Part 2, lesson 14. How often we should unite ourselves tc ths Spirit of Jesus Christ during prayer

Q. Can you tell me how often we should unite ourselves, when praying, to our Saviour and his Holy Spirit?

A. We should unite ourselves to the Holy Spirit in the begin ning, and at least in each part of our meditation; also, when we feel our soul in a state of dryness, obscurity, arid interior desolation. In solemn prayer, we must renew our union to the divine Spirit, as often as the church commands.

Q. What! does the church command us to do so ? 1 thought this was a new method of pray ing.

A. No ; Far from me ever to advance any thing new in matters of religion; this practice was always in use, both in the Latin and Greek churches, as I will show you.

If you ever assisted at the office of Matins, you may have observed that, in the very be ginning, the priest addressing our Lord, says in a loud voice: "O Lord, thou wilt open my lips," to which the Choir ans wers: "and my mouth shall declare thy praise."* As if he said : Lord, come and open my lips, that we may praise thee, not being able to do it by our selves. Immediately after, to testify that it is not in his own spirit, but in the Spirit of Christ that he praises God, he addres ses himself to the Father, beg ging him to consider Christ, our help and assistance, our prayer and host of praise, and not our selves; then he addresses Christ himself in these words, 0 Lord, make haste to help me.t Thus

• Domine, labia mea aperies; et os meum annuntiabit laudein tuam. Ps. i, 17.

f Deus, in adjutorium meum intende ; Domine, ad adjuvandum me, festina, Ps. Ixix, 2.

the church in the beginning of her prayers, invokes the Spirit of her Spouse to come to her assistance, and seems to apply to him those amorous words of the Apocalypse: The Spirit and the bride say come. And he that heareth, let him say come . . . come, Lord Jesus.*

Then all together bow pro foundly, saying: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the holy Ghost. In the Greek church, the officiating clergy man goes and bows three times before the image of our Lord, arid three times before that of the

*Spiritus et sponsa dicunt : Veni; et qui audit, dicat : Veni . . . Veni, Domine Jesu. Apoc. xxii, 17.

blessed Virgin, acknowledging hereby his incapacity to pray by himself, and uniting with our Lord, to glorify by him the di vine majesty.

To enter into the spirit of the church upon this point, whenever the Glory be to the Father is said, and the clergy bow towards the blessed Sacra ment, you will endeavor to do, in your heart, with feeling of the liveliest devotion, what the priests do exteriorly. You will then unite yourself to our Lord, humble yourself profoundly be fore him, and protest to him that you are unworthy of praising him, and that, as he alone is the living and true praise of the holy Trinity, he alope can glorify it worthily.

Q. Is it for this reason that the Our Father and the Hail Mary are said in the begin ning of the Office ?

A. Yes; it is to unite our selves to the interior of our Lord, in his quality of the me diator of the prayer of the Church, and to that of his most holy Mother. The reason of it is, that religion is founded upon two points; the one consists in adoring the Father, the other in glorifying the Son. Reli gion having these two objects, v/e must have two mediators. To praise God in himself and in his works, we have then recourse to Christ, the mediator of OUT praise. To honor Christ in his person and in his mysteries, we have recourse to the most holy Virgin, our mediatrix with her divine Son, whose prayers will be much more acceptable to him, than ours would.

Admire the wisdom of God in the mystery of the Incarna tion. The humanity of Christ, filled with the gifts of the Holy 8pirit, was like an august tem ple, in which the divinity wished to be honored; wherever the sacred humanity of our Lord was, upon earth, there also God found his heaven, his paradise, his glory. But the humanity of Christ deserving likewise praise, honor, arid glory, God prepared for it a temple infinitely more magnificent, than that of Solomon in which it might re ceive the tribute of homage, to which it was so justly entitled. This temple is the blessed Virgin. She followed her divine Son throughout all the mysteries of his life, to praise and glorify him in herself, as the priests of the old law followed every where the ark of alliance. That most holy Virgin, having received all the graces and virtues necessary to honor perfectly the humanity of the Saviour, seems peculiarly adapted to act as our mediatrix with God, in regard to the duties we owe to the sacred humanity of her divine SOIL. If then, after saying the Our Father, be fore commencing the Office, the church adds to it the Hail Mary, it is to induce us to unite our selves also with the holy interior of that most blessed Mother.

Q. Did our Saviour and his apostles command the first christians to unite themselves to the blessed Virgin ?

A. They did not do it ex pressly, our Lord being prin cipally intent upon making his Father known, and the apos tles upon making known our Lord Jesus Christ, to establish the Christian religion, of which he was the foundation. But after them, the holy Fathers recommended it very strongly. Here is what St. Ambrose, one of the most illustrious doctors of the Latin Church says upon this subject: "Let the Soul of Mary be in each of us, to glorify the Lord; let the Spirit of Mary be in each of us, to re joice in God".* I shall only quote this passage of St. Am brose; but in him you have the whole church, who always held this holy doctor in the highest esteem.

Q. The Jlpostle's Creed is also recited in the beginning

§ Sit in fungulis Mariae anirna, at magnified Doininum; sit in singulis spiritus Mariae, ul exultet in Deo. In Luc. lib. ii, n. 26.

of the office; what is the reason of it?

A. It is to recall, in a few words, to the minds of the faith ful the principal works of the Father and of the Son, and the true object of our praise. I shall add here that an excellent means to recite the psalms well, is to unite ourselves to the spirit, intentions, and interior, of the holy Prophet who composed them.