ofho&U ! l We are but mortals ; we are not Prophets, as was Isaias ; and yet we have a happiness which he had not ; — we can repeat the song of those blessed Spirits, with fulness of knowledge, and oan say unto thee , " Holy is the Father, Holy is the Son, Holy is the " Spirit ! " Those same Seraphim flew with two of their wings ; with two, they hid their face ; and with two, they covered their feet. So is it with us: strengthened, as we are, by the divine Spirit, who has been given to us, we strive to lighten the heavy weight of our frail mortality, and raise it aloft on the wings of desire ; we hide our sins by repentance ; and veiling the weakness of our intellectual vision beneath the oloud of Faith, we receive the light which is infused into our souls. Docile to the revealed word, we submit to its teachings ; and it imparts to us, not merely a distinct, but even an enlightened knowledge of that Mystery, which is the source and centre of oil others. The Angels and Saints in heaven contemplate it with that inexpressible reserve, whioh the JProphet describes by saying, that they hide their face with their wings. We poor mortals have not, and cannot have, the sight of the great truth ; but we have the knowledge of it; and this knowledge enlightens our path, and keeps us firm in the truth. We have a dread of presuming to be searchers o/thy majesty, lest we should be overwhelmed by glory ; 2 but, humbly treasuring up what heaven has vouchsafed to reveal to us of its secrets, we dare thus to address thee :

1 la. vi. 3, 2 Pyox. xxv. 27.

Glory be to thee, 0 divine Essbxce, that art but one ! Thou art pure Aot ; thou art Being, neoessary, infinite, undivided, independent, perfeot from all eternity, peaceful, and sovereignly nappy. In thee we acknowledge, together with the inviolable Unity, whioh is the source of all thy perfections, Three Per-, sons distinctly subsistent ; but, in their production and distinction, the one same Nature is common to all ; so that the personal subsistence which constitutes them, and distinguishes them one from the other, causes no inequality between them. 0 infinite blessedness in this life of the Three Persons ! they oontemplate in themselves the ineffable perfections of the Essence which unites them together, and the attribute of each of the Three, whioh divinely animates the Nature that nought can limit or disturb ! 0 wonder of that infinite Essenoe, when it deigns to aot outside itself, by creating beings in its power and its goodness ! the Three Persons work then together ; so that the one which acts in a way which is his special attribute, does so in virtue of a will common to all. May a speoial love be given to that divine Person who, in the act which is oommon to the Three, deigns to reveal himself thus markedly to us oreatures ; and, at the same time, may thanks be given to the other Two, who unite, in one same will, with the Person who vouchsafes to honour us with that special manifestation of himself !

Glory be to thee, 0 Fatheb, thou Ancient of day % ! l Thou art unborn, without beginning, but communicating, essentially and neoessarily, to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, the godhead which dwells in thee ! Thou art God, and thou art Father. He who knows thee as God, and knows thee not as Father, does not know thee as thou art. Thou producest, thou beget-

1 Dan. vii. 9. test, — but it is within thine own bosom that thou generatest ; for nought is God, whioh is outside thyself. Thou art being, thou art power ; but thou hast never been without a Son. Thou speakest to thyself all thou art thyself ; thou explainest thyself ; and the • fruit of the fecundity of thy thought, whioh is equal to thyself, is a second Person ooming forth from thee : it is thy Son, thy Word, thine uncreated Word. Once didst thou utter this Word ; and thy Word is eternal as thou thyself art, and as is thy thought, of which that Word is the infinite expression. Like the sun whioh is visible to our eyes, and which has never existed, but what its own brightness has existed with it ; this brightness is by the sun, it is with the sun ; it emanates from it without lessening it, and it never exists as something independent of its source. Bear, 0 Father, with this weakness of our understanding, which borrows from the beings thou hast created an image whereto to compare thee. And so, again, if we study ourselves, whom thou hast oreated to thine own likeness, we find that a thought of our own, that it may be something distinot from our mind, has need of a term, a word, to fix and express it.

0 Father ! we have been brought to know thee by that Son whom thou eternally begettest, and who has vouchsafed to reveal himself to us. He has taught us that thou art Father, and himself Son ; and that, nevertheless, thou art one with him. 1 When one of his Apostles said to him : Lord ! show us the Father ! he answered him : He that seeth me y seeth the Father. 2 0 Unity of the divine Nature, whereby the Son, though distinct from the Father, is not less than the Father is ! 0 delight of the Father in the Son, by whom he has the knowledge

• St John, x. 30 ? * Ibid. xiv. 8, 9. of himself! delight of intimate love, of which he spoke to his creature man, on the banks of Jordan, and on the top of Thabor ! 1

0 Father ! we adore thee, but we also love thee ; for a Father should be loved by his children, and we are thy children. It is an Apostle that teaches us that all paternity prooeeds from thee, not in heaven alone, but on earth too. 2 No one is Father, no one has paternal authority, be it in a family, or in the State, or in the Church, but by thee, and in thee, and in imitation of thee. Nay more ; — thou wouldst have us not only be called, but really and truly be thy Sons? not, indeed, by generation, as is thine Only Begotten Son, but by an adoption, which makes us joint-heirs with him. 4 This divine Son of thine, speaking of thee, says : / honour my Father ; 5 we, also, honour thee, 0 sovereign Father, Father of infinite majesty ! and, until eternity dawn upon us, we glorify thee now from the depths of our misery and exile, uniting our humble praise with that wbioh is presented to thee by the Angels, and by the Blessed ones, who are of the same human family as ourselves. May thy fatherly eye proteot us, may it graciously find pleasure in us thy children, whom, as we hope, thou hast foreseen, whom thou hast chosen, whom thou hast called to the faith, and who presume, with the Apostle, to call thee the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, 6

Glory be to thee, 0 Son, 0 Word, 0 Wisdom, of the Father ! Thou emanatest from his divine essence. He gave thee birth before the day-star; 1 and he said to thee : This day have I begotten thee ; 8 and that Day, which has neither eve nor morrow, is

1 St. Matth. iii. 17 ; 2 St. Pet. i. 17. 5 St. John. viii. 49.

2 Eph. iii. 15. 6 2 Cor. i. 3. 8 1 St John, iii 1. 7 Pe. cix. 3. * Bom. viii. 17. 8 Hid. ii. 7.

TIME AFTER FBNTflCOST. eternity. Thou art Son, and Only Son; and thid name expresses one same nature with him who begets thee ; it excludes oreation, and shows thee to be con* Substantial with the Father, from whom thou oomest forth, perfectly like him in all things. And thoti oomest forth from the Father, without coming out of the divine essence, being co- eternal with thy souroe ; for, in God, there is nothing new, nothing temporal. Thy Sonship is not a dependency ; for the Father cannot be without the Son, any more than the Son oan be without the Father. If it be a glory in the Father to produce the Son, it is no less a glory in the Son to be the exhaustive term to the generative power of the Father.

0 Son of God ! thou art the Word of the Father. Uncreated Word ! thou art as intimately in him, as is his thought ; and his thought is his being. It id in thee that this his being expresses itself, in its whole infiniteness ; it is in thee that he knows himdelf . Thou art the spiritual fruit produced by the divine intellect of the Father ; the expression of all that he is, whether he keep thee mysteriously in his bosom, 1 or produoe thee outside himself. What language can we make use of, in order to describe thee, and thy glories, 0 Son of God ! The Holy Ghost has vouchsafed to come to our assistance, in the writings which he has inspired : and it is with the very expressions he has suggested, that we presume thus to address thee : Thou art the brightness of the Father's ghry ; thou art the figure of his substance} Thou art the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image that refleots his eternal goodness? We presume, likewise, to say to thee, what we are taught by the holy Church assembled at Nicea : Thou art " God of "God; Light of light; true God of true God." i St. John, l 18. 2 Heb. i. 3. 3 Wisd. vii< 26.

And we add, with the Fathers and Doctors : 46 Thou "art the torch eternally lit by the eternal toroh. " Thy Light lessens nought of that which oommu- " nioates Itself to thee ; neither is thy Light inferior " in aught to that from whioh it is produoed."

But when this ineffable fecundity whioh gives an eternal Son to the Father, and, to the Father and Son a third term, willed to manifest Itself outside the divine essence ; and, not having again the power to produce what is equal to Itself, deigned to call forth from nothingness, intellectual and rational nature, as being the nearest approach to its author, and material nature, as being the least removed from nothingness — then, 0 Only-Begotten Son of God ! the intimate production of thy Person in the Father's bosom revealed itself by Creation. It is the Father who tnade all things ; but, it was in Wisdom, that is, in thee, that he made all. 1 This mission of working, which thou receivedst from the Father, is a oonsequence of the eternal generation, whereby he produces thee from himself. Thou earnest forth from thy mysterious rest ; and creatures, visible and invisible, oame forth, at thy bidding, out of nothing. Acting in closest union with the Father, thou pouredst out upon the worlds thou oreatedst somewhat of that beauty and harmony, of whioh thou art the image in the divine essence. And yet, thy mission was not at an end when creation was completed. Angels and Men, who were intellectual and free beings, were destined for the eternal vision and possession of God. The merely natural order could not suffice for these two classes of thy creatures ; a supernatural way had to be prepared for them, whereby they might be brought to their last end. Thou, 0 Only-Begotten Son of God ! art this "Way. By thyself assuming human nature, thou uuitedst thyself to thine own

1 Ps. ciii. 24.

TIMB AFTER PENTECOST. work, thou raisedst Angel and Man up to God, and, by thy Human Nature, thou showedst thyself as the supreme type of the Creation, which the Father had effeoted by thee. 0 unspeakable mystery ! thou art the uncreated Word, and, at the same time, thou art the First-born of every creature; 1 not, indeed, to appear, until thy time should oome ; and yet preceding, in the divine mind and intention, all oreated beings, all of whioh were to be created, in order that they might be thy subjeots.

