Day 22, JOYFUL MYSTERIES, Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux, October 3, 2015

October 3, Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux

~ On the Power of Prayer, from the autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux, Story of a Soul

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin, January 2, 1873 – September 30, 1897), or Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, O.C.D., was a French Discalced Carmelite nun. She is popularly known as "The Little Flower of Jesus" or simply, "The Little Flower". Thérèse has been a highly influential model of sanctity for Catholics and for others because of the "simplicity and practicality of her approach to the spiritual life". Pope Pius X called her "the greatest saint of modern times". 

Our Lord has said: "No man can come to Me except the Father Who hath sent Me, draw him," and later He tells us that whosoever seeks shall find, whosoever asks shall receive, that unto him that knocks it shall be opened, and He adds that whatever we ask the Father in His Name shall be given us. It was no doubt for this reason that, long before the birth of Our Lord, the Holy Spirit dictated these prophetic words: "Draw me—we will run!" By asking to be drawn, we desire an intimate union with the object of our love. If iron and fire were endowed with reason, and the iron could say: "Draw me!" would not that prove its desire to be identified with the fire to the point of sharing its substance? Well, this is precisely my prayer. I asked Jesus to draw me into the Fire of His love, and to unite me so closely to Himself that He may live and act in me. I feel that the more the fire of love consumes my heart, so much the more shall I say: "Draw me!" and the more also will souls who draw near me run swiftly in the sweet odour of the Beloved.

Yes, they will run—we shall all run together, for souls that are on fire can never be at rest. They may indeed, like St. Mary Magdalen, sit at the feet of Jesus, listening to His sweet and burning words, but, though they seem to give Him nothing, they give much more than Martha, who busied herself about many things. It is not Martha's work that Our Lord blames, but her over-solicitude; His Blessed Mother humbly occupied herself in the same kind of work when she prepared the meals for the Holy Family. All the Saints have understood this, especially those who have illumined the earth with the light of Christ's teaching. Was it not from prayer that St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa, and so many other friends of God drew that wonderful science which has enthralled the loftiest minds.

"Give me a lever and a fulcrum on which to lean it," said Archimedes, "and I will lift the world."

What he could not obtain because his request had only a material end, without reference to God, the Saints have obtained in all its fullness. They lean on God Almighty's power itself and their lever is the prayer that inflames with love's fire. With this lever they have raised the world—with this lever the Saints of the Church Militant still raise it, and will raise it to the end of time.

Day 21, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, October 2

October 2, Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels

~ Dom Gueranger, Liturgical Year

It is of faith, on the testimony of the Scriptures and of unanimous tradition, that God commits to His angels the guardianship of men, who are called to contemplate Him together with these blessed spirits in their common fatherland. Catholic theology teaches that this protection is extended to every member of the human race, without any distinction of just and sinners, infidels and baptized. To ward off dangers; to uphold man in his struggle against the demons; to awaken in him holy thoughts; to prevent him from sinning, and even, at times, to chastise him; to pray for him, and present his prayers to God: such is the office of the Guardian Angel.

So special is his mission, that one angel does not undertake the guardianship of several persons simultaneously; so diligent is his care, that he follows his ward from the first day to the last of his mortal existence, receiving the soul as it quits this life, and bearing it from the feet of the sovereign Judge to the place it has merited in heaven, or to its temporary sojourn in the place of expiation and purification. It is from the lowest of the nine choirs, the nearest to ourselves, that the Guardian Angels are, for the most part, selected.

God reserves to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones the honour of forming His own immediate court. The Dominations, from the steps of His throne, preside over the government of the universe; the Virtues watch over the course of nature’s laws, the preservation of species, and the movements of the heavens; the Powers hold the spirits of wickedness in subjection. The human race in its entirety, as also its great social bodies, the nations and the churches, are confided to the Principalities; while the Archangels, who preside over smaller communities, seem also to have the office of transmitting to the Angels the commands of God, together with the love and light which come down even to us from the first and highest hierarchy. O the depths of the wisdom of God! Thus, then, the admirable distribution of offices among the choirs of heavenly spirits terminates in the function committed to the lowest rank, the guardianship of man, for whom the universe subsists.  The apostle, St. Paul, in like manner, says: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?” (2 Hebrews 1:14) 

