name: Rise thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead; and Christ shall enlighten thee.1

But the labours of an apostolate attacked in every land by the prince of this world, and the cares of universal government, did not exhaust the zeal that fired thy apostolic soul. Be thou blessed for having reserved thy special teaching and solicitude for the best-loved portion of our Lord's flock, for them that follow the Lamb on the mountain, where thou didst see him, and whithersoever he goeth. Through thy prayers, may the imitators of Flavia Domitilla increase in number and still more in merit. May every Christian learn from the lesson of thy life, that the nobility of this world is nothing compared with that which is won by the love of Christ. May the world, and its capital, once given to God by the Apostles and the Roman patricians, become once more his undisputed kingdom.

On the 10th July we honoured St. Felicitas, mother of the Martyrs, giving a second and heavenly birth to her seven sons. But her own recompense was delayed for four long months. The Church has inscribed her name on the sacred diptychs; let us, then, again offer her our prayers and praises on this day, whereon the sword at length fulfilled her desires, and in justification of her name, restored her to her sons in eternal felicity.

ANTIPHON.

ANT. Date ei de fructu ANT. Give her of the fruit manuum suarum, et lau- of her hands, and let her dent eam in portis opera works praise her in the gates. ejus.

1 Eph. v. 14.

PRAYER.

NOVEMBER 24.

SAINT JOHN OF THE CROSS.

CONFESSOR.

LET us go with the Church to Mount Carmel, and offer our grateful homage to John of the Cross, who, following in the footsteps of Teresa of Jesus, opened a safe way to souls seeking God.

The growing disinclination of the people for social prayer was threatening the irreparable destruction of piety, when in the sixteenth century the divine goodness raised up Saints, whose teaching and holiness responded to the needs of the new times. Doctrine does not change: the asceticism and mysticism of that age transmitted to the succeeding centuries the echo of those that had gone before. But their explanations were given in a more didactic way and analysed more narrowly; their methods aimed at obviating the risk of illusion, to which souls were exposed by their isolated devotion. It is but just to recognize that under the ever fruitful action of the Holy Ghost, the psychology of supernatural states became more extended and more precise.

The early Christians, praying with the Church, living daily and hourly the life of her Liturgy, kept her stamp upon them in their personal relations with God. Thus it came about that, under the persevering and transforming influence of the Church, and

participating in the graces of light and union, and in all the blessings of that one Beloved so pleasing to the Spouse, they assimilated her sanctity to themselves, without any further trouble but to follow their Mother with docility, and suffer themselves to be carried securely in her arms. Thus they applied to themselves the words of our Lord: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. We need not be surprised that there was not then, as now, the frequent and assiduous assistance of a particular director for each soul. Special guides are not so necessary to the members of a caravan or of an army: it is isolated travellers that stand in need of them; and even with these special guides, they can never have the same security as those who follow the caravan or the army.

This was understood, in the course of the last few centuries, by the men of God who, taking their inspiration from the many different aptitudes of souls, became the leaders of schools, one it is true in aim, but differing in the methods they adopted for counteracting the dangers of individualism. In this campaign of restoration and salvation, where the worst enemy of all was illusion under a thousand forms, with its subtle roots and its endless wiles, John of the Cross was the living image of the Word of God, more piercing than any two-edged sword, reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow; for he read, with unfailing glance, the very thoughts and intentions of hearts. Let us listen to his words. Though he belongs to modern times, he is evidently a son of the ancients.

"The soul," he says, "is to attain to a certain "sense, to a certain divine knowledge, most generous "and full of sweetness, of all human and divine things which do not fall within the common-sense "and natural perceptions of the soul; it views them

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"with different eyes now, for the light and grace of "the Holy Ghost differ from those of sense, the "divine from the human. The dark night, through "which the soul passes, on its way to the divine light of the perfect union of the love of God-so "far as it is in this life possible-requires for its explanation_greater experience and light of know"ledge than I possess. For so great are the trials, "and so profound the darkness, spiritual as well as "corporal, which souls must endure, if they will "attain to perfection, that no human knowledge can "comprehend them, nor experience describe them.2

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"The journey of the soul to the divine union is "called night, for three reasons. The first is derived "from the point from which the soul sets out, the privation of the desire of all pleasure in all the things of this world, by an entire detachment "therefrom. This is as night for every desire and 66 sense of man. The second, from the road by which "it travels; that is, faith, for faith is obscure like "night to the intellect. The third, from the goal "to which it tends, God, incomprehensible and "infinite, who in this life is as night to the soul. "We must pass through these three nights if we are "to attain to the divine union with God.

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They are foreshadowed in holy Scripture by the "three nights which were to elapse, according to the "command of the angel, between the betrothal and "the marriage of the younger Tobias. On the first night he was to burn the liver of the fish in the "fire, which is the heart whose affections are set on "the things of this world, and which, if it will enter on the road that leadeth unto God, must be burned

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1 Complete works of ST JOHN OF THE CROSS, translated from the original Spanish by David Lewis, M. A. The obscure night of the Soul, Book ii. chap. ix. 2 The Ascent of Mount Carmel. Prologue. 3 Tob. vi. 18.

PENT. VI.

2 c