engender even in him, who was persuaded fully to betray, a wholesome determination." Thus he says, sifting Satan's thoughts as wheat. And St. Leo not otherwise, but even more eloquently, observes : 'You ought to have waited, Judas, for the consummation of your crime, and have put off the disgraceful death by the halter, till the Blood of Christ had been shed for all sinners. Then, when so many miracles of the Lord, so many gifts, were torturing your conscience, at all events you would have been called back from your precipice by those Sacraments, which, when detected in your perfidy by the signal divine knowledge furnished, you had received at the paschal supper. What made What made you diffident of his goodness, who had not repelled you from the communion of his Body and Blood? who, when you came with a multitude and a troop of armed men to seize him, denied not to you the kiss of peace"? Here we see these two great Fathers represent the might of the Blessed Sacrament, as being the dread of Satan, and as having a power to convert, long after, even Judas himself. Judas was probably hanging dead at the time that Jesus was dying on the Cross and Mary, who saw in him a type of all those who irreverently or sacrilegiously treat so great a Sacrament, would have in St. John, who drew from it strength and love, a source of comfort. Had he held his peace like the friends of Job, when first they came to him, still the very presence of such a saint would itself be to her a well-spring of consolation, if at any time she chose to stop in the midst of her ocean of desolation, and drink the stream of that comfort, which (like the fresh water springs said to be found in some parts of the sea) her Son had provided for her in St. John. Leo, Serm. liv. §. 3.

In Joan. p. 743. d.

15. But it may be said, that if our Lady had been so long under the Cross, she must have gained some drops of that sacred Blood upon her clothes, which, being one with God, was enough to solace her: and therefore the ministry of St. John was unnecessary. This, however, is easily retorted: for when her soul was desolate, it was in that special state in which succour from the Creator himself was purposely become unacceptable: she had consented to be put in that particular kind of desolation, which needs aid from creatures authorized by God to give it. As Christ in this state needed the Angel, so Mary needed St. John. Moreover, the Blood of Christ would, in her desolation, only suggest to her the sacrilegious use which Judas and his followers made of it, or the fact, that it was actually at the time being trampled under foot in the dust by Pagans and Jews. Hence, in that dark hour, when the destroying Angel seemed not to respect the Blood of the Lamb of God himself, it was meet for God, through the Blood St. John had received, to minister comfort to Mary, and thus afford her a present specimen of its power. Nor could it be wrong to suppose, that the veil of Mary on which that Blood had fallen, required sacerdotal hands to lift it off. Mary may with a sorrowful look have bid St. John, as a priest, remove it, have reminded him, that as her Son was a little lower than the Angels, so she was below him in respect of his priesthood, and thus have been the first who taught devotion to the Sacred Blood. If, as some have thought, St. John became the private chaplain of the Blessed Virgin, then we shall see the meaning of his words, 'From that hour that disciple took her to his own home;' words which in their natural sense imply, that a lasting arrangement of some kind

commenced in consequence of our Saviour's gracious words to St. John upon the Cross.

16. O that our souls could enter into the heart of St. John, and from that throne of purity and love, behold the deep abyss of Mary's pains of childbirth! As this may not be, these poor imaginations may help us to gaze as through a thick mist at the reality, and to learn concerning Mary and John what Scripture teaches also: "Forget not the groanings of thy Mother, remember that thou hadst not been born but through them, and make a return to them as they have done to thee. With all thy soul fear the Lord, and reverence his priests." May he, who makes the faithful dependent upon creatures for his sacraments, and all men dependent upon parents for their existence, vouchsafe to make those not among the faithful dependent upon Mary for a new life!

* Ecclus. vii. 29. The following words of St. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. xlix. fin. are worth adding here: Nunquam contra pietatis ordinem Matrem Dominus extero commendasset ex cruce, si alios ipsa præter illum filios suscepisset. Sed Virgini

their

Virginem tradidit, ut inter tales cura sola Sacramenti, sola societas religionis haberetur: nec mundanæ solitudini discipulus tantus iste serviret. Sed prædicaturus virginitatis partum, domi haberet, unde hoc dubitantibus approbaret.

CHAP. IX.

THE RESURRECTION.

1. AMONG other things which Jesus said, when he knew that his hour was come, was this: "A woman when she is in labour hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she hath brought forth the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." If all we have said in the last chapter give in any sense a faint and distant view of Mary's pains of childbirth, when she became the Mother of all living, then it is hard to conceive these words going through the lips of Jesus, without a thought of Mary. This same dignity her Son gave her an earnest of on Easter day, by raising himself up through the eternal Spirit. As in the second Psalm also is written, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Her Son had begun to exist as man in her womb before he was born, and his second Birth was his Resurrection, and by it God begot him to her again to begin a new life, continuing for ever. As far as Scripture goes, however, it represents Jesus here as behaving with a disrespect far greater, than when he separated himself from Mary at the twelfth Passover. For it says not a word of his appearing to her after his Resurrection any where. All from which we can conclude, even as much as any appearance to his Mother at all, is, that he who said, ' Honour thy father and thy mother,' must have honoured his Mother, as in other respects, so in this. If then we conclude from this principle that he visited her at all, we may fairly conclude

more, and assume that he visited her first of all. This is the conclusion we shall naturally come to, and the one which obstinately cleaves to the heart of most learned and pious Catholics, in spite of Scripture difficulties raised against it. Thus the profound contemplative St. Ignatius, who was used to visions and revelations of the Lord, without any hesitation whatever in this case as in that of Joseph of Arimathea, boldly states his conviction on the subject: "On the Resurrection of Christ, and his first appearance. First, the Lord appeared to his Mother, after his Resurrection: for Scripture says, he appeared to many; now although it does not expressly mention her by name, yet it leaves it open to us to take that for certain, presuming we have understanding: lest otherwise we should have reason to take to ourselves the text,' Are you also yet without understanding?" The holy father of the Jesuits does not indeed directly apply this quotation to the deniers of the first assertion made by himself, that Jesus appeared to Mary first of all, but to those who deny that he appeared at all to her. Still the divines of the Society have spoken so strongly in favour of the first assertion, that it may perhaps be taken as an indirect proof, that the sense of the Society was in favour of understanding him to apply the text to that first assertion also. It is not uncommon to take it for granted, in sermons and other practical works, that the first appearance was granted to Mary. Somewhat therefore ought to be said here, upon what is so likely to meet the ear of an enquiring protestant.

a

· E. g. Suarez. in pt. 3 q. lv. art. iv. p. 544. Hæc sententia adeo est per se credibilis ut

fere sine controversia omnium fidelium et doctorum animis insederit.