With the Church 2 sample pages by St. Augustine Academy Press

With

the Church Volume II: the Ascension to Advent

by Mother Mary Loyola

2016 St. Augustine Academy Press Hom e r Gl e n , I l l inoi s

This book is newly typeset based on the edition published in 1927 by Burns, Oates & Washbourne. All editing strictly limited to the correction of errors in the original text and minor clarifications in punctuation or phrasing. Any remaining oddities of spelling or phrasing are as found in the original.

Nihil Obstat: T. McLaughlin, S.T.D. Censor Deputatus. Imprimatur: E dm . C an . S urmont Vicarius Generalis. Westmonasterii, die 24a Februarii 1927.

ISBN: 978-1-936639-77-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958358

Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations in this book are public domain images. Cover image: Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Comites Latentes 54, f. 97r. (www.e-codices.unifr.ch)

Contents

I. II. III.

IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI.

FOREWORD THE UPPER ROOM ON MOUNT SION THE FIRST NOVENA GRACE—INFUSED VIRTUES: THE GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST 1. THE GIFT OF FEAR 2. THE GIFT OF PIETY 4. THE GIFT OF FORTITUDE 5. THE GIFT OF COUNSEL 6. THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING 7. THE GIFT OF WISDOM THE FIRST PENTECOST THE FIRST FAITHFUL UBI PETRUS IBI ECCLESIA THE MOST HOLY TRINITY—I THE MOST HOLY TRINITY—II THE MOST HOLY TRINITY—III GOD WITH US—I (CORPUS CHRISTI) GOD WITH US—II THE SACRED HEART—I THE SACRED HEART—II ST PETER AND ST. PAUL ST PETER—I ST PETER—II ST PAUL—I ST PAUL—II THE VISITATION—I THE VISITATION—II THE VISITATION—III

vii 1 10 16 20 24 35 41 48 51 58 64 70 75 80 88 95 99 109 113 117 122 128 136 144 153 158 164

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

vi XXII. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. XXXII. XXXIII. XXXIV. XXXV. XXXVI. XXXVII. XXXVIII. XXXIX. XL. XL I. XLII.

HOME FOR GOOD HOME HAPPINESS NATURE AND GRACE THE ASSUMPTION—I THE ASSUMPTION AND THE NATIVITY—II THE NEED OF AN INSTRUCTED LAITY THE CATHOLIC EVIDENCE GUILD FAITH OF OUR FATHERS—I FAITH OF OUR FATHERS—II HEREAFTER CHRIST THE KING FEAST OF THE KINGSHIP OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ALL SAINTS—I ALL SAINTS—II: LABOUR ALL SAINTS—III: SAINTS IN THE MAKING ALL SAINTS—IV: “ACCIDIE” ALL SAINTS—V: “EXSPECTO” ALL SOULS “BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH!”—I “BEHOLD THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH!”—II “GO FORTH, CHRISTIAN SOUL!”

173 179 188 194 198 205 211 224 233 240 249 257 267 274 280 285 290 302 314 319 325

FOREWORD

HE writer of these pages owes grateful acknowledgement to His Eminence Cardinal Bourne, whose words are frequently quoted. Also to many others too numerous to be specified. Above all to Fr. Herbert Thurston, S.J., to whose encouragement and revision of her work during thirty years any useful result must be attributed.

vii

I THE UPPER ROOM ON MOUNT SION “I have sanctified this place that my Name may be there for ever.”—2 Paralipomenon 7:16.

