1. Introd.—This is the greatest day of the year, because it is the day on which our Lord rose from the dead. He said while He died on the Cross, ‘Consummatum est’—‘It is finished,’ and in the Resurrection we behold the fruit of His ‘finishing.’
2. (1) The miracle itself—and this special, because without corruption; others [who were miraculously raised to life] died again. (2) Next it is a reverse after a sorrowful week. (3) It was a conquest of the foe. (4) It was the exaltation of our nature.
3. But further, it gives us a great lesson, never to despair. There are two worlds, and nothing which we see in this world images to us what is going on in the next.
4. This world runs by laws. All things go on as at the beginning of the Creation. The sun rises and sets; and so human affairs. They thought by killing Him to have stamped out religion.
5. And so now—the political world, commercial, scientific; telescopes, calculations, ships, etc., etc.—but another world going on too. This world a veil.
6. The mass of men only see this world. Each man enters in this world with hopes for a career, etc., etc. Not wrong in minding this world, but in not minding the next. Their view of life.
7. The flood; ‘marrying and giving in marriage’—but another world too.
8. We walk by faith, not by sight.
9. Therefore acts of faith, hope and charity.
10. Therefore attending Mass, in which the whole mystery of redemption, atonement, resurrection, etc., [is set forth].
11. Let us thank God for giving us eyes, and pray Him to give others eyes too, for He died for all.
Perhaps no laws in heaven, but every act from God’s personality; and each perfect in itself, so that we could not reason from one to the other 1.
June 6 (Third Pentecost) The Sacred Heart
1. Introd.—Many devotions in Holy Church. This is one which has spread of late years, more, I may say, than any other. Today is the special feast of it; and [this] leads me to explain in what it consists.
2. Our Lord is One. He is the one God. He took on Him a manhood, a body and soul; that body from Mary. Still, He was one, not two—one, as each of us is one.
3. We too, in our way, are each of us one, though we are two—soul and body—and the body has parts; [nevertheless] each of us is one. This is what is meant by speaking of our Lord’s [oneness] as we speak of our own.
4. And though each of us is thus composite, we can love each other as one, though of so many parts. And in like manner, though our Lord is God and man, with a soul [and body], we can contemplate Him as one, and worship, love Him as one.
5. Further, if I said I loved the face, or the smile, or liked to take the hand of my father or mother, it would be because I loved them. And so, when I speak of the separate portions of our Lord’s human frame, I really am worshipping Him. So in the Blessed Sacrament we do not conceive of His Body and Blood as separate from Him.
6. Devotions at various times [and ages]—the Wounds, the Blood, the Face—and in like manner the Heart. We worship [each] as Him, as that One Person who is God and man; we worship [Him] by the memento, the pledge of His Heart.
7. Why? The Heart a symbol—so the Wounds and the Blood. [In contrast with these] a symbol is sometimes that which [only] expresses and reminds—thus water, oil, wine, bread.
8. What is the Heart the symbol of?—of His love, His affection for us, so that He suffered for us—the agony in the garden.
9. Moreover, of His love in the Holy Eucharist.
10. The Heart was the seat, first, of His love for us; secondly, of His many griefs and sorrows.
[The following were appended, apparently as alternatives:]
7. Of two things especially to remind us now, when the world is so strong—His power and His love. He will overcome by love.
8. The Heart is the emblem of His love—in worshipping It we worship Him.
Christmas Day [Christmas Joy]
1. Almighty God condescends to be represented in human language as hoping, fearing, suffering disappointment, repenting, feeling anger, etc. But there are two human feelings and affections which may be predicated of Him, not in the way of figure, but proprie—joy and love; of course I mean as being perfectly free from human passion.
2. Of the two great festive seasons of Easter and Pentecost [on the one hand], and Christmas [on the other], Easter, with the fifty days of Pentecost, is the season of love, Christmas of joy.
3. I need hardly say so—our churches, our altars are dressed up as token of our joy—and our houses, according to our opportunity—and we meet together for social enjoyment, and to provide festive meals and entertainments of various kinds for the poor and for children. And all this, of course, is right, and is the proper token of our faith and hope, of our Christian joy. It is, I say, the season of joy, and therefore it is fitting that we should exhibit these signs of our being full of joy.
4. But a warning needs to be given. It is quite possible, rather, alas! it is not uncommon, for men to stop at, to get no further than the outward signs. Nay, I may say that it is quite plain in a country like this, in a place like this we may—nay, we do—content ourselves with rejoicings which are temporal, earthly, visible, without going at all to what is the real reason, after all, for those external signs. All around us men are doing so, and thus we are led to do as they do.
5. Therefore most necessary to recollect that there are two sorts of joy, earthly or outward, heavenly or inward, and that we may easily place the former in the place of the latter.
6. We shall understand best what the true joy is by what is told us in Scripture of the first Christmas. If that joy really consisted in anything external, joy could not have been there. (1) Go through the journey to Bethlehem—winter—slow journey—lagging behind—no room in the inn, as the inn was full, doubtless the stable also—caravanserai—the stable, etc. State of the stable—not like our stables, neat and clean. This is what the shepherds found. They themselves had a hard time of it, watching their flock by night, but they came to a worse place; not so cold, but less like a home. Yet, I say, they rejoiced. Contrast of Herod in his palace close by. (2) The angels sang ‘Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will’; and the angel said to the shepherds, ‘Behold, I bring you tidings of great joy,’ and the shepherds returned ‘rejoicing’: and Mary [in] the Magnificat at an earlier time shows her thoughts. Yet what were the outward circumstances?
7. Paragraph in newspaper: ‘Somehow Christmas festivities fall flat when one has grown up.’ The shepherds, etc., rejoiced even in [the midst of] their own outward discomfort and hardships; but men of the world cannot lastingly rejoice even in the midst of their good things. Oh how this shames our delicacy, our desire of comfort, etc.! Of course we may thankfully take what God gives us; but at least, while we rejoice in these gifts, let us not forget to let our inward spiritual rejoicing keep pace with our external.
8. Let us recollect the apostle’s words. [Perhaps the preacher quoted here from the epistle read at the first mass of Christmas: ‘The grace of God our Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us that, denying ungodliness and worldly desires, we should live soberly, and justly, and godly, in this world; looking for the blessed hope, and coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.’—Titus ii. 11-13.]