Finally, I would provide you with a plan which you may adopt in meditating on the foregoing subjects, for fear that you might attempt to run through the whole at once, and be in consequence overwhelmed with the great weight of it. These meditations ought to occupy the space of one week, entirely given to them.
You must know, then, that it is sufficient to meditate on the actions of our Lord, and the circumstances, as they are given in the Gospel history, rendering yourself present at the scenes, as if you actually saw and heard all that actually passed, or which naturally occurs to you as likely to have happened. It is not necessary that you should introduce into your meditation every moral reflection or authority which I may have brought forward, unless they seem to you to bear clearly upon the virtue you are seeking to embrace, and the vice you are striving to abjure. You may choose, rather, some quiet time for these meditations, late in the day, when you may be able to learn my reflections and quotations, and to commit them to memory. It is fitting that you should thus make use of them ; for they are very beautiful, and calculated to instruct you in your whole spiritual life.
You may divide the meditations in the following manner. On Monday, you may go as far as the Flight into Egypt, and stop there. On Tuesday, continue your meditations to the Opening of the Book in the Synagogue. On Wednesday, go on to the ministry of Mary and Martha. On Thursday, from that point pursue the history to the Passion. On Friday and Saturday, to the Resurrection. On the Sunday, take the Resurrection, and continue to the end. Thus, by going through these meditations weekly, you would become familiar with them; and the longer this custom be continued, the more readily will they come to your hand, and the greater will be the sweetness you will derive from them.
Thus, hold converse gladly with the Lord Jesus, and after the example of the blessed Cecilia, strive ever to keep His Life laid up in your heart.
But it is time to seal this book, but not with my own words ; it must be concluded by drawing again our nourishment from S. Bernard, from whom we have already gathered flowers, so many and so fair. The conclusion shall be in His Name, Who is the sealed Book, our Lord Jesus Christ, to whose praise the whole book is written. Thus S. Bernard says of that Blessed Name, “‘Thy Name is as ointment poured forth.,1 There is, doubtless, a likeness between oil and the Name of the Spouse, else the Holy Spirit would not have compared them together. There are three properties of oil, in all of which I trace a resemblance to the effects of the Name of the Spouse : oil gives light, food, and unction, unless you have any better explanation to offer; it feeds the fire, it nourishes the flesh, it soothes pain ; it is for light, food, and medicine. Now, see the same in the Name of the Spouse : when preached, it gives light ; when meditated upon, it gives food ; when invoked, it softens and is as unction. Let us glance at each of these effects in particular. Whence, think you, throughout the world, did such a sudden and so clear a light of faith spring forth, except from the preaching of the Name of Jesus? Was it not by the light of this Name that God called us ‘into His marvellous light’?2 To those who had been illumined, and in this Light had seen light, did not S. Paul rightly say, Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the world’?”3 And again, “Nor is the Name of Jesus only light, but it is also food. Do you not feel that you gain strength from it, as often as you call it to mind ? What is there which nourishes the soul that muses on it, like this Name? What so repairs our wearied senses, strengthens our virtues, transforms our character, and feeds all pure affections ? Dry is all food of the soul, if it is not mixed with oil ; all is insipid, if it be not seasoned with salt When you write, I have no pleasure, unless I read the Name of Jesus therein. If you dispute or confer, I have no interest in your labours, unless the sound of Jesus’ Name be therein. Jesus is honey in the mouth, music in the ear, joy in the heart ; yes, and medicine also. Is any of you sad ? let Jesus come into his heart, and flow thence from his lips. Behold, the very dawn of that Name is light, and chases every cloud away, and brings the clear sky 1 Has any fallen into grievous sin, does he run towards the deadly snare of despair? let him call on the Name of Jesus, and immediately his life will