HE house on Mount Sion where our Lord had eaten the Pasch with His disciples attracted much attention during the forty days that followed. His last sigh on Calvary was a relief to His enemies, for the darkness of night at noon, the quaking earth, the terrified crowds, were all bearing out the testimony of the pagan centurion: “Indeed this man was the Son of God!” But by sunset on Friday all was over. He was in His grave. His personality would no longer fascinate and draw the multitudes after Him. No more would He speak as never man had spoken. By degrees the fickle crowds would forget the last three years of teaching and miracles. His memory, like that of other disturbers of the national peace, would be a thing of the past. But were they so satisfied that all was over? The report of the guards at the sepulchre and stories of risen saints appearing to many, the fact that His followers, apparently reassured, continued to meet in the Upper Room which had become their ordinary resort—all this was disturbing. And what meanwhile was passing in that room, the scene of so many mysteries? In what an atmosphere of the supernatural must it have been steeped. St. Luke tells us that for 1

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

forty days after His Resurrection our Lord “showed Himself alive by many proofs to the Apostles whom He had chosen, appearing to them and speaking of the kingdom of God.” It was there for the most part that the disciples met, trembling each time with expectation. Had He not said that where two or three were gathered together in His name there He would be among them? At any moment He might come. They began to speak of Him—and lo! He was in their midst, radiant and beautiful, and withal—the same. The old familiar intercourse was resumed: “Handle Me and see that it is I Myself.” There were the same loving signs of fellowship: “Have you here anything to eat? And when He had eaten before them, taking the remains He gave to them,” the wounded hands ministering as before. “A good master,” we are told, “must aim at something more than friendliness if he is to get the best out of his form. He must seek to create an atmosphere in which repression, shyness, and self-consciousness die a natural death. Implicit faith in a master, founded on experience, will demand on his part many confessions of weakness, admissions of ignorance, and so forth, each one an apparent blow at the position, authority, and dignity with which he is naturally invested, and which in default of some equally valuable substitute, such as the fellowship for which he is striving, it is highly necessary for him to maintain. It is not enough for him to be on friendly terms with the form. To obtain the best results something more is required, and that something is the precise difference between friendliness and fellowship.”1 1 T. R. Coxon.

The Upper Room on Mount Sion

Our Lord is the best of masters. He who knows what is in man, alone has the key to the human heart. He was bent on establishing that fellowship with Himself which would bring out in His Apostles all the powers, all the best that was in them. If the price must be an apparent sacrifice on His part of His position and dignity, was it not paid throughout the Passion? When in His agony He began to fear and to be heavy, and crept in the darkness to His disciples for their companionship and their sympathy, was He not like one of us in face of a coming trial? Surely it is not He who fails to fulfil the conditions of friendship, but those who drop their claim to it when it calls for sacrifice. What must have been the self-reproach and shame of the Apostles all through the hours of Friday and Saturday as tidings of what was passing in the city reached their hiding-places; as they heard of the Mother led by John to Calvary; of the woman who had dared to show sympathy to the condemned on His way to death; of the women who openly bewailed Him; of the three closing round the Cross, faithful to Him unto death! With what confusion must they have made their way to the Upper Room to face those who had only left the sepulchre when all was over; when they heard of the witness to their Master of the pagan centurion and the thief; of the once timid Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who had braved even the Roman governor and the Sanhedrin in order to show Him reverence after death! Easter morning with the early tidings from the tomb brought them no comfort. Even were the story of the women to be credited, if He was alive, what would the deserters be to Him now?

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

Suddenly came the announcement: “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon!” To Peter! Then there was hope for all. To Peter they hastened. Not only did he confirm his brethren, but he heartened them all, and when that same evening our Lord showed Himself to the ten in the Cenacle—loving and tender as ever—their simple hearts drank in without mistrust His words of peace and comfort. It was as comforter that Christ our Lord showed Himself after His Resurrection. There was no rebuke for His poor weak disciples, who, after all their protestations, had forsaken Him in His hour of need. With Peter He had had an early interview on Easter Day, too intimate and tender for revelation beyond the simple fact. To Thomas His condescension was almost incredible. One meeting in Galilee was all He had promised the Eleven. But He is better than His promises. Six times at least He appeared on the very day of His Resurrection. And because all His followers needed consolation, He summoned them all to be witnesses of His glorious Ascension. Every visit during the forty days confirmed their faith, strengthened their hope, intensified their love, and—as was inevitable after the Resurrection—inspired an ever-deepening reverence and awe. “None of them durst ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord.” Wonderful beyond words or thought must have been those meetings when the Eleven gathered round Him to receive His parting instructions as to the organisation, government and development of His Church, the authority and prerogatives of His Vicar, the sacraments and their

