Part 1

CORAM SANCTISSIMO

BEFORE THE MOST HOLY

(CORAM SANCTISSIMO)

BY

MOTHER MARY LOYOLA

OF THE BAR CONVENT, YORK

EDITED BY

FATHER THURSTON, S.J.

ST. LOUIS, MO.

B. HERDER

17 SOUTH BROADWAY

LONDON: SANDS & CO.

1904

Nihil obstat.

HERBERT THURSTON, S.J., _Censor Deputatus_.

Imprimatur.

HERBERTUS CARD. VAUGHAN, _Archiep. Westmonast._

_15th September, 1900._

TO

JESUS CHRIST

YESTERDAY

TO-DAY

AND THE SAME

FOR EVER

PREFACE.

The custom of honouring the Eucharistic presence of Christ our Lord by paying “Visits” to the Blessed Sacrament may be quoted as one of the most conspicuous examples of development in the devotional practice of the Catholic Church. Down to the latter part of the Middle Ages such an usage seems to have been entirely unknown. As far as regards England, the late Father Bridgett, if I mistake not, says that in all the researches made by him while compiling his _History of the Holy Eucharist in Great Britain_ he had not come across one clear example of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament in pre-Reformation times. Even on the Continent the idea of any extra-liturgical _cultus_ of the Blessed Eucharist seems to have grown up very tardily. There were many saints as late as the fifteenth century, say, for example, St. Frances of Rome, whose lives show no trace of such a conception, though nothing could be more strongly emphasised than their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Communion.[1] It is remarkable to notice that even St. Ignatius Loyola, in the book of the _Spiritual Exercises_, when directing attention to the abiding presence of God with His creatures as a motive for awakening love, says not a word of the Blessed Sacrament. One must not, of course, press the negative argument too far. No prudent man would infer in this latter case that the practice of visiting churches to commune with our Lord in the Tabernacle was unknown in the sixteenth century, but it is reasonable to conclude that the uninterrupted Eucharistic presence of God with His people did not then play the same conspicuous part in the devotional life of the faithful that it does in our day.

This late and gradual development of a devotion, which seems to us now so natural and so unmistakably involved in premises that all men accepted, is certainly a remarkable fact. Even to the present day the Greek Church, though its belief in transubstantiation is no less explicit than our own, has never drawn the inference that our Lord has come in the Blessed Sacrament to be our companion and refuge as well as our food. It seems to have been part of the Divine dispensation, in this as in some other matters, to hold men’s eyes that they should not know Him. Throughout the long centuries our forefathers seem to have regarded the Eucharistic presence as if Christ had wished to preserve His _incognito_ while He dwelt amongst them, or as if He were sleeping as of old in the bark of Peter and would rebuke the want of faith of those who too importunately disturbed His repose. But surely we are right in thinking that if they so apprehended God’s purpose in remaining on our altars, their appreciation of His boon was but inchoative and imperfect. To us now it seems so obvious that the work of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was not meant to be intermittent, limited to the time of Mass and Holy Communion, that it is hard to believe that Christians who truly recognised this presence in their midst can ever have conceived otherwise. Perhaps we may draw the lesson that if the fulness of understanding were long delayed in so plain a matter, it is not surprising that in other dogmas and practices which justify themselves less obviously there may be developments in the Church’s teaching not suspected or at least not clearly apprehended by our forefathers in the faith.

As things are, no devout Catholic would wish to be deprived of the privilege of drawing near to our Saviour in the Tabernacle and making Him the daily confidant of hopes and fears, of joys and troubles. But what distresses many pious souls is that having Him ready and willing to listen they should so often find themselves tongue-tied in His presence. The set forms of prayer which they know by heart are worn threadbare by routine, and books too often prove stiff and artificial. The heart has many wants and longings, but hardly knows how to put them into words. In such a case real help, I think, is likely to be found in this very miscellaneous collection of musings, self-arraignments, out-pourings of spirit, to which the authoress has given the apt name of _Coram Sanctissimo_, “in the presence of the Most Holy”. They are not intended to be taken in rotation, or to be used every day, but there are times when a troubled worshipper, turning over the leaves, may light upon something here which will chime in with his mood and will make the task of prayer more easy to him. And if for one or another the thoughts of this little book may serve to break the ice and to render the soul for the nonce more at home in that holy presence, I feel sure that the authoress will consider the labour spent in writing it to have been abundantly repaid.

