Virgo Potens

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 28th Cain, savage and gloomy and restless, wandering curse-goaded over the unpeopled earth, was not worse off than he, perhaps better.* In the street he meets a funeral, or he comes across a priest by whose demeanour he perceives that he has got the Blessed Sacrament with him. Thoughts crowd into his mind. Faith is awake and on the watch. Grace disposes him for grace. The veil falls from sin and he turns from the hideous vision with shame, with detestation, with humility. The eye of his soul glances to his crucified Redeemer. Fear has led the way for hope, and hope has the heart to resolve, and faith tells him that his resolution will be accepted, and he loves —how can he help loving Him who will accept so poor a resolution ? There is a pressure on his soul. It is less than the sting of a bee, even if it hurts at all. Yet it was the pressure of the Creator, omnipotent, immense, all-holy and incomprehensible, on his living soul. The unseen Hand was laid on him only for a moment. He has not passed half a dozen shop-fronts, and the work-is done. He is contrite. Hell is vanquished. All the angels of heaven are in a stir of joy. His soul is beautiful. God is yearning over it with love and with ineffable desire. It needs only one cold touch of death, and an eternity of glory lies with all its vast and spacious realms of Vision before him. Neither is he simply as the dropping off of sin’s chains had left him ; but as if from some secret depths of God’s creation, there come back to him, a bright and goodly multitude, the merits of years of grace which had gone from him when he sinned, and he is clothed in such a nuptial garment of spiritual beauty as would ld blind the natural eye with its imperial magnificence, and to which all the many-coloured pageants of the world are but as dismal, misty, mournful shadows. And yet this work, so beautiful, so wonderful, so altogether worthy of the Divine Perfections, is not done once only, or now and then, or periodically, or to make an epoch in the world s history; it is being accomplished in a thou sand confessionals this day and at this hour, and in churches, in hospitals, in prisons, on shipboard, on the scaffold, in the streets and fields of daily labour, close to the mower or the reaper or the gardener or the vine dresser, who dreams not that God is in his neighbour hood, so busy and at so stupendous a work. For to turn a child of Satan into a Son of God is so tremendous a work that St. Peter Chrysologus says of it, that the angels are astonished, heaven marvels, earth trembles, flesh cannot bear it, ears cannot take it in, the mind cannot reach it, the whole creation is too weak to endure its magnitude, and is short of intellect to esteem it rightly, and is afraid of believing it, because it is so much. * S. Chrysostom thinks that Cain repented, and was pardoned ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 28th Let us take a case to make it clear. A man goes forth from his house into the streets of London in a state of mortal sin. The weight of God s wrath and the curse of the Blood of Christ are heavy on his soul. To the angels he is a sight of unutterable loathing and disgust, if his state is known to them. He would not dare to have his sins whispered in the crowd, for the contempt even of his fellow sinners would crush him to the earth. He is the slave of the dark demon, in a bondage more foul, more degrading, more tyrannical, more abject, than the horrors of African slavery can show. In his breast, though he hardly knows it, he has the beginnings of hell, and the germs of everlasting hatred of Almighty God. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 27th Whether it be conferred on the unconscious infant in the momentary ablution of Baptism, or on the adult sinner by the grace of Contrition, or again by the grace of Attrition united to the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance, it is the work of a single instant. The first moment of the life of grace is the last moment of the life of sin, nay rather it is itself the death of sin. Nothing comes between. Neither does God use the instrumentality of angel or saint, but He Himself immediately communicates that grace to His creature’s soul, and the creature is justified not merely by an act of the divine will but by an unspeakable communication of the divine nature. It is a greater work than the creation, for many reasons. First of all, it implies the Incarnation as well. Then Creation is simply out of nothing whereas justification is accomplished on a previously reluctant matter, the corrupt will of man. He, says St. Austin, who made you without you, will not justify you without you. Creation again is ordained for a natural good, justification for a supernatural one. To quote St. Austin again, It is a greater thing to justify the impious than to create heaven and earth. The good of a single grace, says St. Thomas, is greater than the natural good of the whole universe, and the Church in her collect teaches us that God manifests His omnipotence chiefly in sparing and showing mercy. