August 4 — Saint Dominic, Confessor

u Where springs the pleasant west-wind to unfold " The fresh leaves, with which Europe sees herself 4t New-garmented ; nor from those billows far, " Beyond whose chiding, after weary course, " The sun doth sometimes hide him ; safe abides " The happy Callaroga under guard " Of the great shield, wherein the lion lies " Subjected and supreme. And there was born " The loving minion of the Christian faith, " The hallowd wrestler, gentle to his own, And to his enemies terrible. So replete " His soul with lively virtue, that when first " Created, even in the mother's womb, " It prophesied. When, at the sacred font, " The spousals were complete 'twixt faith and him, u Where pledge of mutual safety was exchanged, " The dame, who was his surety, in her sleep " Beheld the wondrous fruit, that was from nim " And from his heirs to issue. And that such " He might be construed, as indeed he was, " She was inspired to name him of his owner, " Whose he was wholly ; and so call'd him Dominic.

" O happy father! Felix rightly named.

" O f avour'd mother ! rightly named Joanna ;

" If that do mean as men interpret it. 1

1 Dominic, belonging to the Lord ; Felix, happy ; Joanna, grace. descendants of these high-minded Christians, after having vainly attempted to humiliate the Bride by subjecting the priesthood to the empire, reproached the Church with possessing those goods of which she was but the depository in the name of our Lord ; the time had come for the Dove of the Canticle to begin, by abandoning the earth, her return journey towards heaven.

But if the two leaders of the campaign which arrested for a time the progress of the enemy, were but one in their love of holy poverty, this last was the special choice of the Assisian Patriarch. Dominic's more direct means for obtaining the glory of God and the salvation of souls, was science ; this was his excellent portion, more fertile than that of Caleb's daughter. Less than fifty years after Dominic had bequeathed this inheritance to his descendants, the wisely combined irrigation, by the upper and the full growth the tree of theological science, with its powerful roots and branches loftier than the clouds, whereon the birds of all tribes under heaven loved to perch without fear and gaze upon the sun.

"The father of the Preachers," said the Eternal Father to St. Catherine of Sienna, " established his " principle on the light, by making it his aim and "his armour; he took upon him the office of the " Word my Son, sowing my word, dispelling darkness, u enlightening the earth ; Mary, by whom I gave him " to the world, made him the extirpator of heresies."1 In the same way, as we have already seen, spoke the Florentine poet half a century earlier. The Order, called to become the chief support of the Sovereign Pontiff in uprooting pernicious doctrines, ought, if possible, to justify that name even more than its nether waters

1 Dialogue, clviii.

Patriarch : the first of the tribunals of Holy Church, the Holy Roman Universal Inquisition, the Holy Office, truly invested with the Office of the Word with his two-edged sword, to convert or to chastise, could find no instrument more trusty or more sure.

Little thought the virgin of Sienna, or the illustrious author of the Divina Commedia, that the chief title of the Dominican family to the grateful love of the people, would be discussed in a certain apologetic school, and there discarded as insulting, or dissembled as unpleasant. The present age glories in a liberalism which has given proofs of its power by multiplying ruins, and which rests on no better philosophical basis than a strange confusion between licence and liberty ; only such intellectual grovelling could have failed to understand that, in a society which has faith for the basis of its institutions as well as the principle of salvation for all, no crime could equal that of shaking the foundation on which thus rest both social interest and the most precious possession of individuals. Neither the idea of justice, nor still less that of liberty, could consist in leaving to the mercy of evil or evil men, the weak who are unable to protect themselves : this truth was the axiom and the glory of chivalry: the brothers of Peter the Martyr devoted their lives to protect the safety of the children of God against the surprises of the strong armed one, and the business that walketh about in the dark: it was the honour of the " saintly flock led by Dominic " along a way, where they thrive well who do not go "astray."2

Who could be truer knights than those athletes of the faith? taking their sacred vow in the form of