It will be noticed that in the pages which follow verse finds a place as well as prose. It would not be fair to let this go forth to the world without stating that it has been written, so to speak, under protest, and that without strong encouragement Mother Mary Loyola would hardly have suffered it to see the light. Although the verses are perhaps unequal, I do not in any way repent the share I have had in urging the writer to let them stand. It would have been worth a greater risk of failure and a longer expenditure of time to have secured even a few such happy lines as may be read for instance in the chapter headed “In Silence and in Hope,” describing St. Mary Magdalen:--

She came with her crushing memories, She came with her secret fears, She brought Him her hidden misery And her bitter, burning tears.

Or again:--

Absorbed in her loving ministries She knelt at His feet apart, The scandal of every eye save one That soundeth the secret heart.

The verses at best are only an experiment. They were written in each case for the sake of the thought, not of the metrical form, and if the authoress could have found, as she long endeavoured to do, any suitable religious poetry which expressed kindred ideas, and which would have afforded that variety which is meant to be characteristic of this little booklet, she would have been glad, I know, to escape the seeming presumption of appearing as a writer of verse. But I do not think that the many friends who use and appreciate Mother Loyola’s _Confession and Communion_ and her other devotional books will be disappointed in anything which may meet their eye in this new effort of her pen.

HERBERT THURSTON, S.J.

_11th September, 1900._

[1] The earliest satisfactory example of visits to the Blessed Sacrament which I have so far come across occurs in the life of Blessed Maria de Malliaco (A.D. 1331-1414), who, it is stated, “in festis solemnibus vigilabat in ecclesia coram corpore Christi”. The story of St. Louis of France, who in a grievous storm placed himself on his knees before the Blessed Sacrament on ship-board, does not appear to me to belong to quite the same category. I should be grateful to any readers of this note who may be able to supply me with earlier instances.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE I. VISITS 1 II. PRAISE 9 III. “POSSUMUS” 14 IV. THE SON OF MAN 18 V. WHAT THINGS? 21 VI. VENITE AD ME OMNES 30 VII. THE HIDDEN GOD 33 VIII. LOOKING THROUGH THE LATTICES 37 IX. LORD, COME AND SEE! 41 X. NEGLECT 43 XI. FAITH 47 XII. AFTER A DEFEAT 52 XIII. AFTER A VICTORY 55 XIV. A DIVINE FRIEND 57 XV. AN EVENING VISIT 59 XVI. PRIVILEGED 63 XVII. THE IMPROVIDENCE OF LOVE 67 XVIII. CHANGES 70 XIX. I HAVE SOMEWHAT TO SAY TO THEE 73 XX. A DIVINE PLAINT 77 XXI. THANKSGIVING 80 XXII. DARKNESS 85 XXIII. “WHAT IS TRUTH?” 91 XXIV. HIS SECOND COMING 95 XXV. OUR EARTH 99 XXVI. CHRIST OUR STUDY 104 XXVII. OUR FATHER 109 XXVIII. HEREAFTER 111 XXIX. MY VINEYARD 115 XXX. WHERE WE ARE TRUE 118 XXXI. IN SILENCE AND IN HOPE 121 XXXII. GOD’S WORK 124 XXXIII. A STRONG CRY 129 XXXIV. “BE READY” 133 XXXV. “DOMINE, ECCE QUEM AMAS INFIRMATUR” 137 XXXVI. AFTER A DEATH 142 XXXVII. GOD’S WAYS 145 XXXVIII. TWILIGHT AND NOON 153 XXXIX. RESPONSIBILITY 159 XL. LIFE 166

I.

