fishermen of Galilee. No sooner has the Holy Ghost done this his work in the soul, than all doubt, all gross ignorance and error, are at an end. The only obscurity left is that of Faith, which, as yet, sees not, but knows,' and possesses,2 by the Spirit, the gifts of God. Man thus renewed, comprehends, as the Apostle assures us, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth, of the teachings of our Emmanuel; for it is Christ himself who, through the Paraclete, dwells in our hearts, and fills them with the fulness of God. 3 St. Cyril admirably developes all this, in the Treatise we have already quoted. Amongst other things, he says, that as the sweet fragrance of a flower which makes itself felt to our senses, seems to be doing nothing else but telling us about the flower itself,so the Holy Spirit, when he leads us to the plenitude of Truth, does nothing else than infuse into us the mystery of Christ. The silent operation of the Paraclete is ever revealing to our mind, and applying to our soul, the power and hidden mysteries of the Incarnation. He is the Spirit of Truth; but what is the Truth, but Christ himself, who, in his person and his perfections dwells, through the Holy Ghost, in holy souls? The Incarnate Word, in his visible presence, has been taken from among us; we are no more to see him, during our sojourn here;' but all this is for no other purpose than to manifest himself to our souls, it is the manifestation the best becoming a God. When, therefore, our Lord tells us, and when his Apostles repeat the announcement,9 that he is going to teach us all things by the Holy Ghost, we must not suppose that he is hereby intending to pass us on to some other Master than himself. 11 Cor. ii. 12. 22 St. Pet. i. 4. 3 • Ibid. 5 St. John, xiv. 17. 7 2 Cor. v. 16. No; according to the promise he made us,' he dwells in pure souls; he reveals himself to them in an unspeakable manner; he, as their Head, directs them in all their ways; only, he does all this by his Spirit. For the Spirit is the author of sanctification; and what is this Sanctification but the transformation of a creature into the Image of Him who saith unto us: Be ye holy, because I the Lord your God am holy?2 Now the Image of God, the one perfect and beautiful Image, the divine Seal which impresses on our souls a likeness of the Father's face,3-this Image, this Seal, is the Eternal Son of that Father. He is the Word of his Father; and that Word, in his sacred Humanity, sanctified himself, together with us, and for us, by annointing, with the Holy Spirit, the temple of his Body. With and by that Spirit, he transforms us, from brightness unto brightness, on the type and model of his sacred Humanity; he is born again and grows in each of us," by the incorporation of the mysteries of his deifying Life. 5 9 Christians! you were made sad, a few days back, on hearing of the speedy departure of your Jesus ;' learn, now, that your sadness must give place to joy, for this Emmanuel of ours, though he has ascended up into heaven, has not left our earth. Jesus Christ yesterday, and to-day, and the same for ever.10 He is the one sole object of the Father's good-pleasure; 11 he is the one sole worthy instrument of God's glory; and being this, he centres into his own unity the divine plan for the sanctification of the elect. So far, then, is the glorious Pentecost from being the separating us from Jesus our divine exemplar and guide, 1 St. John, xiv. 21. 8 S. Cyril Alex. In 11 Johan. lib. i, ix, x, xi; De Trinit. Dial. iv, v; by means of the Coming of the Holy Ghost,-the very contrary is the result; for the Paraclete only came upon this earth, in order that he might make all the closer the union between the Head and the Members; he came, that he might, by Faith and Love, make us one with him, who "Alone is HOLY," as he alone is Lord," and "alone Most High, together with the Father and the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever! 1 3 Now, let us think on what the Church's Liturgy is with regard to all this. We have passed one half of the Church's year; we have had, from Advent, up to this present day, all those several Seasons, or Times, which we have celebrated with her; and what have they all been but so many ascensions (as the Psalmist calls them,2) so many steps, gradually leading up to that summit of perfect justice, where the holiness of Christ's Church has been consummated in UNION. Though an