MEDITATION FOR MONDAY IN HOLY

WEEK.

ON THE ABANDONMENT OF OUR SAVIOUR ON THE CROSS.

1ST POINT. "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" Oh, how terrible must have been that abandonment, which forced tears and sighs from a God, and made him complain before his enemies, who triumphed; before many who believed no longer that he was the Son of God, but a wicked man, since he was thus abandoned by his Father!

2ND POINT. Jesus was never separated from either grace or glory; his divinity was never separated from his humanity. He was always holy, always happy, always God. This terrible abandonment was only a suspension of the succours and sensible consolations that his divinity imparted to his humanity; it was a shadow and figure of the pain a sinner feels in hell when he is abandoned by God.

3RD POINT. Oh my God, the agony that thy divine Son suffered on the cross, gives me an idea of what the damned endure. Thy temporary abandonment of the just, affords me

some conception of the horrors of thy eternal abandonment of the wicked. If the loss of thy presence was so bitterly and sensibly felt by thy Son, who can bear for ever the weight of thy infinite anger? who can suffer, in hell, an eternal separation from thee, an eternal privation of thy grace, thy love, thy presence, thy consolations, thy succour, thy providence, thy felicity, and of all that the immortal soul values, desires, and loves who could, added to this, suffer an everlasting deluge of evil in the actual presence of all that the soul most fears and is most afflicted by?

Oh my God, do not abandon me, although I deserve it, having so often abandoned thee. Deprive me, if such be thy will, of all consolation, but not of thy grace; abandon me, if necessary, in life, but not at the hour of my death. If thou shouldst abandon me in time, oh! abandon me not in eternity.

Oh Jesus, my Saviour, why art thou abandoned by thy Father? What hast thou done? It is I who deserve to be abandoned; it is I who am guilty, and have sinned. Oh ! thy abandonment terrifies and consoles me at the same time it fills me with terror to see what I merit; it fills me with consolation to see what

I ought to hope for; for if thou wast abandoned at thy death, it was that I may not be at mine. Oh Lord, be thou with me, and succour me, when all the world shall have forsaken me.

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WORDS OF SCRIPTURE.

My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"-St. Matt. xxvii.

"Forsake me not, O Lord my God: do not thou depart from me."-Psalm xxxvii.

"Cast me not off in the time of old age: when my strength shall fail me, do not thou forsake me."—Psalm 1xx.

"I will not leave thee, neither will I forsake thee."-Heb. xiii.

MEDITATION FOR TUESDAY IN HOLY WEEK.

ON THE THIRST OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.

1ST POINT. Jesus said, I thirst; and they offered him only vinegar and gall to drink! He desired this torment to make satisfaction for our gluttony, and bear the penalty of the sins we commit by excess, or too great a fondness

for delicate and expensive food. He was abandoned in his soul and body. In his soul, by a suspension of all sensible consolation; in his body, by the suffering of all imaginable evils.

All his senses, corporal and spiritual, were crucified on Calvary. His eyes, by the sight of his enemies; his ears, by their blasphemies ; his smell, by the infectious odours of the place; his touch, by the wounds that covered his body; his taste, by the vinegar and gall; his memory, by the recollection of our crimes; his spirit, by the darkness which seemed to conceal from him the will of his Father, and which wrung from him that bitter cry: My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me? his will, by fear and dejection; his appetite, by disgust, sadness, and grief. There was no part of his body that was not pierced with wounds; no power of his soul but what was plunged in unspeakable grief. He suffered as if he had been a mere man, without drawing any other succour from his divinity than a strength to suffer without dying. God wrought a miracle, not to relieve his Son from suffering, but to prevent his dying under those sufferings; and you desire him to work a miracle to preserve you from suffering and death.

2ND POINT. The divine Victim was torn by

whips without, but within he was yet sound. For this reason he made the bitterness of his chalice descend into his body, by enduring the most cruel thirst that was ever suffered, and drinking the vinegar and gall which they of fered him.

It was then that the book of the Lamb was written within and without. Within, by the justice of his Father; without, by the cruelty of men. Within, by interior pains; without, by exterior sufferings.

3RD POINT. Jesus complained of being thirsty, knowing well that they would give him vinegar and gall to drink; he complained of his sufferings only that he might suffer more; he made known to us his grief that we might know his love; he thirsted for our salvation; he was consumed with the desire of bringing sinners to repentance, of freeing the captive, and making the miserable rejoice. It was love that made him complain, love that made him suffer, love that made him die.

Oh Jesus, my Lord and my merciful Redeemer! how can I relieve or quench the thirst that consumes thee? "Hear me," says Jesus from the cross : "Leave the sins that so often wound me; forsake thy evil companions, who may cause the loss of thy soul, and who daily