1 Ps. xc. 6.

2 Dante, Paradiso, Canto x.

3 H6norius III., Diploma confirrnans Ordinem.

£7d allegiance, and choosing for their Lady, her who, terrible as an army, alone crushes heresies throughout the whole world. To the buckler of truth and the sword of the word, she who keeps in Sion the armour of valiant men, added for her devoted liegemen the Rosary, the special mark of her own militia ; she, as being their true commander-in-chief, assigned them the habit of her choice, and in the person of Blessed Reginald, anointed them with her own hands for the battle. She herself too watched over the recruiting of the holy band, attracting to it from among the dite youth of the universities, souls the purest, the most generously devoted, and of the noblest intellect. At Paris, the capital of theology, and Bologna, of law and jurisprudence, masters and scholars, disciples of every branch of science, were pursued and overtaken by the sweet Queen amid incidents more heavenly than earthly. How graceful were those beginnings, wherein Dominic's virginal serenity seemed to surround all his children ! It was indeed in this the Order of light that the Gospel word was seen verified : Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God, Eyes enlightened from above beheld the foundations of the Friars Preachers under the figure of fields of lilies ; and Mary, by whom the Splendour of Eternal Light came down to us, became their heavenly mistress, and led them from every science to wisdom, the friend of pure hearts. She came accompanied by Cecilia and Catherine, to bless their rest at night, and covered them all with her royal mantle beside the throne of our Lord. After this we are not astonished at the freshness and purity, which continued even after St. Dominic, under the generalship of Jordan of Saxony, Raymund of Peg-

1 Promitto obedientiam Deo et B. Marias, Constitutiones Fratr. Ord. Praedicat. la Distinctio, Cap. xv. de Professions 8 St. Matth. v. 8. nafort, John the Teutonic, and Humbert de Romans, in those Lives of the Brethren, and Lives of the Sisters, so happily handed down to us. It is instructive to note that in the Dominican family, apostolic in its very essence, the Sisters were founded ten years before the Brethren, which shows how, in the Church of God, action can never be fruitful unless preceded and accompanied by contemplation, which obtains for it every blessing and grace.

Notre Dame de Prouille, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was not only by this right of primogeniture, the beginning of the whole Order ; it was here also that the first companions of St. Dominic made with him their choice of a Rule, and divided the world amongst them, going from here to found the Convents of St Romanus at Toulouse, St. James at Paris, St# Nicholas at Bologna, St. Sixtus and St. Sabina in the Eternal City. About the same period, the establishment of the Militia of Jesus Christ, placed under the direction of the Friars Preachers secular persons, who undertook to defend, by all the means in their power, the goods and liberty of the Church against the aggressions of heresy ; when the sectaries had laid down their arms leaving the world in peace for a time, the association did not disappear : it continued to fight with spiritual arms, and changed its name into that of Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St Dominic.

Let us read in the Church's book the abridged life of the holy Patriarch.

Dominic was born at Calaruega, in Spain, of the noble family of the Gusmans, and went through his liberal and theological studies atPalencia. He made great progress in

Dominicus, Calarogae in Hispania ex nobili Gusmanorum familia natus, Palentia liberalibus disciplinis et theologiae operam dedit: quo in studio cum pluri- mam profecisset, prius OxomeD8ia ecclesiae canonicus regularis, deinde Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum auctor fuit. Hujus mater gravida sibi visa est in quiete continere in alvo catulum ore proferentem facem, qua editus in lucem, orbem terraram incenderet. Quo somnio significabatur, fore ut splendore sanctitatis ac doctrinae, gentes ad christianam pietatem inflammarentur. Veritatem exitus comprobavit: id enim et praestitit per se, et per sui Ordinis socios deinceps est consecutus.

