Redeemer and my Master, which Thou hast been preparing for so long a period. In order to attain this end and aim of Thy love, Thou hast suffered and laboured from Thy Childhood. Grant to us truly to profit by it, Thou Who livest and reignest throughout eternity. "O Glory of the Christian! O Love of GOD!" cries S. Cyril of Jerusalem, "by the participation of the Divine Mysteries we become but one Flesh and One Blood with JESUS CHRIST."

S. Cyril of Alexandria, the glorious defender of the mystery of the Incarnation, and of the Divine Maternity at the Council of Ephesus, reminds us that JESUS has compared Himself to the Vine, and that we are likened to the branches which it bears. He says, "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in Me." So we draw from JESUS, our supernatural life, according to the words of the Apostle, "For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that

One Bread."

Why is this mysterious

Bread deposited within us? is it not that JESUS CHRIST may dwell even bodily within us by the participation and union of His Holy Flesh? Yes, certainly, and S. Paul has written "that the Gentiles should be fellow-heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His Promise in CHRIST." Now how have they become One same Body with JESUS CHRIST, if not by participation in the Divine Mysteries? the SAVIOUR Himself declares, “He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood dwelleth in Me." Let us observe this well: JESUS does not say that He will be within us by a mere union of the heart, but by a physical Presence, by a Personal Union. As two pieces of wax melted and mixed together form but one piece of wax, so by the reception of His adorable Body and Blood, JESUS dwells in us, and we dwell in Him, and make but one with Him.

Bearing in mind the corrupt tendencies of our nature, we have no way of preserving life, but by incorporating ourselves into the Flesh of Him Who is Life, even

JESUS CHRIST, the only SON of the FATHER, into the Flesh of JESUS, Who is Life. CHRIST is at once spiritually and corporally the Vine of which we are the branches: we adhere to Him by a union, not only spiritual but corporal.

GOD, Who dwells in us by His Son JESUS, wills that our supernatural life should be continually nourished by this sacred feeding upon the Flesh of the Lamb. 'My dearly-loved child," He says to the Christian, "I make this Sacrament to be the meeting-place for our love. Thou wilt ardently desire to receive Me: thou wilt wait for this visit of thy GOD with a tender and holy impatience, and with great purity. I will to fill thee, and it is by My Sacrament that I especially pour Myself into thee. Communion is

for thee, JESUS adored, JESUS desired, JESUS loved and possessed,

ing thee more and more.

JESUS possessHe that eateth

Me shall live by Me, and shall live for Me. Thou hast such great need to live for Me! By virtue of My virtues imparted to thee, virtues shall live, and in

crease, and grow to perfection in thee, just in the same way as he who lives upon some particular kind of food partakes of its qualities. Come then, my child, thou must adore Me in the Sacrament of My love, thou must ardently love Me in It, in order to make some return to Me. I am there with a treasure of love, not for angels but for men, and I burn to give it to them. It is a lively faith which must here be, and do, everything for thee: may it enable thee to draw daily from this living Source, which is nothing else but Me, thy Well-Beloved, present in the world with a real presence of love, present solely to love, to feed, to uphold, to give Myself to all and to each of My creatures."

NINETEENTH FRIDAY AFTER
TRINITY.

CXXXIX.-On the Deadly Sin of Covetousness. I COR. vi. 10.- "Nor thieves nor covetous shall inherit the Kingdom of God."

DAVID speaks of the " covetous, whom GOD abhorreth," (Ps. x. 3,) and we

cannot fail to notice how S. Paul joins together in this passage those who break the Eighth Commandment with those who are guilty of the deadly sin of Of both he says that they

Covetousness.

shall not “inherit the Kingdom of GOD." The one is a sin of deed, the other a sin of thought; but he makes no distinction. In another passage he couples the covetous with idolaters, as having "no inheritance in the Kingdom of CHRIST and of GOD" (Eph. v. 5). The writer of the Book Ecclesiasticus (quoted in the Homilies as the words of " Almighty GOD"), says that "there is not a more wicked thing than a covetous man: for such an one setteth his own soul to sale" (x. 9). We have only to look into the Bible, into the history of all ages, and into our own hearts, to see how prone men, even good men in other respects, are, to this deadly sin of covetousness. To covet is not to take, but to wish for that which belongs to another, or that which we do not possess. Covetousness leads to the commission of many sins, such as discontent,