CHRIST, THE COMFORTER OF YOUR SOUL.

"The Lord, therefore, will comfort Sion, and will comfort all the ruins thereof, and He will make her desert, as a place of pleasure." (Isa. 51:3)

I.

Christ says in the Gospel of today: "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man shall take from you." (John 16:22) Reflect how numerous are "the afflictions of the just" (Ps. 33:20) from within and without; how vain and empty are all the pleasures of the world; and that no solid comfort can be found, except in God, and in the pursuit of heavenly things. Hence our Lord is pronounced by St. Paul, to be "the God of all consolation, who comforteth us in all our tribulations." (2. Cor. 1:3)

II.

In the Eucharist, Christ is properly the comforter of the afflicted. Therefore David sings: "Thou hast prepared a table before me, against them that afflict me; and my chalice, which inebriateth me, how goodly it is!" (Ps. 22:5) The Eucharist is an ocean overflowing with spiritual delight, inebriating the mind with ineffable sweetness. "Thou hast visited the earth and hast plentifully watered it, Thou hast many ways enriched it.'" (Ps. 64:10) If it does not enrich you, the reason must be because you do not bring with you proper dispositions.

III.

The necessary dispositions to enjoy the delights of this spiritual banquet are: 1. A sincere grief for your past sins; for "according to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, Thy comforts have given joy to any soul." (Ps. 93:19) 2. You must feel an aversion to the follies and vanities of this world, and must hunger and thirst after spiritual things. Hence our Lord says, by the mouth of Jeremiah: "I have inebriated the weary soul,, and I have filled every hungry soul." (Jer. 31:25) Approach, then, with confidence, "that ye may suck and be filled with the breasts of her consolation." (Is. 55:11)

THE BENEFIT OF CREATION. I.

I.

What were you before God created you? Nothing. And you would always have remained so had not God, out of mere goodness, without any merits of yours, given you existence. From among millions of possible beings, He selected you. After having decreed to give you a being, He might have given you any other form than that which you possess. There was nothing to prevent Him from placing you among the works of inanimate or irrational nature. "Cannot I do with you as the potter O house of Israel, saith the Lord; behold, as clay is in the hand of the potter, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel." (Jer. 18:6)

II.

That God has given you a rational soul is a second benefit. Ponder the excellence of this soul of yours. It is a pure spirit, like the Angels and God Himself. Learn, then, that the nature of your soul requires that you should seek spiritual things, and not attach yourself so miserably as you do to corporal pleasures and transitory goods. This soul of yours is by its own nature immortal, and cannot be destroyed by any created power and will not be destroyed by the Creator. As you are immortal by nature, take care that you be so by grace; for sin is the death of the soul.

III.

God has endowed this soul with many noble faculties, chiefly the memory, the understanding, and the will. Your free-will renders you supreme master of your own actions. Reflect what returns you can make to the great Creator for such favors. At least return Him these faculties without spot or blemish, and beware lest you suffer the reproach: "Thou hast forsaken the God who begot thee, and hast forgotten the Lord who created thee." (Deut. 32:18)

THE BENEFIT OF CREATION. II.

I.

Wonderful combinations and perfections are discoverable in the composition of your body. "Thy hands have made me," exclaimed the enraptured Job, "and fashioned me wholly round about." (Job 10:8) Observe with what variety of members and senses God has furnished your body. They are all adapted to the convenience of each other, and of the whole body. Everything is disposed in its proper place, so that there is nothing wanting in this stupendous fabric, nothing superfluous. Hence David cries out: "Thou hast formed me and hast laid Thy hand upon me. Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me; it is high, and I cannot reach it." (Ps. 138:5) That is, as St. Basil explains it: "In the structure of my body Thy knowledge is magnificently displayed, and I cannot reach it."

II.

Every member of your body is a particular and distinct favor of God. Reflect how wretched you would be had you been born blind, deaf, or dumb. How grateful you would be to the man who should restore to you the use of any one of your limbs it you had lost it! How much more grateful, then, ought you to be to God for having given them to you whole and entire! Take care that you do not abuse any of them to the displeasure and dishonor of their Creator, "by yielding them to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, but yield them to serve justice unto sanctification." (Rom. 6:19)

III.

How just it is that He who created you entirely should likewise entirely possess you. For "Who," asks the Apostle, "planteth a vineyard and eateth not of the fruit thereof?" (1 Cor. 9:7) God has planted you as a choice vine in his vineyard; yield Him, therefore, the fruits of piety, charity, patience, and every Christian virtue. "All that you possess," writes St. Bernard, "you owe to Him from whom you have received it."

THE BENEFIT OF PRESERVATION. I.

I.

By creation, God gave you yourself but once; but by preservation, He does the same every moment of your life. Unless He preserved you, you would immediately fall into your original non-existence. The noon-beam has not so strict a dependence on the sun as you have on God. The man who is held by another from a high tower over a deep precipice, every moment in danger of falling, would not be so daringly mad as to revile and insult the man who held him. So ought you not to dare to insult God, who holds your thread of mortal existence in His hand.

II.

As you cannot live without God, so you cannot exercise any action of life without His immediate concurrence. Without this, you cannot even move your hand, open your eyes, or utter a word; "for in Him," exclaimed St. Paul, "we live, and we move, and we are." (Acts 17:28) Hence, St. Augustine thus expressed his gratitude: "You place me under obligations to you, O Lord, every moment, because every moment you bestow great benefits on me."