Hujus autem ingenium ac virtus maxime enituit in evertendis ha3reticis, qui perniciosis erroribus Tolosate pervertere conabantur. Quo in negotio septem consumpsit annos. rostea Bomam venit ad Lateranense concilium cum episcopo Tolosano, ut Ordo, quern instituerat, ab Innocentio tertio confirmaretur. Quae res dum in deliberatione versatur, Dominicus hortatu Pontificis ad suos revertitur, ut sibi regulam deligeret. Bomam rediens, ab Honorio tertio, qui proximus Innocentio successerat, confirmationem Ordinis Praedicatorumimpetrat. Komae autem xluo instituit monasteria, alteram virorum, mulierum alteram. Tres etiam mor- .tuos ad vitam revocavit, multaque alia edidit miracula, quibus Ordo Praedica-

, PENTECOST. learning, and became, a Canon Regular of the Church of Osma, and afterwards instituted the Order of Friars Preachers. While his mother was with child, she dreamt she was carrying in her womb a little dog, holding a torch in his mouth, with which, as soon as he was born, he would set fire to the world. This dream signified that he would enkindle Christian piety among the nations by the splendour of his sanctity and teaching. Events proved its truth : for he fulfilled the prophecy both in person, and later on by the brethren of his Order.

His genius and virtue shone forth especially in confounding the heretics who were attempting to infect the people of Toulouse with their baneful errors. He was occupied for seven years in this undertaking. Then he went to Rome for the Council of Lateran, with the bishop of Toulouse, to obtain from Innocent III. the confirmation of the Order he had instituted. But while the matter was under consideration the Pope advised Dominic to return to his disciples, and choose a rale. On his return to Borne, he obtained the confirmation of the Order of Preachers from Honorius III., the immediate successor of Innocent. In Borne itself he founded two Monasteries, one for men and the other for women. He raised three dead to life, and worked many other miracles, in consequence of which, the Order of Preachers began to spread in a wonderful manner.

Monasteries were built by his means in every part of the world, and through his teaching numbers of men embraced a holy and religious manner of life. At length in the year of Christ, 1221, he fell into a fever at Bologna. When he saw he was about to die, calling together his brethren and children,he exhorted them to innocence and purity of life, and left them as their true inheritance the virtues of charity, humility, and poverty. While the brethren were proving round him, at the words, " Come to his aid, ye Saints of " God* run to meet him, O ye 44 Angels," he fell asleep in the Lord, on the eighth of the Ides of August. Pope Gregory IX. placed him among the Saints. torum mirifice propagari coepit.

Verum cum ejus opera ubique terrarum monasteria jam sedificarentur, innumerabilesque homines religiosam ac piam vitam instituerent, Bononiae anno Christi ducentesimo vigesimo primo supra millesimum, in febrem incidit: ex qua cum se moriturum intelligent, convocatis fratribus et alumnis suae discipline, eos ad innocentiam et integritatem cohortatus est. Postremo caritatem, humilitatem, paupertatem, tamquam certum patrimonium eis testamento reliquit : fratribusque orantibus, in illis verbis, Subvenite sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli, obdormivit in Domino, octavo idus Augusti : quern postea Gregorius nonus Pontifex retulit in sanctorum numerum.

How many sons and daughters surround thee on the sacred cycle! This very month, Rose of Lima and Hyacinth keep thee company, and thy coming has long since been heralded in the Liturgy by Raymund of Pegnafort, Thomas of Aquin, Vincent Ferrer, Peter the Martyr, Catherine of Sienna, Pius V., and Antoninus. And now at length appears in the firmament the new star whose brightness dispels ignorance, confounds heresy, increases the faith of believers. O Dominic, thy blessed mother, who preceded thee to heaven, now penetrates in all its fulness the happy meaning of that mysterious vision which once excited her fears.

And that other Dominic, the glory of ancient Silos, at whose tomb she received the promise of thy blessed birth, rejoices at the tenfold splendour given by thee for all eternity to the beautiful name he bequeathed thee. But what a special welcome dost thou receive from the Mother of all grace, who heretofore, embracing the feet of her angered Son, stood surety that thou wouldst bring back the world to its Saviour ! A few years passed away ; and error, put to confusion, felt that a deadly struggle was engaged between itself and thy family ; the Lateran Church saw its walls, which were threatening to fall, strengthened for a time ; and the two Princes of the Apostles, who had bidden thee go and preach, rejoice that the word has gone forth once more into the whole world.

