Meditations

I adore you, O Lord, as is most fitting, for you are gone to heaven to take my part there and defend my interests. I have one to plead for me with the Lord of all. On earth we try to put ourselves under the protection of powerful men when we have any important business on hand; we know the value of their influence, and we make much of any promise they make us. You are omnipotent, and you exert your omnipotence for me.

Jesus, Redeemer of mankind, Have mercy on us.

Jesus, Conqueror of sin and Satan,

Jesus, triumphant over Death,

Jesus, the Holy and the Just,

Jesus, the Resurrection and the Life,

Thomas says to Him, “My Lord and my God.”

1. I adore Thee, O my God, with Thomas; and if I have, like him, sinned through unbelief, I adore Thee the more. I adore Thee as the One Adorable, I adore Thee as more glorious in Thy humiliation, when men despised Thee, than when Angels worshipped Thee. Deus meus et omnia-“My God and my all.” To have Thee is to have everything I can have.

O blessed day of the Resurrection, which of old time was called the Queen of Festivals, and raised among Christians an anxious, nay contentious diligence duly to honour it! Blessed day, once only passed in sorrow, when the Lord actually rose,

You are the Supreme Good. And, in saying so, I mean not only supreme goodness and benevolence, but that you are the sovereign and transcendent beautifulness. I believe that, beautiful as is your creation, it is mere dust and ashes, and of no account, compared with you, who are the infinitely more beautiful Creator. I know well

It would be well if we were in the habit of looking at all we have as God’s gift, undeservedly given, and day by day continued to us solely by His mercy. He gave; He may take away. He gave us all we have, life, health, strength, reason, enjoyment, the light of conscience; whatever we have good and holy within us; whatever faith we have; whatever of a renewed will; whatever love towards Him; whatever power over ourselves; whatever prospect of heaven.

Let us try to accustom ourselves to this view of the subject. The whole Church, all elect souls, each in its turn, is called to this necessary work. Once it was the turn of others, and now it is our turn. Once it was the Apostles’ turn. It was St. Paul’s turn once. He had all cares on him all at once; covered from head to foot with cares, as Job with sores. And, as if all this were not enough,

1. I adore Thee, O Eternal Word, for Thy gracious condescension, in not only taking a created nature, a created spirit or soul, but a material body. The Most High decreed that for ever and ever He would subject Himself to a created prison. He who from eternity was nothing but infinite incomprehensible Spirit, beyond all laws but those

All teaching about duty and obedience, about attaining heaven, and about the office of Christ towards us, is hollow and unsub­stantial, which is not built here, in the doctrine of our original corruption and helplessness; and, in conse­quence, of original guilt and sin. Christ Him­self indeed is the foundation, but a