VISITS.

Go to Him early in the morning, and let thy foot wear the steps of His doors.--_Ecclus._ vi. 36.

How careful we are to observe the courtesies of life! How uneasy till such social duties are discharged! In the making and returning of calls, how fidgety if hindered, how sensible that delay demands apology!

And this where mere acquaintances are concerned. But what when there is question of a friend, a benefactor, one devoted to us and to our interests? If formal visits are here uncalled for, it is only because our heart needs no prompting. Uninvited, inconsiderately often, we come and go, “wearing the steps of his doors”.

And our best of friends--do we treat Him thus?--as affectionately, as familiarly? If not, why not? Is He not among the benefactors whose gifts deserve thanks, the friends whose feelings have to be considered, the acquaintances, at least, whose attentions must be acknowledged? Is it because He puts Himself so completely at our disposal that He is to be neglected? Or because He is King of kings that He is to be considered outside the circle where courtesy is exacted?

Ah, Lord, how unmindful we are of what is due to You! How unmindful I am of Your unfailing devotedness to me! Sent into this world as into a strange neighbourhood, I found You waiting to receive me, to make me welcome, to offer Your services, to show me all manner of graceful kindness. You have thrown open Your house to me. You invite me to Your table. You press upon me Your gifts: “_All ye that thirst, come to the waters.... Come, buy wine and milk without money and without any price_”.[2] “_Come to Me and I will refresh you._”[3] “_Him that cometh to Me, I will not cast out_.”[4] You make use of every motive to draw me to Yourself; yet have to complain after all: “_You will not come to Me that you may have life_.”[5]

“They began all at once to make excuse. I have bought a farm ... I pray thee, hold me excused. I have bought five yoke of oxen ... I pray thee, hold me excused. I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.”[6]

Thus it was long ago; thus it is now. We have time for other duties--for our correspondence, our shopping, our afternoon calls on other more favoured friends. But no time for a visit to Him. Is it so far then to the nearest church? So far that He may well accept the distance as sufficient reason for our absence, except at times when attendance is of obligation? Can I urge home duties and necessary occupations, when I see who those are that can and do find time to visit Him?

O my Lord, why these wretched subterfuges with You “the God of truth”?[7] Why not fall at Your feet and own that it is not distance, nor lack of leisure, nor any reasonable plea that keeps me from You, but simply and solely _the want of love_? It is a reason I could not give to any other friend. I should have to find some other pretext with which to colour my neglect. But with You there need be no dissembling. Your friendship stands alone in the perfect frankness and confidence permissible on both sides. We may own to being cold and half-unwilling visitors, yet we are not for that unwelcome. The petulance, the selfishness, the waywardness of our moods that in the very interest of other friendships call for self-restraint, may show themselves in all their ugliness before the All-pitying, the Friend “more friendly than a brother,”[8] whom nothing can shock, disgust, estrange.

He wants our intercourse with Him to be perfectly free; nothing studied, nothing strained. He desires to have us as we are, no less than as we would be. He wants to be taken into our confidence, to be let into the secret chambers of our souls, into which we only peep ourselves at stated times and with half-averted glance. He would share in the interests and troubles of the moment; be called upon for sympathy in every event great or small that interrupts the even flow of our home life or of our inner life; take part in every experience whether of sorrow or of joy. The soldier off to the front, the baby with its broken toy, the girl with her first secret, no less than the wife, the mother, the priest, with their burdened hearts--He wants them all. He sees us going off here and there for help, and comfort, and counsel. He hears our feet as they hurry past His door to wear the doorsteps of other friends, and He calls to us in those tones divine in their tenderness of reproach: “_You will not come to Me. My people have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living water, and have digged to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water._”[9]

* * * * *

How long, O Lord, how long? When shall we wake up to the reality of Your Presence in our midst, and to the purpose of that Presence? We would die for it if need be, and yet we heed it not. Shall I wait till it is brought home to me by the remorse of my last hour, or by the long, long hours of purgatory? Oh, why did I not make use of my Emmanuel, my God with me, whilst I had time, “whilst He was in the way with me”?[10] Why during my dream-life down there did I not realise the need of Him that is the one need in this real life of eternity?