Stricken with barrenness, the nations, which the Apocalypse likens to great waters, seemed to have become once for all corrupt; the prostitute of Babylon was setting up her throne before the time ; when, in imitation of Eliseus, putting the salt of Wisdom into the new vessel of the Order founded by thee, thou didst cast this divine salt into the unhealthy waters, neutralize the poison of the beast so soon ripen up again, and in spite of the snares which will never cease, didst render the earth habitable once more. How clearly thy example shows us that they alone are powerful before God and over the people, who give themselves up to him without seeking anything else, and only give to others out of their own fulness. Despising, as thine historians tell us, every opportunity and every science where Eternal Wisdom was not to be seen, thy youth was charmed with her alone; and she, who prevents those that seek her, inundated thee from tby earliest years with the light and the anticipated sweetness of heaven. It is from her that overflowed upon thee that radiant serenity, which so struck thy contemporaries, and which no occurrence could ever alter. In heavenly peace thou didst drink long draughts from th ever-flowing fountain springing up into eternal life; but while thine inmost soul was thus slaking the thirst of its love, the divine source produced a marvellous fecundity; and its streams becoming thine, thy fountains were conveyed abroad in the streets, thou didst divide thy waters. Thou hadst welcomed Wisdom, and she exalted thee ; not content to adorn thy brow with the rays of the mysterious star, she gave thee also the glory of patriarchs, and multiplied thy years and thy works in those of thy sons. In them thou hast not ceased to be one of the strongest stay 8 of the Church. Science has made thy name wonderful among the nations, and because of it their youth is honoured by the ancients; may it ever be for them, as it was for their elders, both the fruit of Wisdom and the way that leads to her ; may it be fostered by prayer ; for thy holy Order so well keeps up the beautiful traditions of prayer, as to approach the nearest, in that respect, to the ancient monastic Orders. To praise, to bless, and to preach will be to the end its loved motto ; for its apostolate must be, according to the word of the Psalm, the overflowing of the abundance of sweetness tasted in communication with God. Thus strengthened in Sion, thus blessed in its glorious role of propagator and guardian of the truth, thy noble family will ever deserve to hear, from the month of our Lady herself, that encouragement above all praise: (iFortiter "fortiter, viri fortes ! Courage, courage, ye men of " courage ! "

August 5. OUR LADY OF THE SNOW.

Rome, delivered from slavery by Peter on the first of this month, offers to the world a wonderful spectacle. O Wisdom, who, since the glorious Pentecost, hast spread over the whole world, where could it be more true to sing of thee that thou hast trodden the proud heights under thy victorious feet ? On seven hills had pagan Rome set up her pageantry and built temples to her false gods ; seven churches now appear at the summits on which purified Rome rests her now truly eternal foundations.

By their very site, the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, of St. Laurence and St. Sebastian, placed at the four outer angles of the city of the Caesars, recall the long siege continued for three centuries around the ancient Rome, while the new Rome was being founded. Helena and her son Constantine, recommencing the work of the foundations of the holy City, carried the trenches further out; nevertheless, the churches which were their own peculiar work, viz., Holy Cross in Jerusalem, and St. Saviour's on the Lateran, are still at the very entrance of the pagan stronghold, close to the gates, and leaning against the ramparts; just as a soldier, setting foot within a tremendous fortress which haa been long invested, advances cautiously, surveying both the breach through which he has just passed, and the labyrinth of unknown paths opening before him.

Who will plant the standard of Sion in the centre of Babylon ? Who will force the enemy into his last retreat, and casting out the vain idols, set up his this word of the Most High : " Thou art my Son, I " will thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance," thou mighty One, with thy sharp arrows routing armies, listen to the cry re-echoing from the whole redeemed world: "With thy comeliness and thy beauty set "out, proceed prosperously and reign!" But the Son of the Most High has a Mother on earth ; the song of the Psalmist inviting him to the triumph extols also the Queen standing at his right hand in a vesture of gold ; if it is from his Father that he holds his power, it is from his Mother that he receives his crown, and he leaves her in return the spoils of the mighty. Go forth then, ye daughters of the new Sion, and behold King Solomon in the diadem wherewith his Mother crowned him on the joyful day, when, taking possession through her of the capital of the world, he espoused the Gentile race.

