that is displeasing to her, or that can tarnish the purity of our soul in her eyes. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT III. Motives regarding Ourselves. CONSIDERATION. God wills, the doctors of the Church teach us, that all graces come to us through our Blessed Lady's hands. She intercedes for all the Faithful, but, like an earthly mother, has a peculiar predilection for those of her children who try to please her specially. By devoutly celebrating this festival, instituted in honour of her dearest privilege, we are sure of not only becoming agreeable to her, but of sharing her special favours; and by thus defending the interests of our Blessed Mother, we most effectually provide for our own. APPLICATION. A third means of preparation for this great festival is to redouble our fervour, and to excite within ourselves those virtues which are particularly dear to our Blessed Lady, such as humility, charity, and piety. COLLOQUY. DECEMBER 6. SECOND DAY OF PREPARATION: ON AVOIDING VENIAL SIN. 1st Prel. As in the last Meditation. 2d Prel. Ask that you may have an ever-increasing horror of venial sin. POINT I. Venial Sin disfigures us in the Eyes of our Blessed Lady. CONSIDERATION. In the view of pleasing our Blessed Lady, and of obtaining her special favours, let us endeavour to acquire great purity of conscience, and principally by avoiding venial sin, because it is specially odious to her. Every venial sin, it is certain, disfigures us in her eyes, tarnishing as it does the beauty of a soul purchased by the blood of her Divine Son. APPLICATION. What a powerful inducement for avoiding venial sin, above all habitual venial sin! How can we hope to obtain signal favours from that purest of Mothers if soiled by its approaches? Perhaps it is your venial sins which have hitherto prevented her granting your request. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT II. Venial Sin is in some sort Cruelty towards our Blessed Lady. CONSIDERATION. This may at first appear an exaggeration, but it is not so in reality. Venial sin it was as well as mortal that caused the sufferings of our Lord; venial sin even now can wound His sacred Heart, and through the Son grieves the Mother. APPLICATION. What, then, have I done as often as I have deliberately committed a venial sin? I have said, if not in words in act, 'O Mary my Mother, I love thee with all my heart; I love Jesus thy Divine Son; I would not for the world wound Him mortally, but Í care little for wounding Him slightly.' Can we hope to obtain anything from her immaculate heart, whilst we thus treat Him who is her very life? AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT III. Venial Sin separates us from our Blessed Lady. CONSIDERATION. The child who tenderly loves his mother suffers in her absence and pines for the moment of beholding her. Thus St. Stanislas and several other saints tenderly devoted to our Blessed Lady sighed after death, that they might enjoy the sight of their beloved Mother, and be eternally united to her in heaven. APPLICATION. But what have you done in so heedlessly committing venial sin, adding fresh debts to your already heavy account? You have added to your pur gatory, to the time which is to your Mother perhaps by years. thought has not restrained you? COLLOQUY. keep you away from How is it that this DECEMBER 7. THIRD DAY OF PREPARATION: ON THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE. 1st Prel. As in the former Meditation. 2d Prel. Ask by the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Lady the grace of growing in virtue. POINT I. Mary a Model of Humility. CONSIDERATION. Let us try on this the eve of this great feast to obtain our dearest Mother's favours by exciting ourselves to the practice of humility, obedience, and patience, three virtues by which she was especially distinguished. It was her humility that raised her to those surpassing heights of grace and glory. All her life she loved to be hidden, forgotten, and considered as nothing. Already the Mother of God, she makes herself the servant of her cousin Elizabeth. During her thirty years' residence at Nazareth she passes for an ordinary woman. During our Lord's public life she hides herself when He is honoured and followed, and appears only when He is depised and deserted. She is not present when He enters Jerusalem in triumph, but she is to be found at the foot of the Cross on which He dies loaded with insults. APPLICATION. Has not my conduct been precisely the reverse of all this? Have I not been vain of the little good there is in me, avoided humiliations, and sought the esteem and applause of men? What should I do in future? AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT II. Our Blessed Lady a Model of Obedience. CONSIDERATION. The manner in which our Lady practised obedience shows how highly she esteemed this virtue, and how greatly she desires to see it practised by her children. Her obedience was supernatural, and thus was blind, universal, and heroic. She obeyed a heathen emperor by her journey to Bethlehem, the Mosaic law by conforming to the rite of purification, from which in reality she was exempt, and, though superior in merit and dignity to St. Joseph, she obeyed him in everything as her lawful spouse. APPLICATION. If you would be a true child of Mary you must be obedient not only in easy things but in all; your obedience must be based on love and faith, seeing God in the person of your Superiors, and receiving their orders as the expression of His will. Have you done so ? AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT III. Mary a Model of patience. CONSIDERATION. Another virtue which specially distinguished our Lady was her patience, her entire and perfect resignation to the Divine will in every event of her life. No creature had ever so many or so painful sufferings, no mother was ever so wounded through her affections, but never did murmur or complaint hover on her lips; she was modest in prosperity, not cast down in adversity, even rejoicing in tribulation, because it made her more like to her Divine Son, and gave her an opportunity of showing Him her love. APPLICATION. We are frequently called upon to practise patience and resignation. How are we affected by adversity? Are we not tempted to discouragement, and, when prosperous, are we not disposed to vanity and boasting? Let us ask our Blessed Lady to make us docile hearers of these words of our Lord's, 'Learn of Me, because I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your soul.' COLLOQUY. DECEMBER 8. FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. 1st Prel. Imagine the Holy Father Pius the Ninth, surrounded by all the members of the Sacred College, and a multitude of bishops from the four quarters of the world, proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. 2d Prel. Ask that your love for our Blessed Mother may ever increase in strength and perfection. POINT I. Feast of the Immaculate Conception. CONSIDERATION. On this day, so dear to Mary's children, we celebrate in the first place the moment in which Almighty God showed her through the distance of ages to our first parents as the Virgin Mother of the Divine Redeemer, the woman destined to crush the head of the serpent. And as by eternal decree she was miraculously exempt from all stain of original sin, and endowed with the richest treasures of grace and sanctity, it is meet that we should honour her glorious prerogatives by this special Feast of the Immaculate Conception. APPLICATION. What is our first obligation on this great day! We should join in spirit with the blessed in heaven, and rejoice with our dear Mother, not only for her own sake, but for ours, her children, who are partakers of her glory and happiness. AFFECTIONS and RESOLUTIONS. POINT II. The Anniversary of the Promulgation of the Immaculate Conception. CONSIDERATION. Secondly, we are called upon to celebrate that ever-memorable day, the 8th of December 1854, which raised the Immaculate Conception of our Blessed Lady from a pious belief to the dignity of a dogma of the Infallible Church, causing universal joy amongst the entire body of the faithful, and recalling to mind the enthusiasm awakened so many centuries |