A child at catechism said: “Won’t it be dreadful for those who don’t believe in the Real Presence to find at Judgment that it _was_ real, that our Lord was there after all! Even if they didn’t know any better, and so it was not their fault, and our Lord is not angry with them--I think they will be so dreadfully sorry all the same.”

But if these will be sorry, what will be the case of those who did know and neglected Him? Those to whom He will say, “_So long a time have I been with you, and you have not known Me!_”[11] “_I was daily with you in the temple._”[12]

Lord Jesus, let not that be my bitterest thought in purgatory, that land of bitter thoughts. It is time that Your love should be returned, that I should make amends for the past, that I should hasten to You with my sorrow and my love.

* * * * *

_Go to Him early in the morning._ Is daily Mass an impossibility in my case? He waits for me there, to offer, for me and with me, His sacrifice and mine for the interests we share together.

_And let thy feet wear the steps of His doors._ More especially in the afternoon or evening, when the church is quiet and He is left all alone. With a little goodwill and ingenuity could I not include a visit to Him in my weekly, if not in my daily programme? Could I not so arrange my calls to other friends as to leave a few moments for my dearest and my best? How blessed a remembrance when He is brought to my doors at the last, to be my viaticum, that in life I was faithful to the duties of friendship and wore the steps of His doors!

O blessed, self-sufficing God Athirst for me, Coming a beggar to my door All suppliantly, Craving with meek persistence alms Of my poor heart, A thought, a word of sympathy--how sweet, How sweet Thou art!

And must Thou knock and ever knock Till life is flown, Seeking vain entrance to a heart That is Thine own? Or wilt Thou rather work this hour Such change in me That hither I may come “wearing Thy steps” Athirst for Thee!

[2] Isa. lv.

[3] Matt. xi.

[4] John vi.

[5] _Ibid._ v.

[6] Luke xiv.

[7] Psa. xxx.

[8] Prov. xviii.

[9] Jer. ii.

[10] Matt. v.

[11] John xiv.

[12] Luke xxii.

II.

PRAISE.

Give praise to our God, all ye His servants, and you that fear Him, little and great.--_Apoc._ xix. 5.

When heaven is opened for an instant it is to let out a burst of praise. “_Glory to God in the highest!_”[13] “_Thou art worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory, and honour, and power!_”[14] “_The Lamb that was slain, is worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and benediction.... To Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, benediction and honour and glory and power for ever and ever._”[15]

We lift up our heads; we are rapt. It is an unexpected strain from fatherland that catches the exile’s ear and thrills through every fibre of his being. It finds an affinity, that burst of praise, in every human soul on which the sense of exile weighs. For it is the strain to which every soul is attuned by the very fact of its creation. The language of praise is our mother-tongue. _Gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle_ was no part of God’s original design for us. We took the golden harps out of His hand and strained and broke the strings, and now the notes are plaintive when not discordant. But Christ has restored all things. He has brought back our joy by taking our sorrow on Himself. Because here on earth He prayed “with a strong cry and tears”[16] the song of praise is to be put again upon our lips. Yet a little while and “God shall wipe away all tears ... and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more”.[17] He is here upon the altar, waiting to catch up the faint accents of my praise, and bear them with His own before the throne of God.

Do this for me, O dearest Lord. Praise does not come easily to these lips of mine. The cares of life, and its failures, and its pains; heaviness of soul, and the weight of the corruptible body, with all the engrossingness of self, wring my heart dry of praise. A sudden revelation of Your goodness in the removal of a trial, or the advent of an unlooked-for joy, will lighten it for a moment and lift it up to You in benediction. Yet even this impulse of thankful love is weak and cannot long sustain itself, and I fall again humbled at Your feet, to feel how little I can do and say even at my best. As to the pure praise of heaven--free of all thought of self, where self is drowned in the glad, triumphant, all-absorbing sense of Your greatness, and grandeur, and all-sufficingness--of this I know nothing. Yet it is the language of my country, the tongue I shall speak for ever--should I not be learning it here in time? A language may be learned in a foreign land though the accent we only catch on its own soil.

