Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 15 June 1916, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR June 18, Sunday. —Trinity Sunday. ~ 19, Monday. —St. Juliana Falconieri, Virgin. „ 20, Tuesday.—St. Silverius, Pope and Martyr. ~ 21, Wednesday.—-St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Confessor. - ~ 22, Thursday.—Feast of Corpus Christi. - ~ 23, Friday.—Of the Octave. „ 24, Saturday. —St. John the Baptist. Trinity Sunday. To-day we are not asked to imitate the virtues of some saint, or to contemplate the merciful dealings of God with man. We are taken up, as it were, into the Holy of Holies, and invited to gaze on the radiant perfection of God as the Blessed see Himone God in Three Divine Persons. Until the fourteenth century this feast was not generally celebrated in the Church, for the reason that all festivals in the Christian religion are truly festivals of the Holy Trinity, since they are only means to honor the Blessed Trinity, and steps to raise us to It as the true and only term of our worship. As .Pope Alexander writes in the eleventh century : ‘ The Roman Church has no particular festival of the Trinity, because she honors It every day, and every hour of the day, all her offices containing Its praises, and concluding with a tribute of glory to It.’ Feast of Corpus Christi. As the Adorable Trinity is the essential and primary object of all religion and of all festivals, so the august Eucharist is the perpetual sacrifice and the holiest worship we can render to the Trinity. In other words, every day is a festival of the Trinity which we adore, and of the Eucharist by whiqh we adore It. The special feast of the Blessed Eucharist, which we . Celebrate to-day, was instituted in the thirteenth century. Without doubt,’ says Urban IV., in the Bull ■of institution, ‘ Holy Thursday. is the true festival of the Holy Sacrament, but on that day the Church is so much occupied in bewailing the death of her Spouse that it was good to take another day, when she might manifest all her joy and supply for what she could not do on Holy Thursday.’

GRAINS OF GOLD. AT BENEDICTION. Into the censer’s glowing cup • The dust of frankincense I pour, And watch the perfumed smoke leap up To cloud the lighted chancel o’er. Ah, King, upon Thy throne of might, I would these grains within the flame Were each a world of golden light A holocaust unto Thy name. Yea, King, but I, Thy servant low, Give Thee more joy than worlds impart; Behold the thoughts of love that glow Within the censer of my heart. — Messenger. ■•— ■ ' f To live for others, to suffer for others, is the inevitable condition of our being. To accept the condition gladly is to find it crowned with its joys. Kindness is the ..overflowing of self upon others. We put others in the place of self. We treat’ them as we would wish to be treated ourselves. Father Faber. It is better to reconcile an enemy than to conquer him. “ Your victory .may deprive him of his power to hurt for the present fAbut reconciliation disarms him even of his will to injure. ... »i ■ :■ : ■ '■ ■ - .A- ■■ ■ ■ ■