The Upper Room on Mount Sion

administration, the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world. How the unfolding of the Divine plan and the vastness of their commission must have brought home to them their incompetence and need of His presence and leadership. What insight into the Christian mysteries, what spiritual training they will have received. During their three years of intimate companionship with their Divine Master they had been accustomed to ask Him for explanations not given to the crowd. At the Last Supper we hear again and again their question: “Why?” In these last interviews we find them still inquiring as to happenings in the future: “Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” “Lord, and what shall this man do?” They will surely, then, have put to Him questions and have received instructions on many points not mentioned in Scripture, but handed down by them as the directions of Christ. Each time He came He endeared Himself to them more and more. They wanted to have Him always with them. His presence seemed indispensable to their future work for Him, and the question, “Why must He go away?” will have been often in their minds, if not upon their lips. “Jesus knew they had a mind to ask Him,” and He will have explained to them more fully why it was expedient for them that He should go. “I go to prepare a place for you.” He was Himself to the last. “To receive the reward of My labours and sufferings: to return to the glory which I had with the Father before the world was”—this He might have said. But no: “I go to prepare a place for you.” As man He had come to know by a new way, the way of experience,

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

what the human heart needs for its essential and all-sufficing beatitude. By the intimate companionship of three years He now knew His Apostles. The future of each one, the trials that awaited him in his apostolate, the graces to be provided, the special place that was to be his for eternity—all this He knew, and He was going to prepare it. “If I go not,” He had said at the Last Supper, “the Paraclete will not come to you.” He knew better than they knew themselves the desolation His going away would be to them, the void it would leave in their hearts. But in place of the Comforter they were losing, He promised to send them another, One who would be even more to them than He Himself had been, because not subject to earthly conditions and limitations. But why must another take His place? St. John tells us why. In all the created works of God the Three Persons of the Blessed Trinity co-operate. The Eternal Father so loved the world as to give His only begotten Son . . . that the world might be saved by Him. Through the merits and prayers of this His beloved Son, He sent His Holy Spirit to complete and perfect the work of our redemption. For three years the Apostles had heard the heavenly doctrine of Jesus Christ. But until the Holy Ghost descended upon them at Pentecost they did not comprehend what they had been taught. They had had before their eyes a sublime example of every virtue, yet they remained worldly-minded and weak. So is it with us. Our understanding must be enlightened by the Spirit of truth in order to apprehend and appreciate the

The Upper Room on Mount Sion

teaching of Christ. We may admire the example of humility and obedience He has given us, the fortitude with which He embraced hardship and suffering. But without the grace of the Holy Spirit we cannot move a step in imitation of Him. Therefore the Spirit of Holiness, whose special work is the sanctification of souls, comes to dwell in us as the soul dwells in the body to give it life and movement. To have Him with us, the Lord and Lifegiver, is spiritual life and activity—to be without Him is death. He was to complete the work of Christ by His perpetual presence in the Church. And because it was fitting that this Gift of gifts merited for her by the sufferings of the Sacred Humanity should not be given till that Humanity was in possession of the glory to which it was entitled, our Lord ascended first into Heaven. “As yet,” says St. John, “the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” It was expedient, moreover, that the visible presence of Christ should be withdrawn from the Apostles for the more perfect exercise of their faith. Faith, as St. Paul shows, has from the beginning been the condition of salvation for all men. The coming of the Son of God into our midst has made it easier, but so far from dispensing with faith, the Incarnation makes more insistent demands upon it. Against this men may and do rebel because of the submission of intellect and will which faith requires. They attempt to prove it derogatory to man, in conflict with reason, the advance of science, and the trend of modern thought. But the word of Truth remains firm: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