The human race, though destined to possess thee, in its midst, as its divine intermediator, rebelled against its God bv sin, and, by sin, was plunged into the abyss of deatn. Who could raise it up again P who could restore it to the sublime destiny it had forfeited P Thou alone, 0 Only-Begotten Son of the Father ! It was what we never could have hoped for ; but this God so loved the world, as to give his Only-Begotten Son, 2 to be not only the Mediator, but the Redeemer, too, of us all. Thou, our First-born, askedst thy Father to restore thine inheritance unto thee ; 3 thou hadst to purchase baok this inheritance. Then did the Father intrust thee with the mission of Saviour to our lost race. Thy Blood, shed upon the Cross, was our ransom; and, by it, we were born again to God, and restored to our lost privileges. Therefore, 0 Son of God ! we, thy redeemed, glory in calling thee Our Lord.

Having thus delivered us from death, and oleansed us from sin, thou vouohsafedst to restore us to all the grand things we had lost ; for, henceforth, thou art our Head, and we are thy members ; thou art King, and we thy happy subjeots ; thou art Shepherd, and we the sheep of thy one fold ; thou art Spouse, and the Church, our Mother, is thy Bride ; thou art the living Bread come down from heaven, and we are

1 Coloss. i. 15. 2 St. John, iii. 16. » Ps. xv. 5. thy guests. 0 Son of God ! O Emmanuel ! O Son of Man ! blessed be the Father that sent thee ; but blessed, also, be thou, who didst fulfil the mission he gave thee, and who hast been pleased to say, that thy delights are to be with the children of men 1 1

Glory be to thee, 0 Holy Spirit, who eternally emanatest from the Father and the Son in the unity of the divine substance ! The eternal Act, whereby the Father knows himself, produces the Son, who is the inifinte image of the Father ; the Father is full of love for this brightness which eternally proceeds from himself ; and the Son, contemplating the source whence he for ever comes, conceives for this source a love as great as that wherewith himself is loved. What language could describe this mutual ardour and aspiration, which is the attraction and tendency of one Person to Another in the eternally immovable Essence ! Thou art this Love, 0 divine Spirit, that proceedest from the Father and the Son as from one same principle ; thou art distinct from both, and yet art the bond that unites them in the ineffable delights of the Godhead ; thou art living Love, personal Love, proceeding from the Father by the Son, the final term whioh completes the divine Nature, and eternally perfects the Trinity. In the inaccessible bosom of the great God, thy Personality comes to thee both from the Father, of whom thou art the expression by a second production, 2 and from the Son, who, receiving of the Father, gives thee of his own ; 3 for the infinite Love whioh unites them is of both Persons, and not of one alone. The Father was never without the Son, and the Son never without the Father ; so likewise, the Father and the Son have never been without thee, 0 Holy Spirit ! Eternally have they loved ; and thou art the infinite Love which exists between them, and to which they communicate their Godhead. Thy

» Prov. viii. 31. 2 St. John, xy. 26. 8 JW, xvi. 14, 15,

VOL X. I«

Prooession from both exhausts the productive power of the uncreated Essence ; and thus are the divine Persons Three in number ; all that is outside them, is created being.

In the divine Essence, there is not only Power and Intelligence, but, also, and necessarily, there is "Will, from which action follows. Will and Love are one and the same thing ; and thou, 0 divine Spirit, art this Will, this Love. When the glorious Trinity works outside itself, the act conceived by the Father, and expressed by the Son, is accomplished by thee. By thee, likewise, the Love, which the Father and Son have for each other, and which is personised in thee, is extended to beings which are to be created. It is by his Word that the Father knows them ; it is by thee, 0 divine Love, 0 Holy Spirit, that he loves them ; and thus, all creation proceeds from the divine goodness.

Emanating, as thou dost, from the Father and the Son, thou art sent, by both, to us creatures ; and yet so as not to lose thereby the equality thou hast, from all eternity, with them. The Son, when sent by the Father, clad himself, once for ever, with our human nature ; and his Person, by the works whioh are peculiarly his own, is shown to us as distinct from that of the Father. So, likewise, 0 Holy Spirit ! we recognise thee as distinot from the Father and the Son, by thy ooming down to fulfil in our regard, the Mission given to thee by both. It was tnou that inspiredst the Prophets ; 1 thou that overshadowedst Mary in the divine Inoarnation ; 2 thou that restedst on the flower of Jesse ; s thou that leadedst Jesus into the desert ; 4 thou that didst glorify him by miracles. 5 The Chureh, hfc B ide, receives thee, and thou teachest her all truth, 6 and thou abidest in her, as her

• 2 St. Peter, i. 21. * St. Luke, iv. 1.

2 St. Luke, i. 35. 5 St. Matth. xii. 28.

3 Is. xi. 2, « St. John, xyi. 13. devoted friend, even to the very end of time. 1 Our souls are signed with thy seal, 2 and thou quickenest them with supernatural life ; s thou dwellest even in our bodies, making them thy temple; 4 in a word, thou art to us the Gift of God, 5 and the fountain springing up even into life everlasting. 6 May special thanks be given to thee, 0 Holy Spirit, for the special works thou acoomplishest in our favour !

And now, having adored eaoh of the divine Persons, and blessed eaoh for the favours he has bestowed upon this world, we again dare to fix our unworthy gaze upon that Trinity of Majesty which exists in the again confess what thou hast taught us ; but we confess it in the words of thy servant Augustine : " They ' " are not more than Three : One that loveth him who " is from him ; and One that loveth him from whom " he is ; and One who is that very Love." 7 But we have still a debt of gratitude to pay for that unspeakable favour of thine, whereby, 0 blessed Trinity, thou hast vouchsafed to mark us with the image of thyself. Having resolved, from all eternity, to admit us into fellowship with thyself, 8 thou hast prepared us for it, acoording to a type taken from thine own divine Nature. 9 There are three powers in our one soul ; this tells us that it was thou gavest us our existence ; and yet this likeness to thyself, which is the glory of our natural being, was but a preparation for further purposes of thy generous love towards us. After having bestowed upon us this natural being, it pleased thee to decree, 0 saored Trinity, that a

1 St. John, xiv. 16. 4 1. Cor. vi. 19.

2 Eph. i. 13; iv. 30. 5 Hymn, Vent Creator.

7 Non amplius quam tria sunt : unus diligens eum qui de illo est, et unus diligens eum de quo est, et ipsa dilectio. 8. Augmtinm y Be Trinitate, lib. vi. cap. 7.

0 Sovereign Lord ! we s Gal. v. 25.

6 St. John, iv. 14 ; vii. 38, 39.

8 1. St, John, i. 3.

» Gen. i, 27,

TIME AFTER PBNTEC08T. supernatural one should also be imparted to us. When the fulness of time had come, the Father sends us his Son ; and this uncreated Word brings light to our understanding : the Father and the Son send us the Spirit ; and the Spirit brings love to our will : and the Father, who cannot be sent, oomes of himself, and gives himself to our soul, giving her a power beyond her own strength. It is in holy Baptism, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that is produced, in the Christian, this work of the Three divine Persons, which is so admirably in keeping with the faculties of our soul; and these facilities are but an outline of the masterpiece, which the supernatural action of God oan alone complete.

Blessed union ! whereby God is in man, and man~ is in God ! Union that brings us to adoption by the Father, to brotherhood with the Son, to our eternal inheritance ! But, how has this indwelling of God in his creature been formed P Gratuitously, by God's eternal love. And, how long will it last ? For ever, unless man himself refuse to give love for love. Mortal sin admitted into the soul, the divine indwelling is at an end : the very moment that sanctifying grace is lost, the Three divine Persons who had taken up their abode in that soul, 1 and were united with her, abandon her ; God would be no longer in her, save by his immensity, but the soul would not possess him as she did before. Then would Satan set up again his wretched kingdom within her, the kingdom of his vile trinity, Concupiscence of the flesh, concupiscence of the eyes, and pride of life? Wo to the man, who would dare to defy his God by such rebellion, and put evil in the place of infinite good ! Hell and eternal torments are the oonsequences of the creature's contempt of his Creator. God is a jealous God ; if we drive

1 St. John, xiv. 23, » 2 St. John, ii. 16, him from the dwelling of our souls, the deep abyss must be our everlasting abode.