God, magnificent as He is towards the whole human race, honours in a special manner the princes of His people, those who are most favoured by His grace, or who rule the earth in His name; the saints testify, that a supereminent perfection, or a higher mission in Church or State, ensures to the individual the assistance of a superior spirit, without the angel that was first deputed being necessarily removed from his charge. Moreover, with regard to the work of salvation, the Guardian Angel has no fear of being left alone at his post; at his request, and at God’s command, the troops of his blessed companions, who fill heaven and earth, are ever ready to lend him their aid. These noble spirits, acting under the eye of God whose love they desire to second by all possible means, have secret alliances between them, which sometimes induce between their clients, even on earth, unions the mystery whereof will be revealed in the light of eternity. ‘How profound a mystery,’ says Origen, ‘is the apportioning of souls to the angels destined for their guardians! It is a divine secret, part of the universal economy centred in the Man-God. Nor is it without ineffable order that the ministries of earth, the many departments of nature, are allotted to the heavenly Virtues; fountains and rivers, winds and forests, plants, living creatures of land and sea, whose various functions harmonize together by the angels directing them all to a common end.’ 

Again, on these words of Jeremias: How long shall the land mourn? Origen, supported by the authority of his translator St. Jerome, continues: ‘It is through each one of us that the earth rejoices or mourns; and not only the earth, but water, fire, air, all the elements; by which name we must here understand not insensible matter, but the angels who are set over all things on earth. There is an angel of the land, who, with his companions, mourns over our crimes. There is an angel of the waters to whom are applied the words of the psalm: The waters saw Thee, and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled; great was the noise of the waters; the clouds sent out a sound, for Thy arrows pass.’ How grand is nature viewed in this light! It is thus the ancients, more truthful as well as more poetical than our generation, always considered the universe. Their error lay in adoring these mysterious powers, to the detriment of the only God, under whom they stoop that bear up the world. ‘Air and earth and ocean, everything is full of angels,’ says St. Ambrose. ‘Eliseus, besieged by a whole army, felt no fear; for he beheld invisible cohorts assisting him.’  But let us return to our own specially-deputed 'angel, and meditate on this other testimony: ‘The noble guardian of each one of us sleeps not, nor can he be deceived. Close thy door, and make the darkness of night; but remember, thou art never alone; he has no need of daylight in order to see thy actions.’ And who is it that speaks thus? Not a father of the Church, but a pagan, the slave philosopher Epictetus.

In the midst of the excited multitude, as well as in the desert, not a human being that has not beside him an angel, the representative of universal Providence over wicked and good alike. O blessed spirits! You and we have the same fatherland, the same thought, the same love; why should the confused noises of a frivolous crowd disturb the heavenly life we may lead even now with you? Does the tumult of public places hinder you from holding your choirs there, or prevent the Most High from hearing your harmonies? We also, beholding by faith the face of our heavenly Father, which you ever delightedly contemplate, we wish to sing in every place the praises of our Lord and to unite at all times our adorations with yours. Thus, when our manners have become altogether angelic, the present life will be full of peace, and we shall be well prepared for eternity.

Day 19, JOYFUL MYSTERIES, Wednesday September 30

Second Joyful Mystery ~ Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to St. Elizabeth

~ St. Alphonsus de Liguori, The Glories of Mary

My soul doth magnify the Lord:And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.Because He hath regarded the lowliness of His Handmaid:For, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is His Name.And His mercy is from generation unto generations,To them that fear Him. He hath showed might with His arm:He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the lowly.He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.He hath received Israel His servant, being mindful of His mercy;As He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.

FORTUNATE does that family consider itself which is visited by a royal personage, both on account of the honour that redounds from such a visit, and the advantages that may be hoped to accrue from it. But still more fortunate should that soul consider itself 'which is visited by the Queen of the world, the most holy Virgin Mary, who cannot but fill with riches and graces those blessed souls whom she deigns to visit by her favours. The house of Obededom was blessed when visited by the ark of God: “And the Lord blessed his house." But with how much greater blessings are those persons enriched who receive a loving visit from this living ark of God, for such was the Divine Mother! ‘Happy is that house which the Mother of God visits, says Engelgrave. This was abundantly experienced by the house of Saint John the Baptist; for Mary had scarcely entered it when she heaped graces and heavenly benedictions on the whole family; and for this reason, the present feast of the Visitation is commonly called that of 'our Blessed Lady of Graces.'