So long as their Divine Master Was with them, the faith of the Apostles was imperfect: “Because thou hast seen Me, Thomas, thou hast believed; blessed are they that have not seen and have believed.” To be near Him as in the past three years, within the sound of His voice, the glance of His eye, the touch of His hand, would have been unsuited to their mission and to their own good. It was the nearest approach to the Beatific Vision. And this is reserved for Heaven as the reward of faith. If in these days of religious confusion the many earnest inquirers after Truth would realise the place allotted to faith in the counsels of God, they would see in the uncompromising attitude of the Catholic Church in doctrinal matters, not an obstacle but an incentive to that submission of mind and heart to her which in the name of God she exacts. The forty days of instruction ended, our Lord appeared to the Eleven for the last time, and, as was His wont, whilst they were at table. “And He led them out as far as Bethania: and lifting up His hands He blessed them. And whilst He blessed them, He departed from them, and was carried up to Heaven. And they adoring went back into Jerusalem with great joy.” Their love was unselfish now. He whom they loved better than life itself had returned to the Bosom of the Father. He had entered into His glory. They had witnessed His victory and His triumph. What did anything else matter! They were ready for all He might ask of them. Labours, persecution, anything that might befall themselves no longer affrighted

The Upper Room on Mount Sion

them. With peaceful hearts they returned to the city to await the coming of the Paraclete who was to supply all their need. How in after years, with world-wide distances between them, those gatherings around their Risen Master, that questioning and representation of difficulties, and pleading for help, must have deepened the sense of brotherhood He had created among them! With what refreshment amid the labours of their apostolate, with what delight in their letters to one another, will they have recalled with Peter their â&#x20AC;&#x153;companying together all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among them.â&#x20AC;?

II THE FIRST NOVENA “I will make them joyful in my house of prayer.”—Isaias 56:7.

“A

ND when they were come in, they went up into an upper room and were all persevering with one mind in prayer with the women, and Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and with His brethren.” What was the primary object of that fervent united prayer? Surely it was a cry for help. They did not believe that the promise of “power from on high” dispensed them from prayer. They realised now their own weakness and ignorance, and understood the urgency of their Master’s injunction: “Watch and pray.” He was gone who for three years had been to them all in all, whose presence had been light and strength, resource in every need. He had revealed Himself to them as the world’s long expected Messiah. He had associated them with Himself in the work He came to do. With Him they had felt equal to anything. Because He had said it, they knew it was expedient for them that He should go. But in some mysterious and more profitable way He was to come to them again and abide with them always. This was their consolation and support. The Holy Spirit might have been given directly after the Ascension, but His coming was delayed for ten full days, during which time the disciples remained within the Cenacle waiting and praying, without knowing when He was to come. 10

The First Novena

They knew it is God’s Will to give us by means of prayer the good things He has in store for us. “Ask,” He says, and you shall receive.” “Your Father who is in heaven will give the good Spirit to them that ask Him.” But God does not always give as soon as we ask. This He has not promised. We have more esteem for what has cost us much to acquire. Desire grows keener, prayer more fervent when the answer is delayed. Perseverance makes us feel our dependence on God. It requires the exercise of faith, humility, confidence, fortitude and patience. These win for us a fuller measure of reward in the end. Therefore He keeps us waiting. That nine days’ prayer in the Upper Room was the first and greatest of Novenas. It was the appointment of our Lord Himself, and the sanction of a practice which has won innumerable favours from Heaven, temporal as well as spiritual. Among its characteristics St. Luke mentions three. All the Apostles were there, with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the women, and His brethren—the Church Militant in germ— teaching and taught. And all were persevering with one mind in prayer, exemplifying even before the coming of the Holy Ghost the unity which through all time was to be so marvellous a testimony to her divine origin. Where outside her fold today shall we come across one hundred and twenty persevering thus for nine days? Could we ascertain the belief of even a dozen met together for worship in common, should we find then of one mind? As to perseverance, see the dismay with which their teachers behold the diminishing congregations, and the devices to which some have recount to entice them to an hour’s service once a week.