III.

God does not merely preserve your life, but guards it from innumerable evils and miseries which others suffer. Thus, the miseries of others constitute your benefit. Ask yourself: Why you are not, like many others, blind, deaf, dumb, lame, or oppressed with a thousand diseases and infirmities? Why have you not, like so many others, been slain or met with accidental death? God has hitherto delivered you from all these misfortunes, in order that you, being grateful for so many favors, "might serve Him without fear, in holiness and justice before Him, all your days." (Luke 1:74)

THE BENEFIT OF PRESERVATION. II.

I.

As your preserver, God has not only removed evils from you, as we have already seen, but, acting the part of a most indulgent parent, He has provided you most abundantly with every necessary and convenience. His hands have furnished this lower world for you as a temporary habitation; He has enlightened it with the sun, moon, and stars for your benefit and delight, and has stored it with living animals for your use. In fine, whatever you admire on the surface of the earth or below it, whatever ranges on it or swims in the sea, or inhabits the regions of the air, are all yours. "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen; moreover, the beasts also of the fields, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea, which pass through the paths of the sea." (Ps. 8:5, 8) "If there be such delight in the earth, which is man's prison-house," exclaims St. Augustine, "what must there be in our future palace?"

II.

Not content with having provided all these things for you, God condescends to concur with creatures for your advantage. In the fire, He warms you; He enlightens you in the sun; in the air, He refreshes you; and He feeds you in your food. Say, therefore, with St. Augustine: "As there is no hour or moment, O Lord, in which I do not enjoy your benefits, so ought there to be no moment in which you are not present before my eyes by remembrance, and in which I do not love you with all my strength."

III.

God has bestowed other benefits on you that belong to the mind. Such are good education, parental care, the counsel and example of the virtuous, the endowments of knowledge, the conveniences of life, perhaps with little labor of yours, which others have to obtain with the sweat of their brow, and sometimes at the imminent danger of losing their souls. Say with the Psalmist: "What shall I render to the Lord for all the things that He hath rendered to me?" (Ps. 115:3) He desires nothing in return but yourself. "My son," He says, "give Me thy heart." (Prov. 23:26)

THE BENEFIT OF REDEMPTION. I.

I.

In order that you may the better understand the extent of this benefit, reflect how miserable you would be were you to become a slave to some cruel tyrant, who should force you to endure perpetual imprisonment, hunger, and thirst, and frequent scourges. Remember what the children of Israel suffered in their Egyptian bondage and their captivity at Babylon. Reflect what you would have to suffer were you enslaved by some unfeeling Turkish despot, and what would you not give for your ransom?

II.

The slavery of sin is far more severe than this. Sin enslaves us to the devil, as St. Paul observes (2 Tim. 2:26), and renders us subject to the torments of hell. We were all thus enslaved, and there were no means by which we could be delivered from this tyranny, had not the only begotten Son of God descended from heaven and undertaken to atone for our sins, and deliver us from this cruel bondage. We owe this benefit to Him "who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity." (Tit. 2:14)

III.

Christ did not do this for His own advantage, or because He had any need of us. "Thou art my God," says David, "for Thou hast no need of my goods." (Ps. 15:2) He did not act thus from any deserts of ours, which then neither were nor could be any, but from His own mere goodness and mercy. "In His love and in His mercy," says Isaiah, "He redeemed them, and lifted them up all the days of old." (Is. 63:9) Who would not love so loving a Lord, and surrender himself entirely to that Being, without whose assistance he would have been entirely lost?

THE BENEFIT OF REDEMPTION. II.

I.

The manner in which Christ redeemed you from the slavery of sin was most efficacious. The Royal Prophet might well tell the world that "with Him there is plentiful redemption." (Ps. 129:7) By His absolute power, He might have remitted all sin without assuming human nature; but if He did choose to unite His divinity to human nature, He might have satisfied the rigor of His Father's justice by the least suffering after His incarnation. But your Redeemer suffered so much in order that "where sin abounded, grace" also might "abound more." (Rom. 5:20) He wished also to leave you a perfect example, "that you should follow His steps." (1 Pet. 2:21)

II.

Christ suffered in every scene of His life. His pains commenced in the manger, and they were continued in His circumcision, and during His flight into Egypt. He suffered from hunger and thirst, and cold and nakedness. During His Passion, He was scourged at the pillar, crowned with thorns, and nailed to an ignominious cross. He suffered all this for His enemies, that is, for all sinners. Who ever suffered so much for his friends? Hence the Church, unable to restrain her feelings of gratitude and admiration, gives vent to them in the enthusiastic words, on the eve of Easter: "O happy fault, which deserved to have such and so great a Redeemer."

III.

What return ought you to make to such a Redeemer? Ask yourself, with St. Bernard: "If I owe my whole self to God for having been created, what more shall I add for having been restored, and restored, too, in such a manner? For I was not so easily restored as created." Consider yourself henceforward as the servant of Jesus Christ. Thank Him for the favor He has bestowed on you, and surrender yourself entirely to His service. Reflect often on the admonition of the Apostle: "You are bought with a great price; glorify and bear God in your body." (1 Cor. 6:20)