that word, They crucified Him. They crucified my Son. They crucified your Saviour."

C. They crucified Him.

When the priest arrives at the altar, he bows down to kiss it. Did Jesus of His own accord kneel down to kiss the Holy Rood? "Domine, tu nosti.”—Lord, Thou knowest. One thing is certain, that with an intensity and devotion infinitely beyond the fervour of His martyred Apostle, His Sacred Heart welcomes and salutes and venerates the Holy Rood, His friend, His ally, His helpmate in the work of redemption.

D. They crucified Him.

And the Priests are ever urging, Do it quickly. But in the Garden they had to wait for His pleasure. However much the storm is raging, the winds and the waves must obey Jesus of Nazareth. And therefore they must perforce pause till He has with infinite reverence bowed down before the Eternal Father to express Himself, with all the boundless ardour of His immeasurable love, obedient, obedient unto death, obedient unto the death of the Cross.-I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? and who shall go for us? And I said: Lo! here I am, send Me. And He said, Go (Isaias vi.).

And as the Blessed Mother is made aware of this act of oblation-for nothing can He conceal to-day from her, His partner, His helpmate, the new Eve-with quite a new sense and feeling her heart once more breaks forth into her melody: My spirit hath rejoiced in God my Jesus.

E. They crucified Him.

While we contemplate the obedience of Jesus to His Father unto death, unto the death of the Cross, let us not forget that there is an obedience and a subjection far more wonderful: our unhallowed obedience, our slavish submission to our passions, to men and to Lucifer.

But, as has just now been said, the Priests and Ancients are urgent: "Brave soldiers, good friends, do it quickly". And in His secret Heart Jesus is echoing the word, Oh, yes,

do it quickly.

And in her compassionate heart too, the second Eve is responding: Do it quickly.

man, were you suffering, how tenderly, with what circumspection would Jesus and His Blessed Mother nurse you and tend you! To any one who will dress a wound of yours or foment it with oil, He says: It is to Me you did "Numquid redditur pro bono malum?" Is it the Is it a law of nature? Is it some necessity that we must be cruel to Him because He is so gentle and so loving to us?

it.

rule?

Not gently, not lovingly, not with circumspection, not with care or consideration for His wounds, do they lay Him down on His death-bed. "Do it quickly, faithful, trusty soldiers!" And they do it quickly, hurriedly, roughly, and mercilessly.

F. They crucified Him.

From different sources, however, we learn that they considered some care necessary, but a most cruel care. For they resolve that it is necessary to measure Jesus for His death-bed. Their plan is to prepare the way for the large blunt nails by boring holes in the hard wood; and it has been shown to holy contemplatives that in order to have a plea for afterwards dragging and stretching and straining His sacred limbs, they purposely allowed more than good measure; and this, we are told, the Blessed Mother with her watchful eye at once discerns, and is seized with an anguish beyond all that has been till now, when she discovers that they intend to rack and drag His limbs till they are adjusted to the holes they are purposely preparing quite out of place.

O quam tristis et afflicta

Fuit illa benedicta

Mater unigeniti.

Oh, how sad, and wobegone,
Was that ever-blessed one,
Mother of that only Son.

"We adore Thee, O Christ, and we bless Thee, because

by Thy Holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world."

Now with a new meaning the blessed angels are making

their prayer to the Eternal Father, Behold, O God, and look on the face of Thy Christ.

G. They crucified Him.

Remember My judgment, our most thoughtful and loving Saviour says to us: for thine also shall be so; yesterday for Me, to-day for thee (Ecclus. xxxviii.). "If to-day they measure Me for My death-bed, to-morrow they shall measure thee for thy coffin and thy shroud and thy narrow grave. Watch and be ready."

H. They crucified Him.

Knowing all things that should come upon Him, He went forth last night to give Himself up. And now, too, He knows well all they are going to do to Him. And He ratifies what they will. To His Blessed Mother's shuddering heart He once more says that meek word of Gethsemani: "Sinite modo-Suffer ye thus far. Yea, and much farther for there is still much more that I must do for My vineyard."