Often and often, dear Master, I say to You with the Twelve, “Teach me to pray”. I say to You now, “Teach me to praise”. Teach me that highest, purest prayer which will be the incense rising for ever from my heart when other prayer has ceased.

* * * * *

Fuller and richer every hour grows the heavenly harmony, as part after part is taken up by the blessed choristers arriving from earth and purgatory. But for whom are reserved the richest notes in the anthem entoned with human voice by Christ Himself? Surely for those who have practised that praise even here _in hac lacrymarum valle_. Whose hearts have never been allowed even in exile to forget the tongue of fatherland. Which have leaped up day by day in the _Gloria in excelsis_ and the _Magnificat_, in the _Benedictus_ and the _Te Deum_. Which have persisted in praise when the heart was weighted heaviest, when doubt, repining, rebellion even, sought to stifle its voice. They heard the call: “_Arise, give praise in the night_”.[18] And answered: “_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, as it hath pleased the Lord, so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord_”.[19] It is this praise in the night that sounds sweetest in the ear of God. It is of these His faithful servants that He says: “_They shall praise Me in the land of their captivity, and shall be mindful of My name_”.[20]

What wonder that their song shall be sweetest in the City of Peace; that their voices shall mingle more intimately than the rest with hers whose heart was singing _Ecce ancilla_, even in its agony, with His Who having sung a hymn went forth to Calvary!

[13] Luke ii.

[14] Apoc. iv.

[15] _Ibid._ v.

[16] Heb. v.

[17] Apoc. xxi.

[18] Lament. ii.

[19] Job i.

[20] Baruch ii.

III.

“POSSUMUS.”

“Can you drink of the chalice that I drink of?”--“We can.”--_Mark_ x. 38, 39.

Far back in the ages before the world was, “in the beginning,” I hear the Eternal Father treating with His co-equal Son about my redemption:--

“Canst Thou for that soul and for its salvation go down from heaven and be made man?”

And the Divine Word answered: “_I can_”.

“Canst Thou live a life of thirty-three years, toiling and teaching and instituting Divine means for its salvation, and end that life of hardship and suffering by a death of pain and shame?”

“_I can._”

“Canst Thou perpetuate that Incarnation and annihilation even to the end of time; hiding Thyself under the form of bread in order to meet it on its entrance into life, to be its companion, its refuge, its food all the days of its pilgrimage?”

“_I can._”

“And when, O Lover of that soul, it shall meet Thy love, Thy advances, Thy sacrifices as Thou knowest it _will_ meet them, canst Thou bear with it still, supporting its coldness, its waywardness, its indifference, its ingratitude?”

And Jesus said, “_I can_”.

* * * * *

And now my Redeemer turns to question me in my turn:--

“Can you for the sake of your salvation co-operate with Me and turn to your own profit all I have done and am ready to do for you, resolving to avoid everything that would imperil the great work we have undertaken--all grievous sin and all venial sin that leads to mortal?”

What can I answer but, “O Lord, _I can_”?

“Can you, as some return for My love, find it in your heart to avoid not only sin, but the infidelities which impede My work in your soul, obstruct My grace and hinder union between us?”

What is my answer now?

“Can you with the eye of faith see Me in My suffering members, the poor, the sick, the outcast, the unprotected, the little helpless children, and for My sake sacrifice leisure, or ease, or worldly means to succour and serve them?”

“Give me the faith, Lord, to recognise You in all these, and in the strength of that faith, _I can_.”

“Can you come after Me by taking up your cross daily, the cross I have laid upon you to liken you to Myself?”