But is this rupture beyond the hope of reconciliation P Yes, as f ar as sinful man's power is concerned ; for he can never, of himself, reoover his position with the blessed Trinity, which God's gratuitous bounty had prepared, and his incomprehensible goodness aohieved. But, as the Church teaches us, in her liturgy, 1 God never shows his power more, than when he has pity on a sinner and pardons him ; it is this powerful mercy of God which can work the prodigy of a reoonoiliation ; and he really does work it, as often as a sinner is converted. When the august Trinity deigns to return into the soul of repentant man, the Angels and Saints in heaven are filled with joy, as the Gospel assures us ; 2 for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have testified their love, and sought their glory, by making him just, who had been a sinner ; by coming again to dwell in this lost sheep ; in this prodigal, who had, but a few days before, been tending swine ; in this thief who, but just now, had been insulting on the Gross, together with his fellow culprit, the innooent Crucified.

Adoration, then, and love, be to thee, 0 Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 0 perfect Trinity, that hast vouchsafed to reveal thyself to mankind ; 0 eternal and infinite Unity, that hast delivered our forefathers from the yoke of their false gods ! Glory be to thee, as it was in the beginning, before any creature existed ; as it is now, at this very time, whilst we are living in the hope of that true life, which consists in seeing thee face-to-faoe ; and as it shall for ever be, in those everlasting ages, when a blissful eternity shall have united us in the bosom of thine infinite Majesty. AmejQ.

1 Collect for the 10th Sunday after Pentecost. 3 St. Luke, xv. 10.

MONDAY

AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY.

Having, by his divine light, added fresh appreciation for the sovereign mystery of the august Trinity, the Holy Ghost next leads the Church to contemplate that other marvel, which concentrates in itself all the works of the Incarnate Word, and leads us, even in this present life, to union with God. The mystery of the Holy Eucharist is going to be brought before us in all its magnificence ; it behoves us therefore, to prepare the eyes of our soul for the worthy reception of the light which is so soon to dawn upon us. As during the whole year, we have never lost sight of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and all our worship has unceasingly been offered to the Three divine Persons ; so, in like manner, the blessed Euoharist has uninterruptedly accompanied us throughout the whole period of the Liturgical Tear, either as the means for our paying our homage to the infinite Majesty of God, or as the nourishment which sustains the supernatural life. Though we knew and loved these two ineffable mysteries before, yet the graoes of Pentecost have added much to both our knowledge and our love ; yesterday, the mystery of the Trinity beamed upon us with a greater clearness than ever ; and now we are close upon the solemnity, which is to show us the holy Eucharist with an increase of light and joy to our faith.

The blessed Trinity is, as we have already shown, the essential object of all religion ; it is the centre to which all our homage converges ; and this, even when we do not seem to make it our direct intention.

Now, the holy Euoharist is the best of all the means whereby we can give to the Three divine Persons the worship we owe Them; it is, moreover, the bond whereby earth is united with heaven. It is easy, therefore, to understand how it was that holy Church so long deferred the institution of the two festivals immediately following Whitsuntide. All the mysteries we have celebrated up to this time, were contained in the august Sacrament, whioh is the memorial, and, so to say, the compendium of the wonderful things wrought in our favour by our Redeemer. 1 It was the reality of Christ's presenoe under the sacramental species that enabled us to recognise, in the Sacred Host, at Christmas, the Child that was born unto us, in Passiontide, the Victim who redeemed us, and, at Easter, the glorious conqueror of death. We could not oelebrate all those admirable Mysteries without the aid of the perpetual Sacrifice ; neither oould that Sacrifice be offered up, without renewing and repeating them.

It was the same with the Feasts of our Blessed Lady and the Saints, — they kept us in the continual contemplation of the holy Sacrament. When we honoured Mary on the solemnities of the Immaculate Conception, the Purification, or the Annunoiation, we were honouring Her who had, from her own substanoe, given that Body and Blood which was then offered upon our altars. As to the Apostles and the Martyrs, whose memories we solemnised, whenoe had they the strength to suffer so muoh and so bravely for the faith, but from the sacred banquet which we then celebrated, and which gives courage and constanoy to them that partake of it ? The Confessors and Virgins, as their Feasts came round, seemed to us as so many lovely flowers in the garden of the Ohuroh, and that garden itself all fruitful with wheat and

1 Ps. ex. 4. dusters of grapes, because of the fertility given by Him who is called, in the Scriptures, both Wheat and Wine. 1

Putting together all the means within our reach for honouring these blessed citizens of the heavenly court, we have chanted the grand Psalms of David, and hymns, and canticles, with all the varied formulas of the Liturgy; but nothing that we oould do towards celebrating their praise oould be oompared to the holy Sacrifice offered to the divine Majesty. It is in that Sacrifice, that we entered into direct communication with them, according to the energetic term used by the Church in the Canon of the Mass, (communicantes). The blessed in heaven are ever adoring the most holy Trinity by and in Christ Jesus our Lord ; and it is by the Saorifioe of the Mass that we were united with them in the one same centre, and that we mingled our homage with theirs ; hence, they received an increase of glory and happiness. So, then, the holy Eucharist, both as Sacrifice and Sacrament, has always been prominently before us. If we are now going to devote several days to a more attentive consideration of its magnificence and power ; if we are now going to make more earnest efforts to taste more fully its heavenly sweetness ; it is not a something fresh, which attraots our special notice and devotion for a season, and will then give way for something else : no ; the Eucharist is that element prepared for us by the love of our Redeemer, of which we must always avail ourselves in order that we may enter into direct communication with our God, and pay him the debt not only of our worship, but also of our love.

And yet, the time would come when the Holy

1 Zach. ix. 17.

Ghost, who governs the Church, would inspire her with the thought of instituting a speoial solemnity in honour of that august mystery, in which all otners are included. There is a sacred element, which gives a meaning to every feast that ocours during the Year, and graces it with the beauty of its own divine splendour; — that sacred element is the most holy Euoharist, and itself had a right to a solemn festival, in keeping with the dignity of its divine object.

But that festive exaltation of the divine Host, and those triumphant Processions so deservedly dear to the present generation of Christians, were not practicable in the ages of the early Persecutions. And when those rough times had passed away, and the courageous Martyrs had won victory for the Church, those same modes of honouring the Euoharist would not have suited the spirit and form of the primitive liturgioal observances, which were kept up for a^es following. Neither were they needed for the maintenance of the lively faith of those times ; they would have been superfluous for a period such as that was, when the solemnity of the Sacrifice itself, and the share the people at large took in the sacred Mysteries, and the uninterrupted homage of liturgical chants sustained by the crowds of Faithful adorers around the Altar, gave praise and glory to God, secured correctness of faith, and fostered in the people a superabundance of supernatural life, which is not to be found now-a-days. The divine Memorial produced its fruits ; the intentions our Lord had in instituting the Euoharist were realised ; and the remembrance of that institution, which used then to be solemnised as we now oelebrate Mass on Maundy Thursday, was deeply impressed on the minds of the Faithful.

This state of things lasted till the beginning of the 13th Century, when, as the Church expresses it, a certain coldness took possession of the world ; 1 faith

1 Collect for the Feast of the Stigmata of St. Francis.

TIMS AFTER PENTECOST. grew weak, and the vigorous piety which characterised the christians of the previous ages became exceedingly rare. There were grand exceptions, here and there, of individual saintliness ; but there was an unmistakable falling off amidst people at large, and the falling off was progressive ; so much so, indeed, that there was danger that the Mystery, which by its very nature is the Mystery of Faith, would suffer, in a special manner, from that coldness, that indifference, of the new generation. Even at that period, hell had been at work, stirring up saorilegious teachers here and there, who dared to throw doubts upon the dogma of the Real Presence; fortunately, the people easily took plarm, and, as a general rule, were too strong in the old faith to be led astray. The Pastors, too, of the Church were alive to the danger, — for there were souls who allowed themselves to be deoeived.

Scotus Erigena had formulated the sacramentarian heresy : he had taught that the Eucharist " was but " a sign, a figure of spiritual union with Jesus, of " which the intelleot alone could be cognizant." His teaching made little impression ; it was regarded as mere pedantry, and was too novel to make head against catholic tradition, suoh as was to be found exposed in the learned writings of Pasohasius Eadbert, Abbot of Corbie. The sophistry of Sootus was revived, in the 11th Century, by Berengarius ; but although its new promoter was more orafty and oonoeited than its originator, and did greater and more lasting mischief, yet it died with him. The time for hell to play havoc with suoh direct attaoks as these had not yet come; they were laid aside for others of a more covert kind. That hotbed of heresies, the empire of Byzantium, fostered the almost extinct germ of Manioheism ; the teaching of that sect regarding the flesh, — that it is the work of the evil principle — was subversive of the dogma of the Eucharist. Whilst Berengarius was trying to bring himself into notice by«the noisy, but ineffectual, broaohings of his errors, Thrace and Bulgaria were quietly sending their teachers into the West. Lombardy, the Marches, and Tuscany, became infected ; so did Austria, in several plaoes, and almost all at one and the same time ; so, too, did three cities of France, — Orleans, Toulouse, and Arras. Forcible measures for repressing the evil were used ; but it was one whioh knew how to grow strong by retreat. Taking the South of Franoe for the basis of its operations, the foul heresy silently organised its strength during the whole of the 12th Century. So great was the progress it made thus unperoeived, that when it came publicly before the world, at the beginning of the 13th Century, it had an army ready for the maintenance of its impious dootrines. Torrents of blood had to be shed in order to subdue it, and deprive it of its strongholds ; and for years after the defeat of the armed insurrection, the Inquisition had to exercise active watchfulness in the provinces that had been tainted by the Albigensian contagion.

