Friends at Court.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 21, 25 May 1899, Page 7

Friends at Court.

BIOGRAPHICAL GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR. (Written for the N.Z. Tahlkt.) May 2S, Sunday.— lst after Pentecost. „ 2U, Monday. — SL. Boniface. „ .SO, Tuesday.— St. Felicitas. „ .>l, Wedue.sday. — li.V.JI. Under title of Help of Christians. Juxi: 1, Thursday.— Feast of Corpus Christi. „ 2, Friday.— St. Euseae, P.C. „ ."{, Saturday. — St. Mary Magdalen di Paz/.i.

I EAST 01' COKi'US eilltivri

A great solemnity has this day risen upon our earth ; a feast both to (iod and men : for it is the feast of Christ the Mediator who is present in the Sacred Host, that God may be given to man. and man to God. Divine union— yes, such is the diarnity to which man is permitted to aspire ; and, to this aspiration, God has responded, even here below, by an invention which ii all of heiven. It is today that man celebrates thi.s marvel of God's goodness. And yet. against both the feast and its Divine object, there has been made the old-fashioned objection How can these things be done .' It really does seem as though reason has a right to find fault with what looks like senseless pretensions of man's heart. Like every living creature around him, man thirsts for happiness ; and yet he is the only creature on earth that feels within itself longings for what is immensely beyond its capacity. Whilst docile to the lord placed over them by the Creator, the irrational creatures arc quite satisfied with what they find in this world ; they render to man their several services, and their own desires are all fully gratified by what is within their reach : it is not so with man ; he can find nothing in this his earthly dwelling, which can satia J .e his irresistible longings for a something, which this earth cannot give, and which time cannot produce— for that something is the infinite. God Himself, when revealing Himself to man through the works he has created — that is, when showing Himself to man in a way which his natural powers can cake in ; God, when giving man to know Him as the First Cause, as Last End of all creatures, as unlimited perfection, as infinite beauty, as sovereign goodness, as the object which can content both our understanding and our will — no not even God Himself, thus known and thus enjoyed, could satisfy man. Why talk of the sight ot God. of the life of God, of a banquet wherein God Himself is to be the repa«t ' Surely these are things far too sublime for man, or created nature, to reach. Beta-cm the wisher and the object longed for there is an abyss— the abyss of disproportion — which exists between nothingness and being. Creation, all powerful as it i,. does not in itself imply the filling up of that abyss. If the disproportion could ever cease to be an obstacle to the union aspired to. it would be by God Himself going that whole length, and then imparting something of His Own Divine energies to the creature that had once ben nothing. But what is there in man to induce the Infinite Being, whose magnificence is above the heavens, to stoop so low as- that ' This is the language of reason.

But on the other hand who was it who made the heart of man so great and so ambiuou-, that no creature can fill it ? How comes it. that whilst the heaven-, show forth the gloiy of God. and the firmament declareth how full of wisdom and power i-, every work of his hands, how comes it. we ask. that in man. alone, there is no proportion, no order ' Could it be that the great Creator haordered all thing-, excepting man alone, with measure, and number, und weight' Tint one croatine. who is the master-piece oL the whole crest ion : that creature, ior whom all the re-t was intended. as for its king • is he to be ihe only one w ho is to bo a failure, ami to live as a perpetual proclaims that hi- M.ik t cou'd not. or would nut, be wi-e. when lie m-ule man ' I'.ir from us be -uch a blasphemy' (iod is love, says St. John . and lo\e is the knot which mere humm pbi'o-ophy can ne\er 100-en, nnd then ft le must never iea\e unsolved the probl iv ot in,m - d. -;ie tor the infinite Yes. Cod is < harity ; (.od is lo\e. The uon.ler, m all tbiquestion. is not our loving at d longing for (iod. but ihit m> should have first loved us. God is love : and love must ha\" union; an i union makes the united one like one another. Oh ' the riches of the Divine Nature, wherein are infinite Powrr. and Uisdouj. and Love.