poor Tabernacles draped with a little piece of the most common stuff, and Chalices so mean, into which Thy Precious Blood is received, that it was painful to see them. A person only in moderate circumstances, would be ashamed to use such a cup at table, and we hear it said that there2 — 2
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are not sufficient means to help the adorable Jesus in the extreme poverty to which He has reduced Himself, by His own Will and through His boundless Love ; yet the rich people of the world are served with silver and other precious things.
Again, the greater number of our poor people in the country have clean and neat linen ; it is only Thou, O my dear Lord and my God, who art reduced to such poverty. Ah ! my heart, what ought we to think of this ? If we were not so hardhearted, we should weep tears of blood, we should cry out incessantly against this behaviour of creatures towards their Creator.
I confess and declare, in the sight of heaven and earth, that my heart must be hardness itself, not to be consumed with love at the sight of this precious love of God. A good and noble heart that loved its Master could no longer exist, it would speedily die of love and sorrow at seeing so loving and so generous a God so little loved, in spite of all His favours.
Truly, truly, this mystery of Love is fearful, and what account shall we have to give of it on the day we are judged ? O rich ! O poor ! I have only one word to say to you. Ye rich ones, weep and howl in the midst of your riches, according to the words of Holy Scripture : be confounded with shame at the sight of a God so poor ! Ye poor, be consoled ; be full of holy joy at being like unto your Saviour ! Let every Christian admit that poverty must be good, because it is so tenderly loved by the God of Love.
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NINTH MOTIVE.
JESUS IS VERY OBEDIENT IN THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT.
Ego autem non contradico. — I do not resist. (Isaias 1. 5.)
Let man rebel against God, let creatures renounce the dependence they owe their Creator, let them disobey His commandments, but Jesus, for love of them, will obey all and put Himself into the power of men without resistance. As soon as the Priest has said four words, behold ! He leaves the bosom of His (Father, yet without departing from Him, to put Himself into the hands of His Priest ; placing Himself under his control without limit of time or place; for it is not God who fixes the hour to the Priest, but He comes at the time named by him with such an extraordinary punctuality, that He has never once missed doing so for ages.
The Scripture teaches us that He was obedient to the Most Holy Virgin and to her virginal Spouse, Saint Joseph ; this rejoices all holy souls and overcomes them with Divine Love. But here are other marvels in the Most Blessed Sacrament ; He obeys as many Priests as there are in the world, as many as there have been since the Law of. Grace, and as many as there will be until the end of the world. When He is beneath the consecrated sacramental species, He faithfully remains there without ever being weary : He allows His Priests to carry Him
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whither they will, from Altar to Altar, to the houses of the sick, in procession in the streets : Ego autetn non contradico. He does this with such great obedience, that He never resists man ; He gives Himself up absolutely into the hands of His frail creature. Obediente Deo voci hominis, is written in the old Law. God therefore obeys man through love : and will not love make man obey God ?
We must here meditate at leisure on the causes which lead us to disobey God's commands, so that we may make great and efficacious resolutions to follow the rules, Divine Goodness has prescribed for us ; but we must consider well what we have just said, that our resolutions may be stronger. If these truths are well weighed, we shall have no more difficulty in obeying, not God only, but also, for the love of Him, all creatures to whom He has given authority over us.
TENTH MOTIVE.
JESUS LEAVES ALL IN THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT.
Ego autetn sum vermis, et non homo: opprobrium hominum et abjectio plebis. — I am a worm, and no man : the reproach of men. and the outcast of the people. — (Psalm xxi. 7.)
As Jesus is in the Most Holy Sacrament, He is there in His Divine Nature, and consequently with all possible greatness; but His Glory, infinite as it is, is so entirely concealed, that if one were to judge from appearances, it seems as if there were nothing
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present but a mean piece of bread ! Vere tu es Deus dbsconditus. Verily, we must confess, now or never, that the God whom we adore is a Hidden God, as He divests Himself of all marks of His Godhead.
Heis all-powerful, but under the sacramental species, He is all-weak ; it is He who gives motion to all things, but here He does not move. He is the Uncreated Word, the Eternal Word, and He utters not a word. We may even be guilty of insolence in His Divine Presence, by our discourses and postures, or by evil glances, yet He seems not to perceive it. O my God, to what has love reduced Thee ? We might even say that He has made Himself like unto those idols of which the Psalmist says, they have eyes and see not, they have ears and hear not, they have hands and handle not.
There is no sign of life discernible in the Consecrated Host, and to the senses there is no difference between one that is consecrated and another which is not. If, in the manger, God's love is bound by the swathing bands that are wrapped round Him, He is still at liberty to sigh ; whilst on the Cross, He speaks and has the use of His Sacred Eyes, but this is not the case in the Divine Eucharist. If, at least, He appeared in It under the semblance of an Angel, or some other noble creature, He would obtain the reverence of men; but He is united, not to an intellectual creature, not to a substance, but to the appearance of a crumb of bread and a drop of wine. He
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places Himself at times in so small a fragment of the Sacred Host, that it is scarcely perceptible to the eye of His creatures. Behold Him then, apparently stripped of all the greatness of His Divinity ! No Human Person is found there, the Sacred Humanity subsisting only in the Divine Person. It is love makes Him leave all things. The Great All leaves everything for nothingness.
After that, shall we miserable beings, in our nothingness, have the courage to reserve anything to ourselves ?
Earth has nothing really great ; but, even if it were full of earthly grandeurs, we ought justly to despise them in comparison with our dear Lord. O, how rare is it to find a heart that truly loves this Divine Lover of men ! If it be natural in real love to leave all for the loved one, it must be said that there are few who love, because there are few who know how to leave creatures for love of Jesus.
Some are attached to gold and silver, others to the pleasures of the senses; some are kept from loving God by the esteem they have for the world, and what people will say of them ; others by the love of some frail creature. You will see some who cannot overcome the love they have for their body ; men who cannot give up good cheer, delicate dishes, delicious wines; women who pass great part of their lives in dressing, talking about dress and their head-gear. O God! what conversation for people who hope to live in eternity!
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There are some who are caught in more wily traps ; people who pride themselves on a brilliant intellect, who use every effort to have elevated and sublime