Simon of Montfort was the avenger of the Catholic faith. But, whilst the victorious arm of the Christian hero was dealing a death-blow to heresy, God was preparing for his Son, who had been so unworthily outraged by the sectarians, in the Sacrament of his love, a triumph of a more peaceful kind, and a more perfeot reparation. It was in the year 1208, that an humble Religious of the Congregation of the Hospitallers, by name the Blessed Juliana of Mont- Cornillon, near Liege, had a mysterious vision, in whioh she beheld the moon at its full, but having a hollow on its disc. In spite of all her efforts to divert herself from what she feared was an illusion, the same vision appeared before her, as often as she set herself to pray. After two years of such efforts and earnest supplications, it «was revealed to her, that the moon signified the Church as it then was ; and that hollow she observed on its disc expressed the want of one more solemnity in the liturgical Tear ; a want which God willed should be supplied by the introduction of a feast, to be kept annually in honour of the institution of the blessed Eucharist ; the solemn oommemoration made of the Last Supper ', on Maundy Thursday, was no longer sufficient for the children of the Church, shaken as they had been by the influences of heresy ; it was not sufficient even for the Churoh herself, who, on that Thursday, has her attention divided by the important functions of the day, and is wholly taken up, a few hours later, by the sad mysteries of the great Friday. At the same time that Juliana reoeived this communication, she was also commanded to set to work and make known to the world, what she had been told was the divine will. Twenty years, however, passed, before the humble and timid virgin could bring herself to put her person thus forward. She, at length, mentioned the subject to a Canon of St. Martin's of Liege, named John of Lausanne, whom she much respected for his great holiness of life ; and she besought him to oonf er with men of theological learn* ing on the subjeot of the mission confided to her. All agreed, that not only there was no reason why such a Feast should not be instituted, but, moreover, that it would be a means for procuring muoh glory to God, and great good to souls. Encouraged by this decision, the saintly Juliana got a proper Offioe composed, and approved, for the future Festival ; it begins with the words : Animarum cibus, and a few portions are still extant.

The Churoh of Liege, to which the universal Churoh owes the yesterday's solemnity of the Blessed Trinity, was predestined to have the honour of originating the Feast of Corpus Christi. It was a happy day, when, in the year 1246, after so many delays and difficulties, the then Bishop of Liege, Robert de

Tor6te, published a synodioal deoree, that eaoh year on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, there should be observed in all the Churches of his Diocese, with rest from servile work, and with the preparation of fasting on the eve, a solemn Feast in- honour of the Blessed Sacrament.

But the mission of the Blessed Juliana was fair from being at an end ; she had to be punished for having so long deferred it. The Bishop died ; and the decree he had issued would have long been a dead letter, had there not been one, the only one, Churoh of the Diocese, whose Clergy were determined to carry the decree into execution : these were the Canons of Saint Martin-au-Mont. Though there was no authority, during the vacancy, that cared to enforce the observance, yet, in the year 1247, the Feast of Corpus Christi was kept in that privileged Churoh. Robert's successor, Henry de Gueldre, a warrior and grandee, took no interest in what his predecessor had had so much at heart. Hugh de Saint Cher, Cardinal of Saint Sabina, and Legate in Germany, having gone to Liege with a view to remedy the disorders to which the new episcopal government had given rise, heard mention of the decree of the late Bishop Robert, and of the new Feast. The Cardinal had, formerly, been Prior and Provincial in the Order of St. Dominic ; and was one of the theologians who, having been consulted by J ohn de Lausanne, had favoured the projeot. He was of the same mind when Legate ; and claimed the honour of keeping the Feast himself, and singing Mass with much solemnity. Not satisfied with that, he issued a Circular, dated December 29, 1253, which he addressed to the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, and Faithful of the territory of his legation ; and, in that document, he confirmed the decree of the Bishop of Liege, and extended it to all the country over which he was Legate, granting one hundred days' indulgence to all who, contrite, and after confession of

TIME AFTER PENTBCOST. their sins, should, on the Feast itself, or during its Octave, devoutly visit a Church in which the Office of Corpus Christi was heing celebrated. In the year following, the Cardinal of Saint George in Velabro, who had succeeded as Legate, confirmed and renewed the ordinances made by the Cardinal of Saint Sftbina. These reiterated deorees, however, failed to remove the wide-spread indifference. A terrible blow had been given, by the proposed Feast, to the powers of hell, and Satan excited every possible opposition to it. As soon as the Legates had taken their departure, several local Superiors, men of note and authority, ublished their own ordinances in opposition to what ad been already given. In 1258, the year of the Blessed Juliana's death, there was still but the single Church of Saint Martin that would celebrate the Feast, which it was her mission to spread throughout the entire world. But she left the continuation of her work to a holy Recluse, of the name of Eve, to whom she had confided her secrets.

On the 29th day of August, 1261, James Pantaloon ascended the papal throne, under the name of Urban the Fourth. He owed his election to this dignity to his great personal merits, for, by birth, 1 he had nothing to recommend him. He had been Archdeacon of Liege ; and there had met with the Blessed Juliana, and had approved her work. In this his exaltation to the papacy, Eve thought she had an indication of God's providence. She induoed the Bishop, Henry de Gueldre, to send his written congratulations to the new Pontiff, and, at the same time, to entreat him to confirm, by his own approbation, the Feast whioh had been instituted by Robert de Torote. About that same time, several supernatural events had attracted publio attention, and in particular, the prodigy at Bolsena, near Orvieto,

• Troyes, in France, was his native town. where the papal oourt happened to be then residing, — the prodigy of a corporal having been stained with blood by a miraculous Host. These events seemed as though providentially permitted, in order to rouse Urban's attention, and to confirm him in the holy zeal he had formerly evinced for the glory of the Blessed Sacrament. St. Thomas of Aquin was appointed to compose, according to the Eoman rite, the Office for the Feast ; which Offioe was to be substituted for the one prepared by the Blessed Juliana, and which she had adapted to the anoient liturgy of Franoe. The Bull Transiturus was published soon after ; it made known to the Church the Pope's intentions. Urban there mentions the revelations which had come to his knowledge before his election ; and deolares, that, in virtue of his apostolic authority, both for the confounding of heresy, and for the increase of the true faith, he institutes a special Solemnity in honour of the divine Memorial left, by Christ, to his Church. The day there fixed for the Feast is the fifth Feria (that is, the Thursday,) after the Octave of Pentecost ; for the Papal document does not mention, as the decree of the Bishop of Liege had done, the Feast of the Blessed Trinity, which had not yet been received into the oalendar of the Church of Rome. In imitation of what had been done by Hugh de Saint Cher, the Pontiff granted a hundred days' indulgence to all the Faithful, who, being contrite, and having confessed their sins, should assist at Mass, or Matins, at first or second Vespers, of the Feast ; and for assisting at Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, and Compline, forty days for each of those Hours. He, also, granted a hundred days, for each day within the at the Mass and the entire Office. Though thus entering into all these details, there is not an allusion to the Procession, for it was not introduced till the following Century. assist, on any such day,

TIMS AFTBfl yWFftCOWV

All now seemed settled ; and yet, owing to the troubles whioh were then so rife in Italy and the Empire, the Bull of Urban the Fourth was forgotten, and remained a dead letter. Forty years and more elapsed before it was again promulgated and confirmed by Pope Clement the Fifth, at the Council of Vienne. John the Twenty-second gave it the force of a settled law, by inserting it in the Clementines, about the year 1318 ; and he had thus the honour of putting the finishing stroke to the great work, which had taken upwards of a century for its completion.

The Feast of the Blessed Sacrament, or, as it is oommonly called, Corpus Christi, began a new phase in the Catholio worship of the Holy Eucharist. But, in order to understand this, we must go more thoroughly into the question of Eucharistio worship, as practised in the previous ages of the Church : the inquiry is one of importance for the full appreciation of the great Feast, for which we must now be preparing our souls. No preparation, so it seems to us, oould be more to the point, than the devoting the next two days to a faithful and compendious study of the chief features in the history of the Blessed Euoharist.

