drink. We may, doubtless, be sure that if the vinegar will hasten death, our Saviour will not drink it.

C. When He had taken the vinegar.

We must, then, contemplate our Blessed Saviour with His meekness and humility of Heart allowing them to add thus to the grief of His wounds: and accepting this cruel refreshment from the hands of His persecutors.

Pray for us sinners, Blessed Mother, that while we contemplate the thirst of thy Divine Son, we may learn of Him to be meek and humble of Heart."

D. When He had taken the vinegar.

While considering in our hearts the thirst of our Lord, we may also bear in mind that His Heart is much more distressed by the unkindness and inhumanity which is reigning in the souls of the men who are afflicting Him than by the torment caused to His Body by the vinegar.

My people, What have I done to you? in what have I aggrieved you?

Numquid redditur pro bono malum ?

Is it usual, is it necessary, is it the law that evil must be returned for good?

E. When He had taken the vinegar.

Remember also, what immeasurable pain our Blessed Saviour is enduring through His compassion for the terrible wound inflicted on the Heart of His Holy Mother when she sees Him in His extreme thirst drinking the vinegar.

O quam tristis et afflicta

Fuit illa benedicta

Mater unigeniti.

O sad indeed, and wobegone,
Was she the ever-blessed one,
The Mother of that dying Son.

F. When He had taken the vinegar.

Oh, who will give water to my head, and a fountain of tears to my eyes, and I will weep day and night, while I set in contrast, with what tenderness, with what circumspection my Lord Jesus Christ has nursed and cherished me in my hour of need, and delivered Himself up for me; and my heartless inhumanity to Him crucified for me.

"O loving Heart of Jesus, give us some of the fire that burns within Thee."

G. One filling a sponge with vinegar gave Him to drink.

Each of us is His vineyard. I planted thee a chosen vineyard, all true seed: how then art thou turned unto Me into that which is good for nothing, O strange vineyard? (Jer. ii.).

When we return Him evil for good, heartless indifference for His love, we give Him vinegar and gall to drink instead of good wine.

They who live badly, Origen writes, give Jesus vinegar instead of wine.

H. One of them took a sponge and filled it with vinegar. Again and again we must impress on our souls the truth that every time we help our neighbour by an act of mercy, we refresh our Lord's thirst with good wine. I was thirsty and you gave Me to drink.

And if it costs us labour and sacrifice to do the work of mercy, the refreshment we give to our Saviour becomes more and more delightful.

He who was so pleased by the faith of the woman of Chanaan, how ineffably consoled is He when His faithful servants deny themselves, and share His thirst, and His hunger and His weariness, in order to obtain the conversion of a sinner or to give refreshment to the suffering souls.

I. A sponge full of vinegar.

So long as we have a disrelish for our Lord Jesus Christ, a dislike to be with Him in prayer; no desire for Holy Communion; no keen wish to assist at Holy Mass, our souls are to Him a sponge full of vinegar: I have no pleasure in you.

"Blessed," His loving Heart says to us, "Blessed they who hunger and thirst after justice," that is, after Him and His love.

The vehement and excruciating thirst for God in Purgatory, the unbearable separation from Him, the prolonged

banishment are the necessary reparation to be made for our disrelish of God here.

Sitiri sitit Deus. Our Lord thirsts that we may thirst after Him.

SCENE VIII.

THE SIXTH WORD.

STATION I.

Jesus therefore, when He had taken the vinegar, said: It is consummated (St. John xix. 30).

A. It is consummated.

"Attendite." We may contemplate how, before uttering this word, our Blessed Saviour most humbly and most lovingly consults His Eternal Father to know whether there is anything more that He wishes Him to do or suffer before He leaves this world. If so, My Heart is ready, O God, My Heart is ready.

Then, too, He communes in secret with the heart of His Holy Mother. Can I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Can I leave her in ignorance, unicam meam-) -My only one, that My hour is come, and that I am about to die? Always obedient to her and full of reverence, now in this hour, His soul is more than ever united to hers. They are truly one heart and one soul. Since then He has from His Cross appointed her to be the nursing Mother of His Church, He takes counsel with her also, and asks: What is there that I ought to do more to My vineyard, that I have not done to it? (Isaias v.).

When His Eternal Father answers, All is consummated, and when His Blessed Mother also answers in her heart: Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, because He hath visited and wrought the redemption of His people; as He spoke by the mouth of His Prophets, who are from the beginning; then He also speaks aloud the word He had heard from His Father.

B. It is consummated.

Last night in the Supper-room our Blessed Lord said: Father, I have glorified Thee on earth. I have finished the work that Thou gavest Me to do. When saying this word, He made a distinction in His mind between His working day and His hour of suffering, His Passiontide. He had finished His work of teaching in Galilee and in Jerusalem, and His work of healing the sick and going about doing good. Now His hour is come when He is to suffer and die.

This duty also He has now fulfilled: It is consummated. Now, therefore, in a more complete sense, He has finished the work that His Eternal Father gave Him to do. "He specifies nothing," St. Laurence Justinian observes, "but says absolutely: It is consummated, that we may be sure that all is completed." "Nothing," writes St. Augustine, "remained to be done before dying." St. Bonaventure, as a Religious, uses the phrases of religious life, and writes: It is consummated; that is: Father, “the obedience" which Thou gavest to Me, I have perfectly accomplished.

C. It is consummated.

"Attendite." O all you who go by the way, stay here, on this place of Calvary, a little while, to watch the deathbed of your Saviour, your Brother, the First-born of our fallen race; for it is appointed for all men once to die, as He is dying and the one thing necessary is that we be each able to say when dying: My God, my Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.

Once to die, and only once. If in that moment my lamp is alight if I die in God's grace, with His love in my soul, all is well for ever. I have done the one thing necessary. If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be (Eccles. xi.).

"Holy Mary, Mother of God, and Virgin, I choose thee for my Lady, my Patroness, and my Advocate. Stand by me in all the actions of my life, and do not abandon me in the hour of my death."

D. Jesus therefore said: It is consummated.

We may consider in detail what this word includes

Mark

1. Some time ago, our Divine Master said: I have a baptism wherewith I am to be baptised, and how am I straitened until it be accomplished? (St. Luke xii.). how thoroughly the baptism has been accomplished. His Sacred Blood has flowed not only on His forehead, but has bathed every part of His Body, as if He had been baptised in blood by immersion.

And by virtue of this most complete baptism, all the members of His Mystical Body can now also be baptised.

"Te ergo quæsumus-We beseech Thee, therefore, Lord Jesus, succour Thy servants whom Thou hast redeemed, and baptised in Thy Precious Blood."

"Blessed Mother of God, pray for us sinners, that we may have some share of the promised spirit of grace and of prayers, and may love to look on Him Whom we have pierced, and to contemplate His Sacred Body baptised in His Precious Blood." E. It is consummated.

2. About ten days ago, our Lord made a prophetic revelation to His Apostles: Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written concerning the Son of Man: (1) He shall be betrayed to the Chief Priests and Scribes; (2) They shall condemn Him to death; (3) And shall deliver Him to the Gentiles (4) to be mocked, (5) and scourged, (6) and crucified. All these things have been accomplished. Not one jot, nor one tittle, has been passed over, all is consummated.

Thanks be to God, Who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. The whole design approved by the Eternal Father in Heaven has been carried out. Redemption is not only sufficient, but abundant. "Non sicut delictum, ita et donum" (Romans v.). The Sacred Passion has not been so measured as just to undo the work of the Fall and nothing more. There is between the Fall and the plentiful Redemption a gulf as wide as there is between

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