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 27th Whether it be conferred on the unconscious infant in the momentary ablution of Baptism, or on the adult sinner by the grace of Contrition, or again by the grace of Attrition united to the efficacy of the Sacrament of Penance, it is the work of a single instant. The first moment of the life of grace is the last moment of the life of sin, nay rather it is itself the death of sin. Nothing comes between. Neither does God use the instrumentality of angel or saint, but He Himself immediately communicates that grace to His creature’s soul, and the creature is justified not merely by an act of the divine will but by an unspeakable communication of the divine nature. It is a greater work than the creation, for many reasons. First of all, it implies the Incarnation as well. Then Creation is simply out of nothing whereas justification is accomplished on a previously reluctant matter, the corrupt will of man. He, says St. Austin, who made you without you, will not justify you without you. Creation again is ordained for a natural good, justification for a supernatural one. To quote St. Austin again, It is a greater thing to justify the impious than to create heaven and earth. The good of a single grace, says St. Thomas, is greater than the natural good of the whole universe, and the Church in her collect teaches us that God manifests His omnipotence chiefly in sparing and showing mercy. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 27th As the great work of the Incarnation seems to flow out of Creation, and to be the crowning and fulfilling of it, so does the work of Justification proceed from the Incarnation, or hang from it as its divine and glorious, fruit or pendant. The Justification of a sinner is surely one of the most beautiful works of God, and deserves our most loving contemplation. Looking at it simply as the transit from a state of sin to a state of sanctifying grace, without any consideration of the dispositions remotely or proximately comprehended in it, it is full of wonder and of the peculiar character of the Divine operations. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 26th The incomparable wisdom of the inventions of God’s mercy; the way in which creation is taken up to the Creator, the depth to which He penetrated to gather up to His majesty the farthest outlying reasonable nature, the manner in which He accomplished it by the union of two natures in one Person, the unutterable wonders of a weak, tired, insulted, suffering, dying God,—well may the angels desire to look into these things ; and if it were not that the will of God is their will, they would envy us their younger brethren, because our dear nature, not their lofty and resplendent one, has been set down for ever at the Right Hand of the Majesty on High. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 26th The mystery of Creation becomes more intelligible and more wonderful on this view of the Incarnation. The arrangement of the Divine Decrees seems more orderly and more consonant to what God has been pleased to tell us of Himself; and the devout opinion that our Blessed Lady is not included in the decree of sin, and the now, blessed be God ! necessary and definite article of the Catholic faith, that she was immaculately conceived, flow from it as simple consequences. But whether we look at the Incarnation as a double mystery with the Scotists, or as a single mystery with the Thomists, what a boundless field of holy contemplation does it not open out to us ! (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 25th We need do nothing more than walk on the brink of creation, and look over into the depths of that foregoing eternity when the Three in One alone was, ever blessed and glorious, and muse on the mere fact of the interruption of that eternity by creation, and we shall see how excellent and divine a mystery it is, so full of God, so radiant with His innumerable perfections, and all lying in the golden light of the Sun of justice who was not yet to rise for thousands of long expectant years. That mystery is our Mother, for out of it are we come ourselves, nay, the creation of our own souls but a few years ago was a portion of its perpetual continuity. What a revelation of beauty is the mystery of the Incarnation ! The highest angelical intelligence could not have conceived it, without a revelation from God, and Scripture pictures the angels to us as ever bending over and looking into this mystery, to feed their love, their wisdom and their adoration, out of its depths of glory and of sweetness. The Scotist school of theologians teach that the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity would have been incarnate even if Adam had never sinned, and that the