He has in mind how in time to come His beloved disciples shall be stretched upon the rack; and though in His humility of Heart He is willing that His disciples do greater things than He does, and perchance suffer greater things than He suffers, yet He does wish to taste and share and sanctify every shape of pain and anguish that is to come to them. For He is to bear the yoke with each of them.

Most readily, most. thoroughly, most lovingly the Blessed Mother acquiesces, and once more repeats in her heart her prayer of days gone by, her old word still ever new, and most welcome to her God: "Behold (Thy) handmaid, my God, my Son: be it done to me according to Thy word. Let them rack and tear my heart, if only fallen man shall be once again the child of our Father Who is in Heaven."

And accordingly they measure Him for crucifixion, and purposely mismeasure Him.

Then for a moment there is a lull for the last short

preparation. "Do it quickly," the Heart of our Lord is saying; and the executioners lose no time. For, according to Thy ordinance, Lord Jesus, this day goeth on.

I. They crucified Him.

And now they are ready, and they command Jesus to stretch out His right arm, and to lay His hand carefully on the place they have made ready. He is obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross. And not to God alone obedient, but to man, for His Father's sake.

Out of love for His Father He intends to obey man at the altar to the consummation of the world.

This obedi

ence shall often cost Him more than His obedience on Calvary.

The executioner therefore speaks the word, and it is done. He commands, and Jesus obeys, as if man were His Creator and His God.

J. They crucified Him.

In that hour the Ever-Blessed Mother hears the wielded hammer descend upon the large nail. For she is so placed that she hears all and sees all. She is not to be defrauded of the good day. No particle of the good gift shall pass her by (Ecclus. xiv.).

Her heart, too, quickened by her motherly love—non fallunt viscera matrem-hears the large blunt nail crunching its way through the bones and sinews and muscles of that sacred hand that blessed so many and harmed no one.

We are told that twelve heavy blows of the hammer are needed to drive the blunt nail through the hard wood. At the scourging Jesus says: They have worked on My back, like to the smith at his anvil. Now the brawny arm of the smith is fastening and riveting the sacred hand to the Holy Rood.

For these

Absit! our human thoughts say; Absit! "Far be such a sound from thy ears, Blessed among women! things ought not to be to-day."

1. For on this day, thirty-four years ago, St. Gabriel was with thee at Nazareth, and the Word was made flesh,

and began to dwell in thy sacred womb. To-day, then, Jerusalem, the city of God, by a special privilege of its own, and by anticipation, ought to have already its Angelus bell, proclaiming from the housetop to the crowd round Golgotha the word whispered to thee in secret, that thou art full of grace and the Lord is with thee. For thou art the glory of Jerusalem.

2. And to-day, too, the trumpets ought to be pealing over Golgotha, and the people re-echoing the song first sung by Israel on the borders of the Red Sea : Pharao's chariots and his army He hath cast into the Red Sea. The depths have covered them; they are sunk to the bottom like a stone (Exodus xv.). For this is the festival of the Pasch.

3. To-day, again, all Judea and all the tribes of Israel ought to be following in procession Jesus of Nazareth, mighty in word and work, and beautiful above the sons of men, the second Adam, with the second Eve by His side; because on this sixth day of the week it was, and perchance at this sixth hour, that in the beginning the Eternal Father created man and woman to His own image. To His own image He created them. Male and female, He created

them.

'But, oh, no! Not as we will, O God our Father, but as Thou. Thy thoughts are better than our thoughts; Thy ways are high above ours, as heaven is above earth."

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As she listens to the sound of the falling hammer, so strong," writes a holy Father, "is Mary's love for us that she can welcome even with a gladness, we may say, the Crucifixion of her Son". "Quasi gaudenter," that is, with that peace and gladness that passeth understanding.

For she knows, as she listens, that the nails are fastening to the Cross the handwriting that was against us; and, compared with the everlasting weeping and wailing, their sound is welcome, thrice welcome.

Oh, yes, it is the sound of the solemn and sacred passing-bell that marks fittingly and becomingly the most