It belongs to thee, 0 holy Spirit, to teach us the history of so great a Mystery. Scarcely has thy reign begun upon the earth, when, faithful to thy divine mission of glorifying our Emmanuel, 1 who has ascended into heaven, thou at once raisest our eyes and hearts up to that best gift of his love, whereby we still possess him under the euoharistio veil. During those long ages of the expectation of nations, it was thou didst bring the Word before mankind ; thou spakest of him in the Soriptures, thou proolaimedst him by the Prophets. 2 0 thou that art the Gift of the Mod Sigh! 3 thou art, also, infinite Love ; and, it

1 St. John, xvi. 14. * 2 St. Pet. i. 19-21. 3 Hymn for Pentecost, is through thee, as suoh, that are wrought all the manifestations which God vouchsafes to make to us his creatures. It was thou that broughtest this divine Person, the Word, into the womb of the immaculate Virgin Mary, there to olothe him with sinless flesh, and so make him our Brother and our Saviour. And now that he has ascended to his Father and our Father, 1 depriving us of the sight of his human nature, all beauteous with its perfections and charms ; now that we have to go through this vale of tears, deprived of his visible company ; — he has sent thee unto us ; 2 and thou art come, 0 divine Spirit, as our Consoler. But the oonsolation thou bringest us, dear Paraolete ! is ever the same ; — it is the faithful remembrance of our Jesus ; s yea, more, it is his divine Presence, perpetuated by thee in the Sacrament of Love. We had been already told that this would be so ; that thou wouldst not speak of thyself, 4 or for thyself ; but that thou wouldst come to give testimony of the Emmanuel, 5 continue his work, and produoe his divine likeness in each one of us.

How admirable is this thy fulfilment of thy sublime mission, whioh is all for the glory of Jesus ! 0 divine Spirit, Guardian of the Word in the Church ! it is far beyond our power to desoribe how great is thy vigilance over the word of teaching, brought by the Saviour to this earth of ours, a teaohing whioh is the true expression of himself, and which, ooming, as he himself does, from the mouth of the Father, is the nourishment of his Bride here below. 6 But with what infinite respect and vigilance, 0 holy Spirit, dost thou not preside over the august Saoraraent, wherein is present, with all the reality of his adorable Flesh, that same Inoarnate Word, who, from the very first of creation, was the centre and object of all thy dealings with oreatures !

» St. John, xx. 17. 4 St. John. xvi. 13.

• St. Luke, xxiv. 49. 3 St. John, xiv. 26.

5 IHd. xv. 26. • St. Matth. iv.

YOL* X.

M

TIME AFTER PBNTE008T.

It is by the mystery which is produoed by thine omnipotence, that the exiled Bride recovers her Spouse ; it is by thee that she traverses the long a^es of time, holding and prizing her infinite treasure ; it is by thee that she, with such superhuman wisdom, puts it to profit, by so arranging, so modifying her discipline, yea, her very life, as to secure in eaoh age of time the greatest possible faith, respeot and love towards the Divine Eucharist. If she anxiously hide It from the profane men that would only turn their knowledge into blasphemy ; or if she lavish upon It all that Liturgy oan give of pomp and magnificence ; or if, again, she bring It forth from her saored temples, and triumphantly carry It in procession through the orowded streets of cities, or the green lanes of the quiet country, it is thou, 0 divine Spirit, that inspirest her with what is best ; it is thy divine foresight that suggests to her what is the surest means for gaining, in eaoh respective period and age, the most of honour and love for that J esus of hers, who is ever present in the Sacred Host, and who deigns to let his love be delighted with being thus among the children of men. 1

Vouchsafe, 0 Holy Ghost, to aid us in our contemplations of this sacred Mystery. Enlighten our understandings, inflame our hearts, during these hours of preparation for its Feast. Give to our souls the knowledge of that Jesus, who is coming to us beneath the Sacramental veil.

May this holy Mystery be to us, during this last portion of the year and its liturgy, our Bread to support us on the journey we have still to make through the desert, before we can reach the mount of God ; 2 we have yet a great way to go, and a way so different from the one we have already passed through, when we had the company of our Jesus in the Mysteries he was working for our salvation. Be thou, 0 holy Spirit, our guide in those paths, which the Church, under

1 Proy. viii. 31. 8 3 Kings, xix. thy direction, is courageously traversing, and is, every day, approaching nearer to the end of her pilgrimage here faelow. Yet, scarcely have we entered on this second portion of our Year, than then, divine Spirit t bringest us to the banquet prepared by divine Wisdom? where the pilgrim gets the strength he need* for his journey. We will walk on, then, in the strength of this heavenly food ; 2 and when our course is run, we will, with the same Bread to support us, cry out, with the Spirit and the Bride, that our Lord Jesus may come* to us, at that last hour, and admit us into his eternal kingdom.

In honour of the adorable Saorament, and in memory of the Blessed Juliana, to whom the Church owes the Feast she is about to oelebrate, we will offer our readers, to-day and during the Octave, the main portions, whieh are still extant, of the Office which bears her name. It will be interesting to them to hear how this Office was drawn up; we give the details as supplied to us by the Bollandists* in the life written of her by one of her contemporaries.

Juliana, then, began to ask herself whom she should get to compose the Office of the great Feast. She knew of no clever man, nor any holy priest, who seemed to her fitted for the work ; so, trusting tiolely to divine Wisdom, she made up her mind to select a young brotheT of the Hospital, named John, 4 frhose innocent life had been revealed to her by God. John refused the work, declaring that it far exoeeded bis

Eowers or learning ; he begged her to exouse him, as e was but an ignorant man. Juliana knew all that ; but she also knew, that divine Wisdom, whose work

• 1 Wisd. ix. * 3 Kings, xix. 8. * Apoa. ixii. 17.

• We must not confound him with John de Lausanne, of whom we have previously spoken,

TIMS AFTER PENTECOST, she was furthering, could speak admirable things through an unlearned man ; she kept to her purpose ; and John, unable to resist the entreaties and influenoe of Juliana, began his labours. She prayed, and he wrote ; and with the efforts of the two united, the work progressed in a way that surprised the young Brother. He attributed all, and he was not far wrong, to Juliana's prayers. When he had got any considerable portion of the composition ready, he gave it to her, saying : " This, Sister, is what heaven sends " thee : read it, and examine whether I have put " down anything, either in the chant, or the words, " whioh needs correction/' She would then take it ; and, by the wonderful infused wisdom whioh she possessed, would examine, and, where needed, correct ; but with so much prudence and judgment, that not even the most expert oritics could find anything to ohange. And thus, by the wondrous help of God, was oompleted the whole Offioe of the new Feast. 1

The Antiphons we here subjoin were taken, by the Bollandists, 2 from a very anoient Directorium of the Church of Saint-Martin-au -Mont. They are the Antiphons assigned for the Benedictus and Magnificat of each day within the Octave.

ANTIPHONS.

Animarum oibus Dei Sapientia nobis carnem sumptam proposuit in eduhum, ut per cibum hujus pietatis invitaret ad gustum divinitatis.

The Wisdom of God, the as- food of souls, hath offered to us, for our nourishment, the Flesh he had assumed to himself ; that, by this food of his love, he might lead us to taste of what is divine.

Discipulis competentem Leaving to his Disciples a conscribens hereditatem, sui worthy inheritance, he urged

1 Vita B. Juliana, ab auctore coa?vo descripta ; lib. ii. cap* 2« Act. SS. ad diem btam AprUis. * Ibid, in Append. them to be mindful of himself, saying : do this in memory of me.

Christ gave his whole self to us as our food ; that as he, whom we taste with our heart, divinely refreshes us, so he, whom we receive with our mouth, might refresh us by his human nature ;

And thus it is that he gives us to pass from things visible to invisible, from temporal to eternal, from earthly to heavenly, from human to divine.

Man hath eaten of the Bread of Angels ; so that we who, according to the soul, receive the food of the godhead, may take, according to the flesh, the food of Christ's humanity : for, as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.

0 Bread of Life ! O Bread of Angels ! J esus Christ, true life of the world! who ever feedest us, and never failest in thyself! heal us of all our weakness; that being refreshed on earth by thee as our viaticum, we may feed on thee, to our fill, in eternity.

Daily doth Christ wash us in his Blood, for daily is renewed the remembrance of his sacred Passion.

His Blood is not shed by the hands of faithless men, which would be to their destruction ; but daily is it received, and sweetly, and to their salvation, by the Faithful.

Once did Christ, true God and true Man, hang upon the Cross, and offer himself to the memoriam oommendavit inquiens : Hoc facite in mei commemorationem.

Totum Christus se nobis exhibet in cibum, ut sicut divinitus nos reficit quern corde gustamus, ita nos humanitus refioiat quern ore manducamus ;

Et sic de visibilibus ad invisibilia, de temporalibus ad seterna, de terrenis ad coelestia, de humanis ad divina nos transferat.

Panem angelorum manduoavit homo, ut qui secundum animum cibum divinitatis accipimus, secundum carnem cibum humanitatis sumamus : quia sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus.