After the Blessed Virgin had heard from the Archangel Gabriel, that her cousin Saint Elizabeth had been six months pregnant, she was internally enlightened by the Holy Ghost to know that the Incarnate Word, who had become her Son, was pleased then to manifest to the world the riches of His mercy in the first graces that He desired to impart to all that family. Therefore, without inter posing any delay, according to Saint Luke, " Mary rising up . . . went into the hill country with haste."  Basing from the quiet of contemplation to which she was always devoted, and quitting her beloved solitude, she immediately set out for the dwelling of Saint Elizabeth; and because " charity beareth all things;"  and cannot support delay, as Saint Ambrose remarks on this Gospel: ' The Holy Ghost knows not slow undertakings;'''

Blessed Mary undertook the journey without even reflecting on the arduousness of the journey; this tender Virgin, I say, immediately undertook it. On reaching the house she salutes her cousin: “And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth." Saint Ambrose here remarks, that Mary was ' the first to salute' Elizabeth.  The visit of Mary, however had no resemblance with those of worldlings, which, for the greater part, consist in ceremony and outward demonstrations, devoid of all sincerity; for it brought with it an accumulation of graces. The moment she entered that dwelling, on her first salutation, Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost, and Saint John was cleansed from original sin, and sanctified ; and therefore gave that mark of joy by leaping in his mother's womb ; wishing, thereby, to manifest the grace that he had received by the means of the Blessed Virgin, as Saint Elizabeth declared : " As soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy." Thus, as Bernadine da Bustis remarks, in virtue of Mary's salutation, Saint John received the grace of the Divine Spirit which sanctified him: 'When the Blessed Virgin saluted Elizabeth, the voice of the salutation entering her ears, descended to the child, and by its virtue he received the Holy Ghost.'

And now, if all these first fruits of Redemption passed by Mary as the channel through which grace was communicated to the Baptist, the Holy Ghost to Elizabeth, the gift of prophecy to Zachary, and so many other blessings to the whole house, the first graces, which, to our knowledge, the Eternal Word had granted on earth after His Incarnation, it is quite correct to believe, that from thence forward God made Mary the universal channel, as she is called by Saint Bernard, through which all the other graces which our Lord is pleased to dispense to us should pass, as we have already declared in the fifth chapter of the first part of this work.' With reason, then, the Divine Mother is called the treasure, the treasurer, and the dispenser of Divine graces. She is thus called by Saint Peter Damian, ' the Treasure of Divine graces;' by Blessed Albert the Great, ' the Treasurer of Jesus Christ;' by Saint Bernardine, ' the Dispenser of graces;' by a learned Greek, quoted by Petavius, ' the Storehouse of all good things.' - So also by Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus, who observes, that ' Mary is said to be thus full of grace; for in her all the treasures of grace were hidden.' Richard of St. Lawrence also says, that 'Mary is a treasure, because God has placed all gifts of graces in her as in a treasury; and from thence He bestows great stipends on his soldiers and labourers.' She is a treasury of mercies whence our Lord enriches His servants. Saint Bonaventure, speaking of the field in the Gospel, in which a treasure is hidden, and which should be purchased at however great a price, "The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, which a man having found hid it ; and for joy thereof, goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field," says that 'our Queen Mary is this field in which Jesus Christ, the treasure of God the Father, is hid,' and with Jesus Christ the source and flowing fountain of all graces. Saint Bernard affirms, that our Lord 'has deposited the plenitude of every grace in Mary, that we may thus know that if we possess hope, grace, or anything salutary, that it is from her that it came.' Of this we are also assured by Mary herself, saying, "In me is all grace of the way and of the truth;" in me are all the graces of real blessings that you men can desire in life. Yes, sweet Mother, and our hope, we know full well, says Saint Peter Damien, ' that all the treasures of Divine mercies are in thy hands.' 