humble daughter of earth, yet did the Son of God, even from the day of eternity, love and desire her beauty. This does not mean, that any single individual of the fallen human family, which had to form the Members of this Bride of Jesus, could ever, of himself, contribute to the Church a loveliness in any way worthy of the King,but it means, that the King himself, Jesus, the Sun of Justice, who had gratuitously set his heart on this his chosen one, had resolved to deck her brow with his own charms. It was by this his own anticipated gratuity, that he found in her that sublime perfection of likeness to the heavenly Father," which, being the essential beauty of the Word himself, was, for that very reason to constitute the sanctity of the favoured race, that his merciful love 'The Hymn Gloria in 3 Jerem. xxxi. 3. excelsis. 2 Ps. lxxxiii. 6. 4 Ps. xliv. 12. 6 St. Matth. v. 48. 7 Wisd. vii. 26. had called to himself from the desert mountains of the Gentiles.1 Thus was to be fully verified that saying of the Apostle, that the Spouse is the image and glory of God, but the Bride is the glory of the Spouse, and that both of them are one, because they both harmonise in the one same divine plan. 3 Yes, the Gentile world, the barrent woman despised by the Synagogue, the black inhabitant of the parched deserts of Ethiopia,5—she is, one day, to be transformed, by grace, into the true daughter of the Father, and become the Bride of his Son. Such an adoption, and such a Nuptial Union, would depend, in part, on the consent of the chosen one; and not only her consent would be required, but she would also have to do something towards her winning her honours, by labouring for them. The Liturgy expresses and achieves all this. First of all, there was the Season of Advent; it was a Time of expectation and struggle; it corresponded to what is called the PURGATIVE WAY; the Son of God was then cleansing the human race from its defilements; he was removing out of her way the obstacles which kept her down. Then followed those rich Seasons of the Church, in which Jesus, the Divine Spouse, offered himself to mankind as their Model, and Light," and Guide, all for the purpose of bringing them up to the divine ideal which they were to reproduce in their own living. It is called the ILLUMINATIVE WAY. During those mystic Seasons, Jesus showed himself to his Church by again treading the royal way of his mysteries. He drew her after him in the fragrance of his footsteps,10 from Bethlehem to the Jordan; from Mount Quarantine to the Cross on Calvary's top, and thence to the glorious Sepulchre. In each stage 8 of his life's mysteries, he so deeply imprinted on the Church the divine likeness of his Sacred Humanity, that she stood before him as the new Eve, taken out of the Man-God, and formed of his substance.1 The Lord God, the Eternal Father is rejoiced that the new Adam is no longer alone; he has found the helper like unto himself, which neither earth nor heaven had been able to give Him. The first Adam did not so ardently love her whom he declared to be flesh of his flesh, as the Word did that glorious Church, his Bride, who hath neither spot nor wrinkle, but is all beautiful with his holiness upon her. She has no life of her own; the only life she can henceforth_possibly live is the life of her divine Spouse. That Life has been worked into her by the stupendous power of the Mysteries celebrated by her in the previous Seasons of the divine Liturgy;-let Pentecost come, let the breath of the sanctifying Spirit make itself felt upon her, and Jesus and his Church will be one spirit, one body. The departure of the Man-God in his triumphant Ascension,7 was not an abandonment of his Church. On the contrary: desirous to accomplish the mystery of divine Union with her, which had been so long in preparation, he returned as the Psalmist expresses it, on the wings of the winds,8 to that sanctuary of the Godhead where, from the Father and the Son, there proceeds the Third Person, the Spirit of love. Yes, he had ascended into heaven, that he might send this Spirit upon the children of men, and send him directly from his eternal source.9 6 That Spirit came down ; the annals of holy Church then began their course on earth, for it was then alone, thanks to the permanent and intimate Union of 1 Gen. ii. 23. 2 Ibid. 18-20. Eph. v. 25-27. 4 1 Cor. xi. 8, 9. 6 Eph. i. 23. 7 Cantic. viii. 14. 8 Ps. ciii. 3. 9 St. John, xvi. 7. |