Panis vitse, panis angelorum, Jesu Christe vera mundi vita ; qui semper nos reficis, in te nunquam deficis, nos ab omni sana languore, ut te nostro viatioo in terra recreati, te ore plenissimo manducemus in seternum.

Suo Christus sanguine nos lavat quotidie, cum ejus beatee passionis quotidie memoria renovatur.

Sanguis ejus non infide- , Hum manibus ad ipsorum perniciem funditur ; sed quotidie fidelium suavi ore sumitur ad salutem.

Verus Deus, verus homo semel in cruce pependit, se Patri redemptionis hostiam

TIM 9 AFFRR PENTE008T. efficaoem offerens : semper Father, as an effectual victim tamen invisibiliter est in of redemption ; yet is he ever mysterio, non passus sed invisibly present in the quasi pati repraeeentatus. Mystery, not suffering, but

Dominus Jesus Christus The Lord Jesus' Christ, who sine vulnere quotidie sacri- is daily sacrificed, but without praBstitit coelesti fungi mi- earth to fulfil a heavenly nisterio. ministry.

Haeo igitur singularis vie- This incomparable Victim tima Christi mortis est re- is, then, the remembrance of cordatio, scelerum nostro- Christ's death, the cleansing rum expurgatio, cunctorum away of our crimes, the devo- fidelium devotio, et ©teniae tion of all the Faithful, and vitas adeptio. the pledge of life eternal. fioatus, a wound, grants to mortals on

TUESDAY

AFTER TRINITY SUNDAY.

The history of the blessed Eucharist is one with that of the Church herself : the liturgioal usages, whioh have varied in the celebration of the most august of all the Sacraments, have followed the great sooial phases of the Christian world. This was a necessity ; for the Eucharist is the vital centre, here below, whither everything in the Churoh oon verges ; it is the inner bond whioh unites together that society of which Christ is the head, the sooiety whereby he is to reign over the nations, which are to be his inheritance. 1 Union with Peter, the Vicar of Christ, must always be the indispensable condition, the external mark, of the union of the members with the invisible Head ; but, supported, in an ineffable manner, on the Rook whioh bears the Church, the divine Mystery, wherein Christ gives himself to each one of his servants, must ever be the essential mystery of union ; and, as such, the oentre, and the bond, of the great Catholic communion. Let us, to-day, get a dear notion of this fundamental truth, on whioh was based the very formation of the Churoh at her commencement ; and let us consider the influence it exercised on the forms of euoharistic worship during the first twelve centuries. To-morrow, we will continue the subjeot, by examining how subsequent loss of fervour, and heresy, and social degeneracy, induoed the Church to gradually modify these forms, whioh, after all, are but accidental ; they were admir-

1 P§. ii. 8. ably adapted to the favoured times they had served, but would scarcely suit the changed circumstances and requirements of later generations of the Church's children.

It was on the eve of his Passion that our Lord instituted the great Memorial, which was to perpetuate, in all places, the one Sacrifice, whereby are perfected for ever, they that are sanctified. 1 The Cross was " the Altar of the world," as St. Leo oalls it ; 2 and on that Cross, says the same holy Doctor, was made, a few hours after the Last Supper, " the oblation of the whole human nature ; 3 for the whole human race was united with this last act of infinite adoration and reparation, offered, by its Head, to the supreme Majesty of God. The Churoh, issuing, as she did, with the Blood and Water from the side of her Saviour, was then but in her infancy ; and the Mystery of divine union, which Jesus bad come upon the earth to produce, by himself uniting to the Father, in the Holy Ghost, the members of his mystical body, — this union was not to have its immediate realisation for each separate member, exoept by its suooessive application to each one, as his time came. This was the objeot of the sublime institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper. It was a New Testament, which gave to the future Church the possession of the Mystery, whereby each generation, linked on to its predecessors by the unity of the one same Sacrifice, would find itself in union with the Word Incarnate ; and, in that union, would have the tie which mutually binds his members together, and the unity of his mystical body.

Immediately after instituting this new Passover, Jesus said to his Disoiples : A new commandment I give unto you : that ye love one another, as I have loved you : and, by this shall all men know that ye are

1 Heb. x. 14. * Serin, yiii. de Pass. s Ibid. iv. de Pass. my disciples} This was the first injunction given to his disomies, by Jesus, after giving himself to them other, was to be the mark of the Covenant, which he then, through his Apostles, contracted with all them who were to believe in him through the word of their preaching. 2 His very first prayer, after that first giving his Body and Blood under the euoharistio species, is for that same union, — the union of his Faithful, one with another ; a union, admirable as is the Mystery which produces and maintains it ; a union so intimate, that its model is the union existing between Jesus and his Eternal Father : May they all be one, as thou, Father, in me, and I in thee ; that they may be made perfect in one, — one, as we also are one?

Under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the Church understood, from the very first, the intentions of her divine Master. The three thousand, who were converted on the day of Pentecost, are described, in the Acts, as persevering in the doctrine of the Apostles, in the communication of the breaking of bread, and in prayers* And so great is the power of union derived from their all partaking of the heavenly Bread, that they were remarked by the Jews as a class of men forming a society distinot from every other, which won the esteem of all that beheld them, and drew others daily to join them. 5

A few years later, and the Church, led on by the same Holy Spirit, passed beyond the narrow limits of Judea, and oarried her treasures to the Gentiles. It was a world of corruption, where all was discord between man and man, and where the only remedy to the outrages of individual egotism was the tyranny of a CflBsar ; and it was into such a world that the

1 St. John. xiii. 34, 35. 4 Acts, ii. 42. union with, each

2 Ibid. xvii. 20.

3 Ibid. 21-23.

5 Ibid. 47.

TOMB AFTER PEjNTBGOJST.

Christians oame, and showed it, from east to west, the marvel of a new people, which, by the sole influence of its virtues, recruited its members from every class of society, and from every clime, and was stronger and more united than any nation that had ever appeared on earth. The Pagans were in admiration at this strange and inexplicable novelty ; without knowing what they were doing, without troubling themselves with any further inquiry, they bore testimony to the perfection wherewith these Christians fulfilled the dying wishes of their Founder ; they thus spoke of them : " See how they love one another ! "

It was, indeed, a mystery ; but the Faithful, the Initiated, understood it; for it had been thus explained to them by the Apostle : We, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one Bread. 1

This text is admirably commented by St. Augustine in a sermon he preached to the Neophytes, a few hours after their Baptism : " I remember/' says he, " the promise I made, of explaining to you, who have "been baptised, the mystery of the Lord's Table, " which you now see, and of which you were made " partakers in the night just past. . . That Bread " whioh you see on the Altar, that Bread which has " been sanctified by the word of God, is the Body of " Christ : that Chalice, or, rather, what that Chalice " contains, whioh has been sanctified by the word of " God, is the Blood of Christ. By these did Christ " our Lord will to give us his Body and his Blood, "which he shed for us, unto the remission of our " sins. If you have properly reoeived them, you are " what you have received, for the Apostle says : We, " being many, are one bread, one body. Yes, it was " thus that he expounded the sacrament of the Table " of the Lord : We, being many, are one bread, one " body. We are, by this Bread, instructed how we

1 1 Cor. x. 17.

"are to love unity. Was this Bread made out of " one grain ? Were there not many grains of wheat P " But, before they came to be bread, they were sepa- " rated one from the other ; they beoame joined by " means of water, and by a certain bruising : for, " unless the wheat be ground, and be moistened with " water, it oould never take the form we call bread. " It was the same with you, until you were, so to " say, ground by the humiliation of fasting, and by "the sacrament of exorcism. Baptism and water " came to you ; you were moistened, that so you " might come to the state of bread. But, even so, " there is no bread without fire. What, then, does " fire signify ? It is the Chrism ; for the oil which " makes our fire is the sacrament of the Holy "Ghost. . . . The Holy Ghost, therefore, oomes; " after water, oomes fire ; and you are made Bread, " which is the Body of Christ. . . . Christ willed "that we should be his Sacrifice, — the Sacrifice of " God. . . Great, very great are these mysteries ! . . . " Do you so receive them, as to take care that you "have unity in your hearts." 1 "Be (me, by your " loving one another, by holding one faith, one hope, " and undivided charity. When the heretios reoeive "this Bread, they receive testimony against them- " selves; for they are seeking to make division, "whereas this Bread is the sign of unity." 2 The Scripture, speaking of the first Christians, says, that they had but one heart and one soul ; 8 and it is the unity which is signified by the Wine in the Holy Mysteries; "For," continues St. Augustine, "the " wine was once in so many bunches of grapes ; but " now it is all one, one in the sweetness of the chalice, " for it has gone through the crushing of the wine-

1 Serm. ccxxvii. In die Paschae. Ad Infantes, de Saoramentis. 3 JkuL coxxix. Fer, ii. Poach®, de Sacramntis JUklium. 8 Acta. ir. 82.

TIME AFTER PBNTBOOST.