Day 18, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, 29 September Feast: St. Michael the Archangel

29 September, Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel

From The Liturgical Year, Dom Gueranger

THE glorious Archangel appears to-day at the head of the heavenly army: There was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels. Who, then, are these heavenly Powers, whose mysterious combat heads the first page of history? Their existence is attested by the traditions of all nations as well as by the authority of Holy Scripture.  If we consult the Church, she teaches us that in the beginning God created simultaneously two natures, the spiritual and the corporal, and afterwards man who is composed of both. The scale of nature descends by gradation from beings made to the likeness of God, to the very confines of nothingness; and by the same degrees the creature mounts upwards to his Creator. God is infinite being, infinite intelligence, and infinite love. The creature is forever finite: but man, endowed with a reasoning intellect, and the angel, with an intuitive grasp of truth, are ever, by a continual process of purification, widening the bounds of their imperfect nature, in order to reach, by increase of light, the perfection of greater love. God alone is simple with that unchangeable productive simplicity, which is absolute perfection excluding the possibility of progress; He is pure Act, in whom substance, power, and operation are one thing. The angel, though entirely independent of matter, is yet subject to the natural weakness necessary to a created being; he is not absolutely simple, for in him action is distinct from power, and power from essence. How much greater is the weakness of man’s composite nature, unable to carry on the operations of the intellect without the aid of the senses!

‘Compared with ours,’ says one of the most enlightened brethren of the angelic doctor, ‘How calm and how luminous is the knowledge of pure spirits! They are not doomed to the intricate discussions of our reason, which runs after the truth, composes and analyzes, and laboriously draws conclusions from propositions. They instantaneously apprehend the whole compass of primary truths. Their intuition is so prompt, so lively, so penetrating, that it is impossible for them to be surprised, as we are, into error. If they deceive themselves, it must be of their own will. The perfection of their will is equal to the perfection of their intellect. They know not what it is to be disturbed by the violence of appetites. Their love is without emotion; and their hatred of evil is as calm and as wisely tempered as their love. A will so free can know no perplexity as to its aims, no inconstancy in its resolutions. Whereas with us long and anxious meditation is necessary before we make a decision, it is the property of the angels to determine by a single act the object of their choice. God proposed to them, as He does to us, infinite beatitude in the vision of His own Essence; and to fit them for so great an end, He endowed them with grace at the same time as He gave them being. In one instant they said Yes or No; in one instant they freely and deliberately decided their own fate."

Let us not be envious. By nature the angel is superior to us; but, to which of the angels hath He said at any time, ‘Thou art My Son?” The only begotten Son of God did not take to Himself the angelic nature. When on earth, He acknowledged the temporary subordination of humanity to those pure spirits, and deigned to receive from them, even as do His brethren in the flesh, the announcements of the divine will, and help and strength. But ‘God hath not subjected unto angels the world to come,’ says the apostle.5 How can we understand this attraction of God towards what is feeblest? We can only worship it in humble, loving faith. It was Lucifer’s stumbling-block on the day of the great battle in heaven. But the faithful angels prostrated themselves in joyous adoration at the feet of the Infant-God foreshown to them enthroned on Mary’s knee, and then rose up to sing: ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.’ O Christ, my Christ as St. Denis calls Thee, the Church today delightedly proclaims Thee the beauty of the holy angels. Thou, the God-Man, art the lofty height whence purity, light, and love flow down upon the triple hierarchy of the nine choirs. Thou art the supreme Hierarch, the centre of worlds, controller of the deifying mysteries at the eternal feast. Flaming Seraphim, glittering Cherubim, steadfast Thrones, court of honour to the Most High, and possessed of the noblest inheritance: according to the Areopagite, ye receive your justice, your splendour, and your burning love by direct communication from our Lord: and through you, all grace overflows from Him upon the holy city. Dominations, Virtues, and Powers; sovereign disposers, prime movers, and rulers of the universe: in whose name do ye govern the world? Doubtless in His whose inheritance it is; in the name of the King of glory, the Man-God, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord of hosts.

Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; heaven’s messengers, ambassadors, and overseers here below: are ye not also, as the apostle says, ministers of the salvation wrought on earth by Jesus, the heavenly High-Priest? We also, through this same Jesus, O most holy Trinity, glorify Thee, together with the three princely hierarchies, which surround Thy Majesty with their nine immaterial rings as with a many-circled rampart.  To tend to Thee, and to draw all things to Thee, is their common law. Purification, illumination, union: by these three ways in succession, or simultaneously, are these noble beings attracted to God, and by the same they attract those who strive to emulate them. Sublime spirits, it is with your gaze ever fixed on high that ye influence those below and around you. Draw plentifully, both for yourselves and for us, from the central fires of the Divinity; purify us from more than the involuntary infirmities of nature; enlighten us; kindle us with your heavenly flames. For the same reason that Satan hates us, ye love us: protect the race of the Word made Flesh against the common enemy. So guard us, that we may hereafter be worthy to occupy among you the places left meant by the victims of pride.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; and do thou – O Prince of the Heavenly Hosts – thrust into hell, Satan, and all the evil spirits who prowl throughout the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. 

Day 17, SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, Monday September 28

St. Padre Pio, pray for us. May the Lord, by your powerful intercession, grant us to love Him more and more and to participate by our own acts of love in His holy Passion.

On Reparation for Sin, from the Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Pius XI, MISERENTISSIMUS REDEMPTOR, On Reparation to the Sacred Heart (Nos. 9,10)

But no created power was sufficient to expiate the sins of men, if the Son of God had not assumed man's nature in order to redeem it. This, indeed, the Savior of men Himself declared by the mouth of the sacred Psalmist: "Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldest not: but a body thou hast fitted to me: Holocausts for sin did not please thee: then said I: Behold I come" (Hebrews x, 5-7). And in very deed, "Surely He hath borne our infirmities, and carried our sorrows. . . He was wounded for our iniquities (Isaias liii, 4-5.) …  Yet, though the copious redemption of Christ has abundantly forgiven us all offenses (Cf. Colossians ii, 13), nevertheless, because of that wondrous divine dispensation whereby those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ are to be filled up in our flesh for His body which is the Church (Cf. Colossians i, 24), to the praises and satisfactions, "which Christ in the name of sinners rendered unto God" we can also add our praises and satisfactions, and indeed it behoves us so to do.

However, we must ever remember that the whole virtue of the expiation depends on the one bloody sacrifice of Christ, which without intermission of time is renewed on our altars in an unbloody manner, "For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the cross, the manner alone of offering being different" (Council of Trent, Session XXIII, Chapter 2). Wherefore with this most august Eucharistic Sacrifice there ought to be joined an oblation both of the ministers and of all the faithful, so that they also may "present themselves living sacrifices, holy, pleasing unto God" (Romans xii, 1). Nay more, St. Cyprian does not hesitate to affirm that "the Lord's sacrifice is not celebrated with legitimate sanctification, unless our oblation and sacrifice correspond to His passion" (Ephesians 63). For this reason, the Apostle admonishes us that "bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus" (2 Corinthians iv, 10), and buried together with Christ, and planted together in the likeness of His death (Cf. Romans vi, 4-5), we must not only crucify our flesh with the vices and concupiscences (Cf.Galatians v, 24), "flying the corruption of that concupiscence which is in the world" (2 Peter i, 4), but "that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies" (2 Corinthians iv, 10) and being made partakers of His eternal priesthood we are to offer up "gifts and sacrifices for sins" (Hebrews v, 1). Nor do those only enjoy a participation in this mystic priesthood and in the office of satisfying and sacrificing, whom our Pontiff Christ Jesus uses as His ministers to offer up the clean oblation to God's Name in every place from the rising of the sun to the going down (Malachias i, 11), but the whole Christian people rightly called by the Prince of the Apostles "a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood" (1 Peter ii, 9), ought to offer for sins both for itself and for all mankind (Cf. Hebrews v, 3), in much the same manner as every priest and pontiff "taken from among men, is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God" (Hebrews v, 1).

But the more perfectly that our oblation and sacrifice corresponds to the sacrifice of Our Lord, that is to say, the more perfectly we have immolated our love and our desires and have crucified our flesh by that mystic crucifixion of which the Apostle speaks, the more abundant fruits of that propitiation and expiation shall we receive for ourselves and for others. For there is a wondrous and close union of all the faithful with Christ, such as that which prevails between the head and the other members; moreover by that mystic Communion of Saints which we profess in the Catholic creed, both individual men and peoples are joined together not only with one another but also with him, "who is the head, Christ; from whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together, by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity" (Ephesians iv, 15-16). It was this indeed that the Mediator of God and men, Christ Jesus, when He was near to death, asked of His Father: "I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one" (John xvii, 23).