revive. Who ever could stand before this saving Name, and still resist its power, and remain in hardness of heart, deadness of sloth, rancour of mind, and languor of lukewarmness ? Who, when the fount of tears perchance refused to flow, by invoking the Name of Jesus, did not find them issue forth anew with great abundance, and flow more sweetly ? Who, when trembling and fearing in the presence of danger, ever failed to recover confidence, and banish alarm, by calling on this Name of power? Who, I pray you, when tossed and wavering with doubts, ever called upon this Name of light, without at once attaining the clearness of certitude ? Who, when on the verge of distrust in adversity, ever heard the accents of that Name, without gaining back his fortitude? Indeed, the Name of Jesus is the medicine of all these diseases and infirmities of the soul. Let me briefly prove this.4 Call upon Me,’ says He, ‘ in the time of trouble ; so will I hear thee, and thou shalt praise Me. 11 There is nothing like the Name of Jesus for restraining anger, assuaging the swellings of pride, healing the wound of envy, restraining the course of wantonness, quenching the flame of lust, moderating the thirst of covetousness, and putting to flight all lasciviousness. For when I name Jesus, I set before myself the image of the Man, meek and lowly, kind of heart, sober, chaste, merciful, peerless in purity and holiness, and at the same time, the Almighty God, who heals by His example, and strengthens us by His help. When the Name of Jesus is uttered by me, this is the Form which rises up before my mind. From His Humanity, then, I take Him as my Example ; from His Divinity, I take Him for my help : the two form to me a sort of compound, the one imparting to the other a certain piquancy, and of both I make for myself a confection, more healing than any remedy of the physicians. This is thy electuary, O my soul, contained in the little vessel, as it were, of the Holy Name. Jesus is, indeed, a Name of Salvation ; no plague so virulent, but that this Name can cure thee of it. Let it be ever in thy memory, ever in thy hand, so that all thy senses and actions may be directed towards Jesus. How art thou invited ! — * Set Me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm.,5 But this I will treat elsewhere. Here, then, now you find whence you may be healed, both in your hand and heart You have, then, in the Name of Jesus, the means of correcting what is bad, and perfecting what is lacking ; a preservative of your senses from corruption, a restoration, if already corrupted.”6 And again, “How fair art Thou to Thy angels, O Lord Jesus, in the Form of God, in the day of Thine Eternity, in the splendours of Thy Saints, Whose birth is before the morningstar, the Brightness and Image of the Substance of the Father, the perpetual and cloudless Brightness of Eternal Life ! How fair art Thou, my Lord, even in the very surrender of this Thy Beauty ! For verily Thou didst empty Thyself when Thou didst lay aside the natural Radiance of Thy unfailing glory ; then did Thy goodness become more conspicuous ; then did Thy love shine out with greater brilliancy ; then did Thy grace in copious streams flow forth from Thee. How dear to me, Star of Jacob, in Thy rising !7 How bright, Thou Flower from the root of Jesse !8 How sweet the light with which Thou didst visit me, when I sat in darkness, O Dayspring from on high ! How lovely, how marvellous, Thy Heavenly Power! In Thy Conception of the Holy Ghost, in Thy Birth of the Virgin, in the innocency of Thy Life, in the rivers of Thy Doctrine, in the coruscations of Thy miracles, in the revelations of Thy Sacraments ! How red in Thy setting, Thou Sun of Righteousness, how glorious in Thy apparel, when rising out of the heart of the earth ! At last, O King of Glory, the highest heavens receive Thee. And how, in the presence of so many marvels, shall not my bones say,9 O Lord, who is like unto Thee ? * Such, I think, must have been the affections with which the spouse gazed upon her Beloved, when she exclaimed, ‘ Behold, Thou art fair, my Love; behold, Thou art fair.’ 4 Nor with such thoughts only as these, but with others also which are above our con ception, as she caught sight of a Higher Beauty which is beyond the reach of our vision, and of which we have no experience. By the very repetition of the exclamation, Thou art fair,’ is represented the twofold Beauty, Human and Divine .”10 Thus far S. Bernard. Thanks be to God, Who liveth for ever and ever. Amen.