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our thoughts and aspirations are after the eternal rewards which are promised us in the world to come. Just in the same way as we are taught in Advent to look forward and to pray for the first coming of our Lord to redeem us, so now are we taught to look up and to prepare for His coming in glory, when He will reign with His saints in eternal happiness.

CHAP. XIX. Practices of Devotion connected with the Incarnation: The Stations, or Way of the Cross.

THE beautiful devotion which is known as the Stations, orWay of the Cross, has been instituted as a means of helping us to meditate on the sufferings and death of our Lord, and to accompany Him in spirit from the hall of Pilate, where He was condemned, to Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre. This devotion may be said to have taken its rise from the Blessed Virgin and the holy women who accompanied our Lord in His last painful journey. Though the fact is nowhere recorded, we can hardly doubt that our Blessed Lady and the immediate disciples of Christ would often afterwards retrace the sorrowful footsteps which led to Calvary, and linger in loving sympathy and condolence on the spots which had been sanctified by our Lord's sufferings. Such, at least, we know has been the practice of the faithful from very early times. St. Jerome tells us this custom was observed from the very times of the Gospel. From the most distant parts of Christendom large numbers of devout pilgrims went to visit the holy places, and to meditate on the mysteries of the life of our Lord, amid the scenes which had been hallowed by His earthly presence. And among the holy places, none seem to have possessed stronger claims on the affections of the faithful, than those which had witnessed the sufferings and death of our Redeemer.

To encourage the devotion of her children in their pilgrimages to the holy places, and particularly to induce them to preserve a grateful remembrance of the sufferings of our Lord's Passion, the Church granted a large number of indulgences to all who, with true sorrow and repent

ance for their sins, followed step by step in the journey which had been traversed by Him to Calvary, and meditated at each stage of His Passion on the sufferings which He endured at that particular spot. But as there were many who wished to share the fruit of this devotion, who yet were unable to undertake the journey to the Holy Land, and as in course of time access to the holy places became difficult and almost impossible, the Church established the Devotion of the Way of the Cross, to supply her children with a ready means of cultivating in their interior the same spirit which would be nourished and increased by actually visiting the holy places. To recall to our minds as vividly as possible the scenes of our Lord's sufferings, crosses are stationed at various intervals to represent the place at which some particular incident of the Passion occurred; and to assist our meditation, pictures are generally placed at each of these stations depicting the circumstances which had attended that stage of the Passion. When these crosses have been blessed and erected by one who has received requisite faculties or power for this purpose, the Church grants the same indulgences to all who practise this devotion, that are granted to persons who visit the holy places, and meditate on our Lord's sufferings where they actually occurred.

This devotion is recommended as one of the means for sanctifying the time of Lent, but it may be practised at all times, both in public and private. All that is required to enable us to gain the indulgences, where the stations have been duly erected is, (1) to have the intention of doing so, as is the case with all indulgences; and (2), in the spirit of true sorrow and repentance for our sins, to accompany our Lord in His last painful journey, pausing awhile at each station to picture to our minds the scene which is there represented, and to form in our hearts corresponding affections and resolutions. The particular forms of meditation and prayer which are used when this devotion is performed in public are not essential; we may, if we choose, make our own meditations, keeping, of course, to the subject represented in each of the different stations.

Somewhat akin to the Devotion of the Way of the

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Cross is that of the three hours' Agony. This devotion is peculiar to Good Friday, and consists in honouring the three last hours of the life of our Lord, by meditating on His sufferings on the cross, and particularly on His seven last words. When this devotion is performed in public, it begins on Good Friday at mid-day, the hour our Blessed Redeemer was nailed to the cross, and consists of a short meditation on each of the seven last words. The pause which is made between each of these meditations, is usually filled up by plaintive strains of music suited to the subject of the meditation. The whole is so arranged as to fill up the three hours during which our Divine Lord hung on the cross before He expired.

CHAP. XX. Devotions in honour of the Sacred Heart, the most Precious Blood, and the Five Wounds.

