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OUR LADY'S DOLOURS

(1)

May 17

MARY IS THE REGINA

MARTYRUM,

THE QUEEN OF MARTYRS 1

HY is she so called?-she

WH

who never had any blow, or wound, or other injury to her consecrated person. How can she be exalted over those whose bodies suffered the most ruthless violences and the keenest torments for our Lord's sake? She is, indeed, Queen of all Saints, of those who 'walk with Christ in white, for they are worthy'; but how of those 'who

1 From this day to the end of the month, being the Novena and Octave of St. Philip, the Meditations are shorter than the foregoing. J.H.N.

were slain for the Word of God, and for the testimony which they held'?

To answer this question, it must be recollected that the pains of the soul may be as fierce as those of the body. Bad men who are now in hell, and the elect of God who are in purgatory, are suffering only in their souls, for their bodies are still in the dust; yet how severe is that suffering! And perhaps most people who have lived long can bear witness in their own persons to a sharpness of distress which was like a sword cutting them, to a weight and force of sorrow which seemed to throw them down, though bodily pain there was none.

What an overwhelming horror it must have been for the Blessed Mary to witness the Passion and the Crucifixion of her Son! Her anguish was, as Holy Simeon had announced to her, at the time of that Son's Presentation in the Temple, a sword piercing her soul. If our Lord Himself could not bear the prospect of what was before Him, and was covered in

the thought of it with a bloody sweat, His soul thus acting upon His body, does not this show how great mental pain can be? and would it have been wonderful though Mary's head and heart had given way as she stood under His Cross?

Thus is she most truly the Queen of Martyrs.

OUR LADY'S DOLOURS

(2)

May 18

MARY IS THE VAS INSIGNE

DEVOTIONIS,'

THE MOST DEVOUT VIRGIN

O be devout is to be devoted.

то

We know what is meant by a devoted wife or daughter. It is one whose thoughts centre in the person so deeply loved, so tenderly cherished. She follows him about with her eyes; she is ever seeking some means of serving him; and, if her services are very small in their character, that only shows how intimate they are, and how incessant. And especially if the object of her love be weak, or in pain, or near to die, still more intensely does she live in his life, and know nothing but

This intense devotion towards our Lord, forgetting self in love for Him, is instanced in St. Paul, who says, 'I know nothing but Jesus. Christ and Him crucified.' And again, 'I live, [yet] now not I, but Christ liveth in me; and [the life] that I now live in the flesh, I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself for me.'1

But great as was St. Paul's devotion to our Lord, much greater was that of the Blessed Virgin; because she was His Mother, and because she had Him and all His sufferings actually before her eyes, and because she had the long intimacy of thirty years with Him, and because she was from her special sanctity so ineffably near to Him in spirit. When, then, He was mocked, bruised, scourged, and nailed to the Cross, she felt as keenly as if every indignity and torture inflicted on Him was

Vivo autem, jam non ego: vivit vero in me Christus. Quod autem nunc vivo in carne in fide vivo Filii Dei, qui dilexit me, et tradidit semetipsum pro me.' (Gal. ii. 20.)

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