Day 15, GLORIOUS MYSTERIES, Saturday September 26

Our Lady, Help of Christians, Turin

Our Life, Our Sweetness, and Our Hope

~ St. Alphonsus de Liguori, from The Glories of Mary

In the Franciscan chronicles it is related, that brother Leo once saw a red ladder, on the summit of which was Jesus Christ; and a white one, on the top of which was His most holy Mother; and he saw some who tried to ascend the red ladder, and they mounted a few steps, and fell — they tried again, and again fell. They were then advised to go and try the white ladder, and by that one they easily ascended, for our Blessed Lady stretched out her hand and helped them, and so they got safely to heaven. Denis the Carthusian asks, ' Who is there that is saved? Who is there that reigns in heaven? ' And he answers, ' They are certainly saved and reign in heaven for whom this Queen of mercy intercedes.' And this, Mary herself confirms in the book of Proverbs, "By me kings reign;" through my intercession kings reign, first in this mortal life by ruling their passions, and so come to reign eternally in heaven, where, says Saint Augustine, 'All are kings.'

Saint Antoninus tells us 'that this Divine Mother has already, by her assistance and prayers, obtained heaven for us, provided we put no obstacle in the way.'' Hence says the Abbot Guerric, ' He who serves Mary, and for whom she intercedes, is as certain of heaven as if he was already there.' Saint John Damascene also says, 'that to serve Mary and be her courtier is the greatest honour we can possibly possess ; for, to serve the Queen of Heaven is already to reign there, and to live under her commands is more than to govern.'

Prayer

O Queen of Heaven and earth! O Mother of the Lord of the world! O Mary, of all creatures, the greatest, the most exalted, and the most amiable! It is true, that then; are many in this world who neither know thee, nor love thee; but in heaven, there are many millions of angels, and blessed spirits, who love and praise thee continually. Even in this world, how many happy souls are there not, who burn with thy love, and live enamoured of thy goodness! Oh, that I also could love thee, O Lady, worthy of all love. Oh that I could always remember to serve thee, to praise thee, to honour thee, and engage all to love thee. Thou hast attracted the love of God, whom, by thy beauty, thou hast, so to say, torn from the bosom of his Eternal Father, and engaged to become man, and be thy Son. And shall I, a poor worm of the earth, not be enamoured of thee? No, my most sweet Mother, I also will love thee much, and will do all that I can to make others love thee also. Accept then, O Mary, the desire that I have to love thee, and help me to execute it. I know how favourably thy lovers are looked upon by God. He, after His own glory, desires nothing more than thine, and to see thee honoured and loved by all. From thee, O Lady, do I expect all; through thee the remission of my sins, through thee perseverance. Thou must assist me at death, and deliver me from purgatory; and finally, thou must lead me to heaven. All this thy lovers hope from thee, and are not deceived. I, who love thee with so much affection, and above all other things, after God, hope for the same favours.

Day 14, SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, Friday, September 25

Psalm 21

O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins. O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear: and by night, and it shall not be reputed as folly in me. But thou dwellest in the holy place, the praise of Israel. In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them.

They cried to thee, and they were saved: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people. All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head. He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him. For thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother.

I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother' s womb thou art my God, Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me. Many calves have surrounded me: fat bulls have besieged me. They have opened their mouths against me, as a lion ravening and roaring. I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death. For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet. They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me. They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots. But thou, O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence.

Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog. Save me from the lion' s mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns. I will declare thy name to my brethren: in the midst of the church will I praise thee. Ye that fear the Lord, praise him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him. Let all the seed of Israel fear him: because he hath not slighted nor despised the supplication of the poor man. Neither hath he turned away his face from me: and when I cried to him he heard me.

With thee is my praise in a great church: I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear him. The poor shall eat and shall be filled: and they shall praise the Lord that seek him: their hearts shall live for ever and ever. All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord: And all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight. For the kingdom is the Lord' s; and he shall have dominion over the nations. All the fat ones of the earth have eaten and have adored: all they that go down to the earth shall fall before him.

And to him my soul shall live: and my seed shall serve him. There shall be declared to the Lord a generation to come: and the heavens shall shew forth his justice to a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made.