Incarnation was already involved in the very fact of Creation. For if God created creatures in order to raise them towards Himself, He would unite Himself to them in the closest possible way; and that way it now appears is by the Hypostatic Union, the assumption of a created nature to an Uncreated Person. They maintain that Jesus and His Mother were decreed prior to all other creatures, and that all other creatures were decreed simply because of them, and on the model of them for that He is the First-born of the Predestinate and the Exemplar of the Elect. On this hypothesis Mary would have naturally come into the world by an Immaculate Conception, which would not then have been her singular prerogative. Jesus would have taken of her a glorious impassible Humanity, and His “delights would have been among the children of men.” Sin and the fall gave to the Incarnation its remedial character, with the passible humanity, the mysteries of the thirty-three years, and all the pathetic circumstances of our redemption. The Thomist School of theologians hold, though not unanimously, that if Adam had not sinned, our Lord would not have been incarnate, and that His coming was simply remedial, an outpouring of God’s mercy to hinder the utter desolation which Adam’s fall must otherwise inevitably cause. Suarez endeavours, but with very limited success, to fuse the two opinions into one system. Without venturing to decide at present, nor until I come to treat professedly on the Incarnation, between these two great schools of theology, I may say that there are many things to recommend the Scotist opinion. So far as the forgiveness of sin is concerned, God could have absolved us from it short of the Incarnation and even the mercifulness of the remedial character of that mystery is if anything more forcibly and touchingly brought forward in the Scotist view : as if sin, so far from hindering this great mercy, only gave fresh pathos and new tenderness to a gift we might have expected it would have frustrated altogether. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 25th For a moment does not this seem to lift the veil, and give us a glimpse into the depths of the adorable life of God ? Blessed be His most Holy and dread Name, and blessed be His condescension in the mystery of Creation ! We need say nothing of the surpassing beauty or of the varied magnificence of creation. We need not even try to fathom that other incomparable mystery that God created out of nothing, matter out of nothing, spirit out of nothing. He is creating deathless souls out of nothing every minute of the day and night, and every one of those souls by itself is more wonderful and important than the whole of the material world. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 24th There is hardly any mystery the consideration of which is more fruitful in the soul and understanding than that of creation ; and yet it hardly gets its fair share of thought from the generality of Christians. In theology it throws immense light upon the divine attributes, sin, grace, redemption, the sacraments, and similar questions. Much is obscure until reflection on this mystery of creation has illuminated several of the most interesting regions of scholastic theology. In controversy, especially in these days, its importance can hardly be exaggerated. We have been used, and with inevitable force and justice, to repel the arguments of heretics against the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, by driving them to defend the mystery of the Incarnation, which they profess to believe, inasmuch as all the objections to the Blessed Sacrament lie equally against the Incarnation. So now, in argument with deists, we may defend the Incarnation against them by showing that the fact of creation is open to just the same objections as the dogma of the Incarnation. Even in devotional theology, meditation on the mystery of creation is of great consequence. In its light many of our Blessed Lord’s mysteries give up deeper meanings to us. Our Lady’s place in the Catholic system is more easily understood, and her surpassing supereminence more readily acknowledged. Besides that creation is itself a most deep, touching and prolific subject for meditation, as the fountain of all the other mysteries outside God Himself. How long may we not gaze with a far from useless wonder on that inexplicable interruption of the blissful self-sufficing life of God, and of the never-beginning ages of eternity ! God was, and God only was. Yet not solitary, for the Three Divine Persons loved each with an incommunicable love : ever was the Father the fountain of the Godhead, ever was the Son begotten, ever was the Holy Ghost proceeding from Them Both. As it was at creation’s dawn, so had it always been, so is it at this hour, so will it ever be immutably. He had nothing to gain from creatures. His majesty was incapable of greater lustre. His essential glory could not admit of