"press. So you, after those fastings, and labours, "and humility, and contrition, have oome, in the " name of Christ, to the Chalice of the Lord ; and "you are there on that Table, and there in that " Chalioe. You are there together with us, for we " have eaten together, and drunk together, and that "beoause we live together. 1 Thus did Christ our " Lord," (by the Wine made one out of many grapes) " signify us, and wished us to be one with him, and, " by his Table, consecrated the mystery of our peace « and unity." 2

These admirable expressions of St. Augustine are but the substance of the dootrine regarding the holy Euoharist, held by the Church in the 4th Century. They give us the very essence of that doctrine, in all its fulness and in all the clearness of its literal truth ; no other could have been given to Neophytes, who, up to that time, had been kept in complete ignorance of the august Mysteries, of which they were henceforth to partake : — as to the discipline of that seoreoy, we shall have to speak of it a little further on. The dootrine of the Euoharist here laid down by the great Bishop of Hippo, is identical with that given by all the Fathers. In Gaul, St. Hilary of Poitiers, 3 and St. Cesarius of Aries; 4 in Italy, St. Gaudentius of Brescia: 5 at Antioch and Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom ; 6 at Alexandria, St. Cyril ; 7 — all had the same way of putting this dogma of faith before their people. Christ is not divided : the Head and the members, the Word and his Churoh are inseparably one in the unity of the mystery instituted for the very purpose of produoing that unity. And this unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who lived in the f olden age of Christian eloquenoe, was reproduced by 'aschasius Radbert, in the 9th Century, 8 by Rupert

1 Serm. ccxxix.

2 Ibid, cclxxii. In die Pentecost. Ad Infantes,^ Sacramentis.

3 Lib. viii. de Trinit. 6 In ep. i., ad Cor. Horn xxiv.

4 Horn. vii. 7 Lib. x. in Johan.

6 Serm. ii. ad Neoph* 8 De corp. et sang, Domini., cap.x. in the 12th, 1 and by William of Auvergne in the beginning of the 13th. 2

It would be too long to give the names, and, still more, to quote passages, in testimony of how all the Churches, for the first twelve Centuries, looked jupon the holy Euoharist in this same way, — that is, as instituted for the purpose of union. If we follow this traditional teaching back to the apostolio souroe whence it originated, we shall find St. Cyprian, in the age of Persecution, speaking to his people upon the union between the divine Head and his members, whioh is the neoessary result of the holy Sacrament ; he shows this, not only by the nature of bread and wine, the essential elements for the consecration of the mysteries, but, likewise, by the mingling of water with the wine, in the eucharistic cup : the water, he says, signifies the faithful people ; the wine denotes the Blood of Christ ; their union in the ohalioe — union neoessary for the integrity of the Saorifioe — union the most complete and inseparable — expresses the indissoluble allianoe between Christ and his Church, which consummates the Saorament. 8 The same St. Cyprian shows that the Unity of the Church by the Chair of Peter, whioh is the subject of one of his finest treatises, is divinely established on the sacred Mysteries ; he speaks enthusiastically of the multitude of believers, the Christian unanimity, being held together, in the bonds of a firm and indivisible oharity, by the Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 Christ in his Saorament, and Christ in his Vicar, is, in reality, but the one same Rock that bears the building which is ereoted upon it ; the one sole Head, visible in his representative, his Vicar, and invisible in his own substance, in the Sacrament.

This sentiment of union, as the result of the

1 Be div. Off., lib. ii., c. 2. 8 Ep. lxiii.

• Be Sacrament. Euchar. cap iv. 4 Ibid* lxxvi.

174 WftB AFTiSlfc PlStfMCOS*.

Euoharist, was rooted in the Soul of the early Church ; her very mission was to bring about the union of all the children of God, that were dispersed throughout the world; 1 and, when the violence of her enemies obliged her to provide her children with some seoret sign, whereby they might recognise eaoh other, and . not be reoognised by pagans or persecutors or blasphemers, she gave them the mysterious icthus, the fish, which was the sacred symbol of the Euoharist. The letters which form the Greek word for fish, (icthus) , are the initials of a formula in the same language, which gives this sentence : Jesus Christy Son of God, Saviour. The Fish is shown to us, in the Book of Tobias, 2 as a figure of Christ, who is the food of the wayfarer ; casts out the devil by his virtues ; and gives light to the world, grown old in iniquity. Again : it is not without a prophetic and mysterious purpose, that the fish is mentioned in Genesis, as being blessed by the Creator, at the commencement of the world, just as man himself was. 8 It goes with the bread which is miraoulously multiplied in the Gospel, when our Lord prefigures the marvels of the Eucharist. It is brought again to our notice, after the Besurrection ; it is found lying on hot coals, and is offered by Jesus, together with bread, as a repast to seven of his disciples, on the banks of lake Tiberias. 4 Now, what is this Fish P this Bread P The Fathers answer: Christ is the Bread of that mysterious repast ; he is the Fish taken from living water, and is roasted on the altar of the Cross by the fire of his love, and feeds the Disoiples on his own substance, and offers himself to the entire world as the true icthUs. 5 No wonder, then, that we find this sacred symbol on almost everything that the

1 St John, xi. 52. 2 Tob. vi.

3 Gen. i. 22, 28. 4 St. John, xxi. 9.

5 St. Paulin. Ep. xiii ; St. Aug. Confess, xiii, 23 ; St Ambr, Hymn, Paseh. ; Prosp. African. De promitsion,

Christians of the first three oenturies possessed ; on precious stones, rings, lamps, inscriptions, paintings, there was the Fish, in some shape or other. It was the watchword, the tessera of the Christians, in those days of persecution. An inscription of the 2nd Century, discovered, in modern times, at Autun, thus speaks of the Christians : " This divine race of the " heavenly icthus, this noble hearted race, receive " from the Saviour of the Saints, the nourishment " which is sweet as honey, and drink long draughts " of the divine fount, holding icraus in their " hands. " 1 A holy Bishop of Asia Minor, of that same early period, by name Abercius of Hierapolis, who was divinely led into various lands, everywhere recognises the disoiples of Christ by the holy Fish, which makes all, however separated by distanoe, to be one. " I have," says he, shortly before the olose of his life of travel, " I have seen Rome : I have be- " held the queen city, in her robes and sandals of " gold ; I have made aoquaintanoe with the people "decked with bright rings. I have visited the " country of Syria, and all her cities. Passing the " Euphrates, I have seen Nisibis ; and all people in " the Bast were in union with me, for we all formed " but one body ; everywhere, faith presented to all, " and gave as nourishment to all, the glorious and " holy icthus, which came from the only fount, and " was taken by the most pure Virgin. " 2

This, then, was the bond of that mighty union between Christians, which was such a puzzle to the pagan world ; and the more the real cause of that unity was kept ooncealed from its eyes, so much the more violent was the fury wherewith it attaoked the Churoh. Our Lord had said : Give not that which is holy to dogs ; neither cast ye your pearls before sicine?

1 Inscript. Augustod. Spicileg. solesm. i.

2 Titul. Abercii. Spicileg. solesm. hi.

3 St. Matth. vii. 6,

T1MK AFTBR PBNTEC08T.

These words contained, in prinoiple, the discipline of secrecy, whioh was observed in the Ohuroh till the conversion of the Western world was completed. The holiness of the Sacraments, the sublimity of the Christian doctrines, necessitated an extreme reserve on the part of the Faithful, living, as they had to do, amidst people, whose moral degradation and brutal corruption rendered them what our Saviour had told us men would sometimes make themselves. But there was nothing which it was so imperative to hide from the stare and sacrilege of pagans, as the most holy Eucharist, — that " great pearl of the sacred " Body of the Lamb," as Venantius Fortunatus calls it. 1 It was this that gave rise to the essential distinction, into two classes, of a Christian assembly when met for divine worship ; there were the initiated, and the uninitiated, the Faithful and the Cateohumens. The distinction began with the apostolio age, and was kept up till the 8th Century. A few weeks before the solemn administration of Baptism, there took plaoe, as we have elsewhere explained, 2 the giving, or as it was termed, the Tradition of the Symbol, to the future members of the Church ; but the euobaristio mystery, the arcanum by excellence, was, even then, kept back from the fortunate candidates for holy Baptism. This explains the varied preoautional expressions, the reticence, the studied obscurity of phraseology, used by the Fathers in their discourses to their flock, and this for years after the times of Constantino and Theodosius. The Catechumens were admitted whilst the holy Scriptures were being read, or whilst the Psalms were being chanted; but, as soon as the Bishop had given his discourse on the portion whioh had been read, either of the Gospel or other passages of the sacred Volume, these Catechu-

1 Venant. Fortun. lib. ii. carm. 25.

'Volume for "Lent ;" Wednesday of the ith Week, p. 356. mens were dismissed by the Deaoon ; and this mwifl, or rrmeio, gave its name to that first portion of the Liturgy ; it was oalled " Mass of the Catechumens ; 99 just as the second part, which was from the oblation to the final dismissal, was called the " Mass of the Faithful."