Truly that was a day. of joy, when Mary, in the name of Jesus, claimed her right as sovereign and heiress of the Roman soil! To the East, at the highest point of the eternal City, she appeared on that blessed morning literally like the rising dawn ; beautiful as the moon shining by night; more powerful than the August sun, surprised to see her tempering his heat, and doubling the brightness of his light with her mantle of snow ; more terrible than an army; for from that date, daring what neither Apostles nor Martyrs had attempted, and what Jesus himself would not do without her, she dispossessed the deities of Olympus of their usurped thrones. As was fitting, the haughty Juno whose

O thou to whom was said altar disgraced the Esquiline, the false queen of these lying gods, was the first to flee before Mary's face, leaving the splendid columns of her polluted sanctuary to the only true Queen of earth and heaven.

Forty years had passed since the days of St. Sylvester, when the " image of our Saviour, depicted " on the walls of the Lateran, appeared for the first " time to the Roman people."1 Rome, still half pagan, beheld to-day the Mother of our Saviour; under the influence of the pure symbol at which she gazed in surprise, she felt die down within her the evil ardour which made her once the scourge of nations, whereas now she was to become their mother; and in the joy of her renewed youth she beheld her once sullied hills covered with the white garment of the Bride.

Even from the times of the Apostolic preaching, the elect, who gathered in large numbers in Rome in spite of herself, knew Mary and paid to her in those days of martyrdom a homage such as no other creature could ever receive ; witness in the catacombs those primitive frescoes of our Lady, either alone or holding her divine Child, but always seated, receiving from her place of honour the praise, messages, prayers or gifts of prophets, Archangels, and kings. In the Trastevere, where in the reign of Augustus a mysterious fountain of oil had sprung up, announcing the coming of the Anointed of the Lord, Callixtus in 222 had built a church in honour of her who is ever the true fons olei> the source whence sprang Christ, and together with him all unction and all grace. The basilica raised by Liberius, the beloved of our Lady, on the Esquiline,

1 Lectiones ii. Noct. in Dedic. Basilicse Salvatoris.

2 Cemeteries of Priscilla, of Nereus and Achilleus, &c. was not, then, the most ancient monument dedicated by the Christians of Rome to the Mother of God -r but it at once took, and has always kept, the first place among our Lady's churches in the City, and indeed in the world, on account of the solemn and miraculous circumstances of its origin.

