of this Good Friday, so that she may be able to walk to the Mount of God, and see all to the end, she carries still within her by a special privilege, the Divine Bread, the Most Holy Sacrament received in the Cenacle.

Some, no doubt, who see her pass by, and are being already prepared for conversion and sanctity, as they gaze on her, are astonished and admire her beauty exceedingly. But they ask her no question, only they let her pass, saying : The God of our fathers give thee grace, and may He strengthen all the counsel of thy heart with His power, that Jerusalem may glory in thee, and thy name may be in the number of the holy and just. And one or another of the standers-by answer: So be it : so be it (Judith x.).

Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

SCENE II.

JUDAS IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM.

STATION I.

Then Judas, who betrayed Him, seeing that He was con demned, repenting himself (St. Matt. xxvii. 3).

Repenting himself.

As has been already said, it seems quite improbable that Judas was in the court below with Peter during the denials; for surely he would have tried to earn more money by convicting Simon. Where then was the traitor? Was he in the Judgment-hall above? This is possible. He may have witnessed the condemnation. He may even have been admitted among the privileged, to witness the orgies of the dungeon. But there are difficulties in this supposition. For it seems necessary to take for granted that the other disciple who arrived with Peter and gained him admittance, was in the Judgment-hall, and not in the courtyard below, since it seems highly improbable that if he had been present Peter would have denied so boldly. If Judas then had been in the Judgment-hall, he would have recognised this other disciple and betrayed him. For these reasons the opinion which we have been following seems more probable, that as soon as the traitor had received his wages from Annas, he did not care to stay longer among his new masters, who were showing their contempt for him, and having used him, were now glad to cast him off. He, therefore, as we suppose, left the building and

went down from Mount Sion into the Valley of Hinnom, south of the city, there to console himself by brooding in the moonlight over his thirty pieces of silver.

A. Repenting himself.

How are they brought to desolation!—as the dream of them that awake (Psalm lxxii.).

The terrible awakening has begun in the soul of Judas. Suddenly the thirty pieces have lost all their charm. He finds no joy in them. His poisoned heart, like a diseased stomach, rejects the food it craved.

The Holy Spirit speaks of the "inconstantia concupis cenția "—the fickleness of concupiscence. What so change. able as the poor soul that is enslaved by passion and by Lucifer? A wave of the sea which is moved and carried about by the wind (St. James i.).

Jesus Christ is Truth, and changes not. Jesus Christ yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever. But Satan, the father of lies, entirely unsays to-day what he urged yesterday as absolutely certain. Till this moment, Judas has been vehemently assured that his wages would bring him great contentment. He has lived in a dream of enchantment. Suddenly the dream is scattered and dispersed, and for ever; because that fallen angel who now has special charge from Lucifer to watch the traitor to the end, has ceased to urge one lie and begun to urge another quite opposite.

The old story an hour ago was that "he would still be an Apostle; no one would know his treason; no harm would come to Jesus". Now this pleasant picture is entirely blotted out; and the unseen spirit of lying has begun to whisper: All is lost. And as Satan had texts of Holy Scripture ready for Jesus in the wilderness, so has the tempter now told off to complete the work of ruin, texts in plenty ready for Judas in the Valley of Hinnom.

"It is written," the tempter whispers, "it is written: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon" (Genesis iv.). The lying spirit is careful not to add that not out of the mouth of God does this word come.

B. Judas, who betrayed Him, repenting himself.

It will be useful to note carefully the change come over the soul of Judas. Money, as has been said, can no longer charm him. The hatred that raged within him against his Master has died down. Jesus is now an innocent Man. So that, by rights, it ought to be comparatively easy for him now to repent. It was when the Prodigal could no longer find happiness in his passions that he turned back towards his father's house.

But the spirits of darkness understand their warfare. They have only laid aside weapons less sure, to attack with one more murderous.

For a time it serves their purpose to persuade men to say: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? (Ecclus. v.). For so they secure the multiplication of sins, grievous indeed, but yet reparable. But when the moment for the great, supreme, and decisive struggle comes, they rely entirely on hopeless and final despair; for that is irreparable. They know perfectly well that so long as heavenly hope lives in the soul, they have not prevailed. So long as the sinner is able to say: In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped-for though great and many my sins, Thy mercies are greater and more multiplied-so long is that sinner sure of forgiveness and salvation.

