THE OCTAVE DAY OF Corpus Christi. LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE FIRST SENTIMENT. Gather to day with great care, O my soul, the precious fruits of all this holy octave; redouble your fervour on this last day, you will no more behold so often your adorable Saviour exposed on this altar; profit by the last moments which remain to you, hasten to receive all the graces which He offers you, and finish by loving without end, and with an ardour always new, Him Who, in this Sacrament of love, has loved you with a perfect and consummate love. This is the eighth day that you have come to adore this God a Victim and sacrificed upon this altar; you ought to be persuaded that He has descended upon it and that He resides on it only because He loves you, and that it is His excessive love which has transported Him from His heavenly throne to this; penetrated and inflamed with love, render thanks to Him for it. This God all amiable has spoken to you, He has conversed with you, you have exposed your wants to Him, you have asked from Him the graces which were most necessary for you, and, above all, that of loving Him and of never ceasing to love Him; reiterate this petition, do it with all the ardour of which you are capable, and go not forth from this place until you have obtained it. Ask yourself how you go away from these conversations so fitted to inflame you with love for Him; could you say at present, with those blessed disciples at Emmaus whom the newly risen JESUS had just quitted after the fraction of the bread: "Did not our heart burn within us when He talked with us on the way ?" They had only enjoyed His divine presence some hours, and you have enjoyed it a very long time, and as often as you wished; profit by it then in proportion, and strive like them to retain Him. Cast also some looks of reverence and of love on this Host Which contains a God infinitely amiable, and a Saviour full of goodness; and cry, more from the heart than the mouth, with a holy doctor: "O prodigious love of my God and my Saviour! O goodness unheard of and unequalled! O infinite mercy! O Lord, Thou art seated in the highest heavens, and Thy love makes Thee descend here below in order to converse familiarly with the sinners whom Thou lovest. Thou drawest them with goodness, Thou seekest them with solicitude and empressement; and when they are too weak to go to Thee, Thou Thyself goest before them, Thou aidest them to walk, Thou carriest them like a good shepherd, as if Thou couldst not do without them; Thou visitest them, Thou enterest into them, Thou supportest them in their weakness, Thou speakest to them heart to heart; Thou nourishest them as Thine own children, and the nutriture which Thou givest them, is Thyself." II. Thy throne is eternal, O my God; it is resplendent, because it is of flames and fire. There Thou shinest in celestial sovereignty: there Thou art adored as a God of majesty, there Thou art loved, Thou lovest Thyself, there Thou dwellest in Thy proper grandeurs; and yet Thou descendest therefrom in order to come to converse familiarly with me. What goodness and what a miracle of love! The whole heaven resounds with Thy praises; the Seraphim which surround Thy Throne and all the heavenly Intelligences there adore Thee, all those blessed. Spirits chant unceasingly canticles to Thy glory, they love Thee with inconceivable ardour; and, at the word of a mortal man, Thou descendest upon this Host, Thou comest to dwell and to take Thy delight within me: is it possible, O my adorable Lord, that Thou lovest me to this excess? Thou comest to put Thyself in the place of a morsel of bread, Thou sufferest Thyself to be placed wherever the priest wishes to carry Thee, sometimes on an altar, sometimes inclosed in a tabernacle, sometimes in a mouth, sometimes in a stomach to serve as food; what goodness and what excess of love! O mystical and inconceivable extacy! exclaims a holy doctor: O prodigious and incomprehensible love! O surprising transubstantiation! What! an Almighty God, before Whom heaven and earth are nothing; a God the Creator of this vast universe, Who has need of nothing, Who is alone sufficient for Himself, can He have a heart sensible and susceptible of love for a creature who merits nothing, who is nothing, He Who is all? But, Lord, does not this love, which makes Thee work such astonishing prodigies, which humbles Thee and abases Thee so prodigiously, in uniting Thee to objects so very far below Thee, derogate from Thy greatness, and is not this mingling dishonouring to Thee? No, Lord, Thou makest it, on the contrary, a glory and a pleasure. If the natural sun penetrates by his rays into the foulest and most tainted places, without contracting the least stain; Thou, O my God, Who art the Sun of justice, art able to introduce everywhere the rays of glory which proceed from Thy adorable Countenance, from Thy Body, from Thy Blood, |