Hast thou entered, said the Lord to Job, into the storehouses of the snow, or hast thou beheld the treasures of the hail ; which I have prepared for the time of the enemy, against the day of battle and, war? On the 5th August, then, at God's command the treasures were opened, and the snow was scattered like birds lighting upon the earth, and its coming was the signal for the lightnings of his judgments upon the gods of the nations. The Tower of David now dominates over all the towers of the earthly city ; from her impregnable position our Lady will never cease her victorious sallies till she has taken the last hostile fort. How beautiful will thy steps be in these warlike expeditions, O daughter of the prince, O Queen, whose standard, by the will of thine adorable Son, must wave over the whole world rescued from the power of the cursed serpent. The ignominious goddess, overthrown from her impure pedestal by one glance of thine, left Rome still dishonoured by the presence of many vain idols. But thou, all-conquering Lady, didst continue thy triumphal march. The Church of St. Mary in Ara cceli replaced on the Capitol the odious temple of Jupiter; the sanctuaries and groves dedicated to Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, and Proserpine hastened to take the title of one who had been shown in their fabulous history under disfigured and degraded forms. The deserted Pantheon awaited the day when it was ta receive the noble and magnificent name of St. Mary i Job xxxviii. 22, 23. ad Martyre. What a preparation for thy glorious Assumption is the series of earthly triumphs which this day inaugurates ! The- basilica of St. Mary of the Snow, called also of Liberius, from its founder, and also of Sixtus, after Sixtus III., who restored it, owed to this last the honour of becoming the monument of the divine Maternity proclaimed at Ephesus ; the name of St. Mary Mother, which it received on that occasion, became, under Theodore I., who enriched it with the most precious relic, St Mary of the Crib : all these noble titles were afterwards gathered into that of St Mary Major, which is amply justified by the facts we have related, by universal devotion, and by the pre-eminence always assigned to it by the Sovereign Pontiffs. Though the last in order of time of the seven churches upon which Christian Rome is founded, it, nevertheless, ranked in the Middle Ages next to that of St Saviour; in the procession of the greater Litanies on April 25th the ancient Roman Ordo assigned to the Cross of St. Mary's its place between that of St. Peter's, below it, and that of the Lateran, which followed it. The important and numerous liturgical Stations appointed at the Basilica on the Esquiline testify to the devotiou of the Romans and of all Catholics towards it. It was honoured by having councils celebrated and Vicars of Christ elected within its walls ; the Pontiffs for a time made it their residence, and were accustomed on the Ember Wednesdays, when the Station is always held there, to publish there the names of the Cardinal Deacons or Cardinal Priests whom they had resolved to create.*

As to the annual solemnity of its dedication, which

1 Museum Italicum: Joan. Diac. Lib. de Eccl., Lateran XVL, de Episcopis et Cardinal, per patriarchatus dispositis ; Romani Ordin. xi., xii. a Paulus de Angelis, Basilieae S. Mariae Maj., descriptio vi., v. is the object of the present feast, there can be no doubt that it was celebrated on the Esquiline at a very early date. It was, however, not yet kept by the whole Church in the thirteenth century ; for Gregory IX., in the bull of canonization of St. Dominic, whose death occurred on the 6th August, anticipated his feast on the 5th of the month, as being at that time vacant, whereas the 6th was already occupied, as we shall see to-morrow by another solemnity. It was Paul IV. who in 1558 definitively fixed the feast of the holy founder on the 4th August; and the reason he gives is, that the feast of St. Mary of the Snow having since been made universal and taking precedence of the other, the honour due to the holy patriarch might be put in the shade if his feast continued to be kept on the same day. The breviary of St. Pius V. soon after promulgated to the entire world the Office, of which the following is the legend:

Under the Pontificate of Liberius, John, a Roman patrician, and his wife, who was of an equally noble race, having no children to whom they might leave their estates, vowed their whole fortune to the Blessed Virgin Mother of God, begging her most earnestly and continually to make known to them by some means in what pious work she wished them to emloy the money. The Blessed 'irgin Mary graciously heard their heartfelt prayers and vows, and answered them by a miracle.

On the Nones of August, usually the hottest time of the year in Borne, a part of the Esquiline hill was covered f

V

Liberio summo Pontifice, Joannes patricius Eomanus, et uxor pari nobilitate, cum liberos non suscepissent, quos bonorum haeredes rehnquerent, suam haereditatem sanctissimae Virgini Dei Matri voverunt, ab ea summis precibus assidue petentes, ut in quod pium opus earn pecuniam potissimum erogari vellet, aliquo modo significant. Quorum preces et vota ex animo facta beata Virgo Maria benigne audiens, miraculo comprobavit.

Nonis igitur Augusti, <^uo tempore in Urbe maxuni calores esse solent, noctu nix partem collis ExquiUni contexit. Qua nocte Dei Mater separatim Joannem et conjugem in somnis admonuit, ut quern locum nive consperaum viderent, in eo ecclesiam aedificarent,

Suae Mariae Virginis nomine edicaretur: se enim ita velle ab ipsis haeredem institui. Quod Joannes ad Liberium Pontificem detulit, qui idem per somnium sibi contigisse affirmavit.