IN the explanation of the doctrine of the Incarnation, we have seen that the second Person of the Most Adorable Trinity, in becoming man, united together the divinity and humanity in His one Divine Person. By the accomplishment of this great mystery, the sacred humanity of our Lord, and each of its constituent parts, was inseparably joined to the Person of the Divine Word. In consequence of this union, the human nature of Christ, and the various members of which it is composed, are deserving of supreme homage and adoration. We adore the Sacred Body, the Precious Blood, the Five Wounds, or the loving Heart of our Lord, because they have no separate existence apart from His Divine Person. When we honour any part of the sacred humanity, our adoration ultimately terminates in the Divine Person of the Word inseparably united to that humanity. We learn from the Holy Scriptures that this supreme homage was constantly given to our Lord in His human nature. Thus, when the Eternal Father brought His only-begotten Son into the world, He commanded all the angels of God to adore Him (Heb. i. 6). Nay, we are assured by St. Paul, that His humility, in becoming man and dying for us, is an additional reason why all creatures are obliged to adore Him: "Who being in the form"

(nature) "of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant” (i.e. the nature of man), "being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death: even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted Him, and hath given Him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth" (Philip. ii. 6-10). Thus, again, we are told of the wise men who were led to Bethlehem by a miraculous star, that when they found the Child, "falling down, they adored Him" (St. Matt. ii. 11). Again, Jesus asked the blind man whose sight He had restored, "Dost thou believe in the Son of God? he said, I believe, Lord. And falling down he adored Him" (St. John ix. 38). And again, after the resurrection, we read that the Apostles paid the same divine homage to our Lord when He appeared to them: seeing Him," says St. Matthew, "they adored" (St. Matt. xxviii. 17).

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When, therefore, we adore the sacred humanity, or any part of it, the foundation of our homage is the hypostatic union. That is, we adore the second Person of the Blessed Trinity inseparably united to His human nature, His Precious Blood, His Sacred Heart, or His wounded Hands and Feet. But though our homage, whether expressed in the celebration of a festival, or in some devotional practice in honour of the several parts of the humanity of Christ, rests on one and the same foundation, yet there are special reasons why we choose one part in preference to another, and why those parts, which we thus specially honour, give rise to distinct festivals and devotions. Thus we have a distinct festival and devotion in honour of the Precious Blood, because it is the price at which we have been redeemed. Our salvation is due to the merits of the Precious Blood. By it the sentence of condemnation which was pronounced against us has been reversed, and the covenant sealed by which we are reconciled to God. In like manner, we honour with a distinct festival and devotion the Five Wounds, because they are the channels through which the Blood flowed for our redemption; they plead to God

for our forgiveness by always representing to Him the price which has been paid for our ransom, and they speak persuasively to our hearts, inviting us to love Him who had done so much for the love of us.

Thus again, in the same way, we honour the Sacred Heart, because (1) it is represented to us by our Lord Himself as the seat of those virtues and good dispositions which we are to copy from His example: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart" (St. Matt. xi. 29). And (2) because, in our ordinary language, as well as in the language of Holy Scripture, the heart is considered as the symbol of love; and hence the Sacred Heart of our Lord is the symbol of the immense charity with which He has loved us. Thus in one of the lessons read on the Festival of the Sacred Heart, we are told that Clement XIII. allowed this festival to be celebrated, at the prayer of certain churches, in order that the faithful might, under the symbol of the Sacred Heart, more devoutly and fervently bear in mind and profit by the love of Christ, who suffered and died for the redemption of mankind, and instituted the Sacrament of His Body and Blood in remembrance of His death. Finally, as the Sacred Heart is the symbol of the love of our Lord in dying for our redemption, so is it a most touching memorial for us of His death, and a most moving invitation to win our love.

CHAP. XXI.

Fourth Article: "Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried."

THE second and third Articles treat of the Divinity and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. We are taught to believe that our Lord, the only Son of God, the second Person of the Blessed Trinity, is truly God born of the Father from all eternity, and also truly man conceived and born of His Mother in time. The next thing to be explained is why He became man, or, in other words, to show what the Apostles have taught us about the mystery of our redemption. By taking to Himself a body and soul like ours, Jesus Christ has become our Redeemer, our Advocate, and our

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