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

Turn to Lourdes, to the national pilgrimages pouring unceasingly into the little place, filling it early and late with their supplication and their praise. Not only are those multitudes of one mind as to faith, but as to hope and charity—priests, medical men, schoolboy volunteers acting under the direction of the brancardiers and the trained Sisters and nurses, helpers of every kind, working together for the relief and comfort of the sick, and all with one voice joining in the prayers put up for all. If any sanctuary could be dedicated to Faith, Hope, and Charity, it might be our Lady’s chosen home at Lourdes, so like, if so unlike, that first gathering of the infant Church in Jerusalem, persevering in prayer around the Mother of Jesus. But we need not go so far as France for an example of united prayer. At an early Mass in the most unpretentious of Catholic churches, you will find the poor there before you. They do not tire. They need no novelties to interest and absorb them. The one Sacrifice daily renewed before their eyes suffices. Suffices for all comers. Cardinal Newman used to say he thought he could never be tired at Low Mass. One more striking characteristic of the first novena is what we might call the naturally supernatural way in which St. Peter takes his place as Head of the Church on earth. How few there are amongst non-Catholics who grasp the significance of those words of the great Apostle: “Christ loved the Church.” The greater number are irritated by every exercise of authority on her part. They complain that she exaggerates the prerogatives given by Christ, that she encroaches on His rights, and more and more as time goes on. Yet what exercise of authority has the Church

The First Novena

ever taken upon herself comparable to the election of an Apostle, and this before the Descent of the Holy Ghost? It was all so simply done: “Peter, rising up in the midst of the brethren, said: Men, brethren . . . of these men who have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us . . . one must be made witness with us of His resurrection . . . to take the place of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas hath by transgression fallen . . . And they appointed two . . . and they gave them lots, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.” There was earnest prayer, but there was no discussion. No one objected: “In a matter of such moment had we not better wait for the Lord’s promise, the coming of the Paraclete?” Peter had said the witness must be found. They all concurred as a matter of course. And when the Paraclete came, it was upon the completed number of twelve that He descended with all His Gifts. These Gifts are seven powers, or seven springs of action which God communicates to the soul with sanctifying grace. This grace is not always in activity, as the fire in the flint does not appear until by a stroke we elicit it. Left to itself, the soul would not be apt and ready to obey the impulse of God’s holy Spirit, without which we can do nothing meritorious for eternal life. He therefore comes to its help by bestowing upon our faculties certain supernatural qualities which substitute for a soul’s merely natural activity an activity which has its spring and action in the Holy Ghost, with whom they bring it into communication. Four of

With the Church II: The Ascension to Advent

these Gifts—Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, and Counsel—enlighten the intellect. Three—Fortitude, Piety, and the holy Fear of God—perfect the will. The Holy Spirit comes for us as well as for the hundred and twenty in the Upper Room. He knows us through and through—our circumstances and our troubles; His designs over us; the work He means us to do for Him in our own souls and in the souls of others. And He comes with Divine compassion to help us in our need. Invisibly but really He comes each Whitsuntide by a renewal of our Confirmation grace and of His seven Gifts and Fruits. To enrich, to strengthen, to comfort, to make the way to Heaven easier for us—for this He comes. But He expects us to make ready for Him by desire and some earnest prayer, however short. Is this asking too much? The Apostles and the disciples were bidden to prepare for Him, though He was promised to them. Do we need preparation less than that fervent company? He is wont to give according to our desires: “Open thy mouth and I will fill it.” We might take a few minutes each day of the novena to join in spirit with the hundred and twenty round our Lady, in earnest prayer for those Gifts that perfect the intellect— Counsel, Knowledge, Understanding, Wisdom; and the will by Fortitude, Piety, and the holy Fear of God. To arouse desire by the sense of need, we may call to mind our normal thoughts and motives, our conversation and general intercourse with others, our daily prayer and service of God as known to Him and to ourselves alone. Should we still remain unconscious of special need, we can take up the

The First Novena

Life of any saint and compare our own with what we see there. The sense of need will probably come fast enough. Indeed, we shall have to dismiss quickly anything like despondency at the sight of our mediocrity by hastening humbly and trustingly to the merciful Spirit who comes on purpose to show His power by enlightening and strengthening such as we are, if only we pray and trust.