Every truth, therefore, that has till now been carefully hidden from the soul of the duped Apostle, is in this hour suddenly brought forward and magnified, and coloured, and distorted.

"Did He not tell you long ago that you are a devil? Did He not do all that could be done to soften your heart? When He warned you so often to your face that you were going to betray Him, how could you continue hardened? And remember, too, all your hypocrisy; how you spoke out so loudly for the poor while you were robbing them. You are the man described in the Psalms, who pretended to be of one mind with Him and to pray with Him: In the house of God we walked with consent. 'All is lost.' Your

fate has been long foretold: His bishopric let another take, may there be none to help him. He loved cursing, and it shall come unto him; he would not have blessing, and it shall be far from him, because he remembered not to show mercy; but persecuted the poor man and the broken in heart. Besides, this Jesus is beyond all doubt the Christ, and the Son of God. His Mother is the holy woman who was to come. You have persecuted them both. It is entirely due to you that He is to die, and that her heart is broken. You betrayed Him; you kissed Him; you were the leader; you have had your money. All is lost."

C. Judas repenting himself.

But the Sacred Heart of our Lord is as merciful now as ever; and the Blessed Mother is still pleading; and the Angel sent from her is refuting every lie of the tempter; reminding this poor sinner that he, more than all others, has had ample proof that Jesus is a gracious and merciful God, patient and of much compassion, and easy to forgive evil (Jonas iv.).

I have laid up, O Lord, the Psalmist wrote, Thy words in my heart, that I may not sin (Psalm cxviii.). O, with what care and diligence must we lay up in our hearts some at least of the many, many words our God has spoken to prevent us from consummating our iniquity by refusing to hope in His boundless mercy!

Spiritual writers tell us that the last act of the soul before death is to turn its gaze backward on the life that is closing, and if in that supreme hour it can bear the sight of sins committed and say: "My God, Thy mercies are greater than my sins; Lord Jesus, Thy wounds call more loudly for mercy than my crimes for justice; Mother of God, pray for us sinners, for thy prayer will prevail": if this heavenly hope, through the merits of Christ Jesus, is living in the soul, all is well. The tree shall fall to the right side and in what place soever it shall fall, there it shall be for ever (Eccles. xi.).

Martha, Martha, thou art troubled, thou art busy about

many things; one thing is necessary. Whatever other business we may have, we must find time to secure for our death-beds genuine hope, true hope, heavenly hope, sufficient hope.

D. Never must we rest till we are able to say; I have laid up Thy words in my heart, O Lord, that I may not sin by despair.

1. Easy it is to find such words; for He has said: As I live, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live (Ezech. xxxiii.).

2. He has said: Be converted, and do penance for your iniquity: and iniquity shall not be your ruin (Ezech. xviii.).

3. He has said: It is commonly said if a man put away his wife, and she go from him and marry another man, shall he return to her any more? Nevertheless, return to Me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee.-Therefore at the least from this time call to Me: THOU ART MY FATHER (Jerem. iii.).

4. He has said: I-I am He that blot out thy iniquities FOR MY OWN SAKE: and I will not remember thy sins.

A very loving mother forgives for her own sake, because she longs to have her prodigal back at home with her. She is more punished by his absence than he is. "Your sins may be very heinous," our God says to us, "but, for My own sake I wish to forgive them all."

5. And so when Sion said of old: The Lord hath forsaken me; and the Lord hath forgotten me: at once He repelled the calumny, saying: Can a woman forget her infant? and if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee (Isaias xlix.).

6. He said, too, when His people had provoked Him by most heinous and multiplied crimes: Let every man of you return from your evil ways, and make your ways and your doings good. And when His people answered: We have no HOPES: we will go after our own thoughts, and we will do every one according to the perverseness of his evil heart: our God exclaimed in horror, at this blasphemous despair: Ask among the nations: Who hath heard such horrible things, as the virgin daughter of Israel hath done to excess? Shall the