Quare solemni sacerdotum et populi supplicatione ad collem venit nive coopertum, et in eo locum ecciesiae designavit, quae Joannis et uxoris pecunia exstructa est, postea a Xysto Tertio restituta. Variis nominibus primum est appellata, basilica Liberii, sancta Maria ad Praesepe. Sed cum multae jam essent in Urbe ecclesiae sub nomine sanctae Mariae Virginis: ut quae basilica novitate miraculi ac dignitate caeteris ejus-, dem nominis basilicis praestaret, vocabuli etiam excellentia significaretur, ecclesia sanctae Mariae majoris dicta est. Cujus dedications memoria ex nive, quae hac die mirabiliter cecidit, anniversaria celebritate colitur. with snow during the night. That same night the Mother of God appeared in a dream to John and his wife separately, and told them to build a church on the spot they should find covered with snow, and to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary ; for it was in this manner that she wished to become their heiress. John related this to Pope Liberius, who said he had dreamt the same thing.

He went, therefore, with a solemn procession of priests and people to the snow-clad hill, and chose the site of a church, which was built with the money of John and his wife. It was afterwards rebuilt by Sixtus III. At first it was called by different names, the Liberian basilica, St. Mary at the Crib. But, since there are many churches in Borne dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and, as this one surpasses all other basilicas in dignity, and by its miraculous beginning, it is distinguished from them also by its title of St. Mary Major. On account of the miraculous fall of snow, the anniversary of the dedication is celebrated by a yearly solemnity.

What recollections, O Mary, does this feast of thy greatest basilica awaken within us! And what worthier praise, what better prayer, could we offer thee to-day than to remind thee of the graces we have received within its precincts, and implore thee to renew them and confirm them for ever ? United with our Mother-Church in spite of distance, have we not, under its shadow, tasted the sweetest and most triumphant emotions of the cycle now verging on to its term ?

On the first Sunday of Advent, it was here that we began the year, as in the place " most suitable "for saluting the approach of the Divine Birth, " which was to gladden heaven and earth and manifest the sublime portent of a Virgin Mother."1 Our hearts were overflowing with desire on that holy Vigil, when from early morning we were invited to the bright basilica, where the "mystical Rose " was soon to bloom and fill the world with its " fragrance. The grandest of all the churches which " the people of Rome have erected in honour of the "Mother of God, it stood before us rich in its "marble and gold, but richer still in possessing, " together with the portrait of our Lady painted by " St. Luke, the humble yet glorious Crib of Jesus, "of which the inscrutable designs of God have "deprived Bethlehem. During that blessed night " an immense concourse of people assembled in the "basilica awaiting the happy moment when that "monument of the love and the humiliation of a " God was to be brought in, carried on the shoulders "of the priests as an ark of the New Covenant, "whose welcome sight gives the sinner confidence "and makes the just man thrill with joy."8 Alas! a few months passed away, and we were again in the noble sanctuary, this time compassionating our " holy Mother whose heart was filled with poignant "grief at the foresight of the sacrifice which was

1 Advent, p. 127.

2 Christmas, Vol. I., pp. 140, 14 J.

PENT. IV. U

"preparing."1 But sood the august basilica was filled once more with new joys, when Rome "justly " associated with the Paschal solemnity the memory "of her, who, more than all other creatures, had " merited its joys, not only because of the exceptional share she had had in all the sufferings of "Jesus, but also because of the unshaken faith, "wherewith, during those long and cruel hours of " his lying in the tomb, she had awaited his Resurrection."2 Dazzling as the snow which fell from heaven to mark the place of thy predilection on earth, O Mary, a white-robed band of neophytes coming up from the waters formed thy graceful court and enhanced the triumph of that great day. Obtain for them and for us all, O Mother, affections as pure as the white marble columns of thy loved church, charity as bright as the gold glittering on its ceiling, works shining as the Paschal Candle, that symbol of Christ the conqueror of death, which offered thee the homage of its first flames.

1 Pa8siontide, p. 279. Station of Wednesday in Holy Week.