increase. His happiness could be as little augmented by the obedience of His creatures as it could be ruffled by their rebellion. He foresaw evil. Nevertheless He created. In the mind of God, the Lamb of Calvary was slain before the foundations of the world were laid. What was it that God could want ? Want ! there can be no such word when the Most High is in question. Yet because language is so poor and weak I must dare to say that God did want something, or condescended to seem to want something, which it was the object of creation to supply. His power was illimitable ; so that nothing was needed there. He had no justice ; but then He needed none, and could have none, in our sense of justice, when He Himself, and He only, was. Life, joy, solitary, creation could touch none of these either for good or evil. But mercy, there was no mercy in God ; there could be none, that is, in our sense of mercy, because there were no creatures on whom to exercise His mercy. The Father could not show mercy to His co-equal Son and Spirit, nor They to their Consubstantial Spring and Fountain. Creation, then (I am using bold words, which will express a truth even though, like all words about God, they fall short and are inexact), creation gave God a new attribute, the attribute of mercy. His love wanted freedom; it wanted to overthrow, or seemed to want, or stooped to seem as if it wanted. Inside Himself the Eternal Generation of the Son was a necessary act, not a free one ; and so likewise was the Procession of the Holy Ghost; but the love of the Most Holy Trinity (again you must bear with my words) overflowed, or outflowed, and the result was creation. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 24th SECTION III. FOUR GREAT WORKS OF GOD : CREATION, INCARNATION, JUSTIFICATION AND GLORIFICATION. BUT we have a great deal to do yet with the works of God. So far we have only ascertained the canons of perfection by which to compare the works of God one with another; and furthermore that all these canons are fulfilled in the Blessed Sacrament. We must now examine more at length the great works of God and get some idea of the peculiar excellence and characteristic mystery of each of them, and then compare the Blessed Sacrament with them. The result will be to show it has the particular excellencies of all of them, transcending each of them in their own line, and reserving to itself an eminence and beauty of its own beside. Let us take a glance at these great works of God. (continued below)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 24th SECTION III. FOUR GREAT WORKS OF GOD : CREATION, INCARNATION, JUSTIFICATION AND GLORIFICATION. BUT we have a great deal to do yet with the works of God. So far we have only ascertained the canons of perfection by which to compare the works of God one with another; and furthermore that all these canons are fulfilled in the Blessed Sacrament. We must now examine more at length the great works of God and get some idea of the peculiar excellence and characteristic mystery of each of them, and then compare the Blessed Sacrament with them. The result will be to show it has the particular excellencies of all of them, transcending each of them in their own line, and reserving to itself an eminence and beauty of its own beside. Let us take a glance at these great works of God. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 23rd Sacred things and sacred ceremonies, simply because they are things and ceremonies, may become common to us, though they ought not to do so. They may cease to make an impression, and it may be difficult for us always to be recollected in their presence, without this difficulty being a symptom of any very grave spiritual disease. But it is not so with the presence of our Lord’s own Self. We cannot become so familiarized with His Sacramental presence as to be careless and unimpressed, without its betokening a most lamentable and dangerous state of spiritual tepidity. It is very common even for heretics to have a strange sensation come over them in Catholic churches, which they do not understand and cannot analyze ; and shall we be less moved than they ? Yet alas ! whenever we hear or read some of the great things concerning the Blessed Sacrament, does it not often dash upon us that our conduct is not in keeping with our creed, and looking back on a long, sad line of indifferent communions, distracted masses, and careless visits to the tabernacle, are we not sometimes startled into saying, Do I really believe all this ? O how many of us might simplify our spiritual lives and so make great progress, if we would only look to the Blessed Sacrament, to our feelings and conduct towards it, and its impression upon us, as the index of our spiritual condition ! We are always trying to awaken ourselves with new things, new books, new prayers, new confraternities, new states of prayer ; and our forbearing Lord runs after us and keeps blessing us in our changeableness and humouring us in our fickle weakness : how much better would it be to keep to our old things, to hold fast by Him, and to warm ourselves only at the tabernacle fire ! ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 23rd There is no sign of lukewarmness more unerring than becoming thoughtless about the Blessed Sacrament, and letting it grow common to us without our feeling it. Even though the disciples on the road to Emrnaus did not know Jesus till he vanished from their sight, at least their hearts, they knew not why, burned within them as they walked and talked to Him by the way. Yet how often have we been at the tabernacle door, feeling neither His presence nor our own miseries more than a beggar sleeping in the sun at a rich man’s gate. True it is that the Blessed Sacrament is not a mystery of distance or of terror, but one of most dear familiarity. Yet the only true test of our loving familiarity is the depth of our joyous fear. (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 22nd If no mind of man can measure the grace it is to have inherited this glorious faith, what must they do for God who once in the full use of reason had it not, and by His special intervention have now received it? What can they do but sacrifice their whole selves to Him? It is but little, but what else is left them ? And such a sacrifice is not generosity, it is barely justice. They are but as men who are said to have paid their debts, because they have paid all they can. The Blessed Sacrament once meant something which was not theirs, something external to themselves, the property and possession of a different religion ; but now it is their own. It has become their life and joy, their solace and their strength, their worship and eternal bliss. O how worse than Egyptian is the darkness out of which the light of the sanctuary has drawn them, and in which so many souls they love are left ! Alas ! for us who love and those we love ! no saint upon the altars of the Church has ever spoken one consoling word of the dreary darkness of those who are without. Sad enough are the words of theologians, but sadder far the words of saints :— sad indeed, and weighty with the wisdom of their spiritual discernment. Even the sunshine of the gentle saint of Sales is gloom when he thinks of those who are not of the fold, and his sweet words turn bitter as he characterizes the lot of those who are not children of the Church. What then shall they do for their Lord, for whom that Lord has turned this dismal night to certain day ? Has anything been said of the Blessed Sacrament which the truth does not warrant ? Has any statement been made which the Church does not either compel us to believe, or point to as an easy inference from her theological definitions ? And has it not all been said as drily and prosaically as possible ? Yet surely it is a very frightening consideration ! Remember, all these great things which we have been thinking of have not to do with some past mystery, like the creation of the world, which took place thousands of years ago, and which we look up to with intellectual astonishment through the dimness of venerable time, and adore the council of the Most Holy Trinity, whose loving wisdom decided on the creation of our race. Neither does it concern a tremendous far-off mystery, like the general judgment, in which we shall all have to bear our parts, and wherein we do not know how we shall have to behave ; and yet so much depends on our behaviour here. We can look at mysteries so long past or so far forward with calmness, or at least without permanent disquietude or serious agitation. But the Blessed Sacrament is a mystery of daily repetition, of ordinary familiarity. We are coming across our Lord continually. Either we are calling Him from heaven ourselves, if we be priests, or we are witnessing that unspeakable mystery, or we are feeding on Him and seeing our fellow-creatures do so also, or we are gazing at Him in His veils, or receiving His benediction, or making our devotions at His tabernacle door. And what is our habitual behaviour to Him in this mystery ? We are orthodox in faith; doubtless : every word of that queen of councils, the blessed and glorious assembly of Trent, is more precious to us than a mine of gold. But have the intensity of our love, the breathlessness of our reverence, the earnestness of our prayers, the overbearing momentum of our faith, the speechlessness of our yearning desires, been all they should have been, or half they would have been if we had but corresponded to the grace which He Himself each time was giving us? ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 22nd Of the omnipotence of God in the Blessed Sacrament, we shall have to speak hereafter, so that we need not dwell upon it now. But most true it is that there is no work of God which shadows forth so many of the Divine Perfections, as the mystery of Transubstantiation. So that all the canons by which we can test the beauty and perfection of God’s gracious works meet and are crowned in this one, in all that manifold work and various mystery which we mean when we pronounce those short but thrilling words, The Blessed Sacrament! (continued below)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 22nd Of the omnipotence of God in the Blessed Sacrament, we shall have to speak hereafter, so that we need not dwell upon it now. But most true it is that there is no work of God which shadows forth so many of the Divine Perfections, as the mystery of Transubstantiation. So that all the canons by which we can test the beauty and perfection of God s gracious works meet and are crowned in this one, in all that manifold work and various mystery which we mean when we pronounce those short but thrilling words,The Blessed Sacrament! (continued below)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 22nd Of the omnipotence of God in the Blessed Sacrament, we shall have to speak hereafter, so that we need not dwell upon it now. But most true it is that there is no work of God which shadows forth so many of the Divine Perfections, as the mystery of Transubstantiation. So that all the canons by which we can test the beauty and perfection of God s gracious works meet and are crowned in this one, in all that manifold work and various mystery which we mean when we pronounce those short but thrilling words,The Blessed Sacrament! (continued below)

2 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 21st “By the Incarnation,” says Nouet, “the Son of God by a marvellous secret of wisdom found the means of making the invisible visible by covering Himself with our humanity, in order to converse familiarly with us ; but in the Blessed Sacrament by a no less marvellous invention He makes the visible invisible, by covering His Sacred Humanity with the appearances of bread and wine, that He may nourish us with His Flesh and Blood. In the mystery of the Incarnation He hides Himself that He may be seen ; in the divine Eucharist He hides Himself that He may be eaten. In the first mystery He lets us see the sweetness of His divinity; in the second He lets us taste the sweetness of His Humanity. So again all the circumstances of the Blessed Sacrament are full of manifestations of His wisdom. The very concealment of His Flesh and Blood hinders our fear while it defrauds us not of the reality of that stupendous food ; and the very familiarity of the common-place species which He uses for His veils affords us a delightful exercise of our spiritual discernment and our ardent faith, while He makes Himself easy of access to the whole world by the cheapness and vileness of His disguise.” What a picture too is the adorable Host of the immensity of God. God by His immensity in the whole world : Jesus in the whole Host : God is entire in every part of the world, Jesus in every fraction of the Host. One Body is at one time in all Hosts and in all parts of all Hosts, and that without extension, while His presence is multiplied through the length and breadth of the earth in Hosts almost beyond number : and everywhere is the Blessed Sacrament rendering a homage to the Omnipresence of God, worthy of it and equal to it. So that while we admire in the Blessed Sacrament the extreme littleness to which the Eternal Word has reduced Himself, that very littleness is such an image of the Divine Immensity as is not to be found elsewhere in all creation. But if the littleness of the Blessed Sacrament is the reflection of God’s immensity, the frailty of the adorable Host is no less the image of God’s eternity. For the bread we eat is nothing less than eternal life. We cannot break it, divide it, diminish it, corrupt it, even though we eat it. It is whole and equal in each part, and a million others eat it with us, and wilt continue to eat it until the end of time : when He will still remain the bread of life, Himself the life eternal. Nay, this seeming frailty is so strong that it can hinder and destroy eternal death, and make even our corruptible flesh incorruptible at the last. He whom we adore in that Blessed Sacrament is Himself the judge upon whom our entrance into eternal life depends : and that Blessed Sacrament is itself the energy of our glorious resurrection. ~ Frederick William Faber, D.D., The Blessed Sacrament, or The Works and the Ways of God (1855)

1 of 2 Month of the Holy Eucharist ~ April 21st See too how sweetly the wisdom of God is glassed in the mirror of this heavenly mystery ! It was the invention of Jesus to stay in the world even when He was quitting it; to be more than ever with His people when He was going away from them till the end of the world ; to multiply Himself on earth when He was gone into heaven; and to consecrate the earth with the presence of His Body and Blood when He was elevating them both to their proper place at the Right Hand of the Father, and as it were leaving earth desolate and bare. (continued below)