And yet, this same holy Mother Church, which kept so jealous an eye to her treasure, as not to let it be fully known, except to her true children, made such by Baptism, — with what delight did she not, at the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, reveal to her new-born children, as soon as they came from the font, the ineffable secret hitherto kept in her heart as Bride, the full mystery of the icthus ! Incorporated to Christ by the saving waters, enrolled in his army, and marked with the sign of his soldiers by the anointing received from the Bishop, — with what maternal fondness did she not lead them, from the Baptistery first, and then from the Chrismarium to the hallowed preoinot of the Mysteries instituted by the Word Incarnate ! Yes, it was there that Jesus, their Head, was awaiting his new members, that he might draw all the more olosely the bonds which already knit them to his mystic Body, and unite them to himself in the infinite homage of that one great Sacrifice, whioh himself was offering to the Eternal Father.

This wondrous unity of the Euoharistic Saorifioe, whioh, in its ever the same one oblation, included both Head and Members; this unity of Saorifioe, which kept alive and strengthened the union of eaoh Christian oommunity and of the whole Churoh, was admirably expressed by the magnifioent forms of the primitive Liturgy. After the Cateohumens had been dismissed, and the unworthy expelled, all the Faithful, without exoeption, from the Emperor and his Court, down to the poorest cottager, whether man or woman, advanoed towards the Altar, eaoh one roll x. N offering their share of bread and wine for the sacred Mysteries. Themselves a kingly priesthood, as St. t Peter oalls them, 1 a living victim figured by the gifts they brought, they assisted, standing, at the immolation of the divine Victim, whose members they truly were ; then, united in the kiss of peaoe, the external sign of their union of heart, they received in their hands, and still standing, the sacred Body, their spiritual nourishment ; the Deacons offered them the Chalioe, and they drank of the precious Blood. Even babes, in their mothers' arms were eager for the divine drink, and received some drops, at least, into their innooent mouths. The sick who oould not leave their rooms, and prisoners, were not deprived of being united with their brethren, in the sacred banquet ; they received the precious Gifts at the hands of ministers, who were sent to them for the purpose by the Bishop. The Anchorets in their deserts, Christians living in the country, and all such as could not be present at the next assembly, took the Body of our Lord with them, that thus they might not, because of distance, be deprived of uniting at the coming oelebration of the mysteries of salvation. Those were ages when Christian unity was oontinually being attacked by persecution, sohism, and heresy, all three at onoe; and the Church, to counteract the danger, had no hesitation in facilitating, by every lawful means, the use and application of the venerable Sacrament, which is the sign of unity, and the innermost centre, and the strongest tie, of the Christian community.

It was from the same principle of unity, that, although, in each city, there were generally several churches, or centres, for the assemblies of the Faithful, and a greater or less number of Clergy, yet, all the Faithful and Clergy came together, for the collect,

1 1 St. Pfter, ii. 9. or synaxis, into some one place, fixed upon by the Bishop. "Where the Bishop shall show himself/' says St. Ignatius of Antioch, " there let the multi- "tude bej just as, where Christ Jesus is, there is "the catholic Church. It is not lawful, either to "baptise, or to celebrate the agape" (the Euoharist) " without the Bishop. 1 Do all of you assemble, for " prayer, in the one same place ; let there be unity " of oommon prayer, unity of mind, unity of hope. . . " Do all of you come together, as though you were " one man, into the temple of God, as to one altar, " as to one Christ Jesus, the great high-priest of the "unborn God. 2 Let us enjoy the one Euoharist; "for one is the Flesh of our Lord Jesus, and one " his Blood which was shed for us ; one also is the " Bread which was broken to us all, and one the Cup " whioh was distributed to all ; one altar to the " whole Church, and one Bishop, surrounded by the " Presbyterium and the Deacons." 3

The Presbyterium was the college of Priests of each oity ; they kept near the Bishop, were his oouncil, and oelebrated the sacred funotions together with him. It would seem, that, at the beginning, they were twelve in number, the oloser to represent the Apostles ; but, in the great oities, that number was soon doubled. We find that, towards the close of the first century, there were, in Rome, five and twenty Priests, who were, respectively, set over twenty-five Titles, that is, Churohes, of the metropolis. The Pontiff took first one, and then another, of these Titles, for the celebration of the Mysteries. The twenty-four Priests of the other Titles united with the Pontiff in the solemnity of one and the same Sacrifioe, and conoelebrated at one and the same Alter. In their respective places, the seven Deacons, and all the inferior clerios, each according

1 Ad Smyrn. yiii. 1 Ad Magnes, vii. 8 Ad Philadelph. iv.

TIME A.FTBB FKPfPKOOCT. to his rank, oo-operated in the thrice holy Mysteries. We have already seen the active part, taken in the same by the faithful People.

It was the very time when the Eagle .of Patmos, St. John the Evangelist, was being favoured with his inspiration and vision of the gorgeous ritual of heaven. Be beheld the Lamb that was slain, yet standing in the midst of the four and twenty Elders who were seated on thrones encircling the throne of God, — which is also the throne of the Eternal High Priest. Clad in white garments, and wearing golden crowns, these four and twenty Elders held harps in their hands, and golden vials full of odours, which aire the prayers of Saints. Then came the seven Spirits, who were before the throne of God, like so many burning lamps ; and then, thousands of thousands of Angels, who were round about the Throne, singing praise to the Sacrifice and triumph of the Lamb ; and then, every creature, which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, all cried out, giving benediction, and honour, and glory, and power, — to him that liveth for ever and ever. 1 This admirable vision represented the fulness and unity of the Sacrifice, whioh was offered once, but to last for ever, and was offered by him who is the Mead of all created beings. The Church on earth, the exiled Bride of that Jesus, did her best, when offering that same Sacrifice, to repeat the sublime; ritual of heaven. And as, in heaven, the divine Lamb, the eternal High Priest, drew after him the celestial hierarchy, so likewise, on earth, all the united with him in the holy Sacrifice, each one according to the sacred Order he held.

It was impossible for the universal Church, subject as she is to the conditions of place and time, to meet

1 Apoe. ir, v. here below, at one Altar ; but the unity of the Sacrifice, whioh was everywhere offered was, like the unity of the Church herself, expressed by the mutual transmission, between the various Bishops, of the sawed species that had been consecrated by them ; and these, each one put into the chalice from which they received the precious Blood. St. Irena&us, 1 who lived in the 2nd Century, tells us that the supreme Hiararoh, the Pontiff of Borne, used to send these aaored gifts, not only to Churohes in the West, but even into Asia, as emblems of the anity existing between the Churches there, and the Church, the Mistress and Mother of all others. So, too, when the number of the Faithful became so great as to induce the Churoh to allow individual Priests to celebrate alone the holy Mysteries, the Priests of the town where a Bishop resided, never thought of exercising this isolated function, until they had received from the Bishop, a fragment of the Bread he had oonse- <jrated, and which they mingled with their own Sacrifice. It was the fermentum, the sacred leaven of catholio Communion.

As an appropriate conclusion to the above subject, we append the following beautiful liturgical formula, taken from the Apostolic Constitutions,* a writing, which, as we now have it in its entirety, has been admitted by critics as a work of the 3rd Century.

THANKSGIVING FOR THE MYSTERIES.

We give thanks unto thee, O Gratias agimus tibi, Pater

Father, for the life thou hast noster, pro vita quam manifested unto us by thy Son manif estasti nobis per Je-

Jesus ; by whom, thou hast sum Filium tuum ; per quern both created all things, and turn omnia creasti, turn providest for all ; whom thou universis provides ; quern

1 Ap. Euseb. Htit. Eccles. lib. v. cap. 14. » I4b. yii. cap, 25, et misisti, ut ad salutem nostram homo fieret ; quern etiam permisisti pati et mori ; quern et resuscitans glorificare voluisti, et sedere fecisti ad dexteram tuam; per quern et nromisisti nobis resurrectionem mortuorum.

Tu, Domine omnipotens, Deus seterne : quemadmodum hoc erat dispersum, et quum fuit congregatum, factus est unus panis, ita congrega Ecclesiam tuam a finibus terrae in regnum tuum.

Adhuc gratias agimus, Pater noster, pro pretioso sanguine Jesu Ohristi effuso nostra causa : et pro pretioso corpore : cujus et hsec antitypa celebramus, quum ipse nobis constituent mortem illius annuntiare : per ipsum enim tibi gloria in ssecula.

Amen. also sendedst, that, for our salvation, he might be made Man; whom thou also permittedst to suffer and to die ; whom also, raising him up again, thou willedst to glorify, and madest him to sit at thy right hand ; by whom also thou didst promise us the resurrection of the dead.

O almighty Lord, eternal God ! as this (element J, which was once disunited, being united, hath become one Bread, so do thou assemble together thy Church, from the ends of the earth, into thy kingdom.

We also give thanks to thee, our Father, for the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, which was shed for our sake; and for his precious Body ; of which we are now celebrating the antitypes [the Mysteries} ; for he himself did appoint that we should announce his death; for, by him, is glory {given) to thee for ever.

Amen.