your enemies, do good to them who hate you. Bless them that curse you, and pray for them that calumniate you.

B. He healed him.

Here is another great grace offered to Judas and to the poor sinners present; another great miracle added to those already worked, to bring light to their minds and to soften their hearts. Let us reflect on our own case. We say

daily to our God: "Thou watchest over me with incomparable love, every moment bestowing favours and preserving me from evil". Therefore does Holy Church continually inculcate that " ever where and at all times" we ought to be giving thanks. Yet how often, oh, far too often, we remain unmoved, as these unhappy men do, by the mercy and charity of our God!

C. It would be a great consolation if we knew that Malchus, when the sacred hand touched his wound and restored his ear to its place, was at the same time touched in his heart by grace, as the leper and the blind were when Jesus healed them. On this point we have no certain information. Some writers represent him as remaining hardened and taking active part in the outrages heaped on our Saviour; others assume that grace healed his soul when the hand of our Lord healed his wounded head.

"O merciful Jesus, fulfil Thy promise in our regard: I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh" (Ezech. xi.).

D. When He had touched his ear.

Observe how completely our Lord seems to human eyes to be at the mercy of His enemies when He is stooping down in the midst of them to heal Malchus, but no one can lay hands on Him, or strike, because He has not yet given the permission. He is quite safe, for Thy power is at hand when Thou wilt (Wisdom xii.).

STATION IV.

And Jesus said to the Chief Priests and Magistrates of the Temple, and the Ancients that were come unto Him: Are you come out as it were against a thief with swords and clubs? When I was daily with you in the Temple you did not stretch forth your hands against Me (vv. 52, 53).

A. Are you come out as it were against a thief?

We must contemplate the calm tranquillity of our Lord in the midst of these furious enemies. They are on fire with impatience to seize Him, and He is more desirous than they are that all may be done quickly. But He will leave nothing untried that may induce them not to harden their hearts; and they are compelled to listen to His expostulations. They cannot touch Him, or arrest His speech.

B. Jesus said to the Chief Priests and Magistrates of the Temple, and the Ancients that were come unto Him.

From these words, then, we know that many of the leading men are there to take part in His arrest. They do not leave this work to underlings. They have had a busy day, and yet they grudge not the hours of their rest. We have wearied ourselves in the way of iniquity and destruction, and have walked through hard ways.

"Ever-Blessed Mother of God, pray for us sinners, that we may have grace to learn from the enemies of thy Son and the children of this world to work for Him with some share of the energy which they put forth against Him.”

C. When I was daily with you in the Temple.

I sat daily with you in the Temple, St. Matthew writes. Never does our Blessed Saviour cease during His Passion to reason with these men who are duped by the father of lies. He is now trying to induce them to reflect, and to ask themselves how it is that though they were in the past so enraged against Him, yet they never were able to seize Him when He sat with them daily in the Temple teaching the people. With desolation is all the land made

desolate, because there is none that considereth in the heart. He is striving to get them to consider in their hearts how utterly unprotected, to all appearance, He was in those days, and how completely at their mercy; and to ask themselves what it was that then held them back from satisfying their vengeance. What but His holy will? His hour

was not then come.

D. While we contemplate, we must store up in our minds and hearts all the different words and works by which our Lord here in the Garden labours to move the free-will of the sinner, that he may be converted and live. What is it that hath been done? The same that shall be done (Eccles i.). He is now the same Jesus as then; and says now, to the poor sinner deceived by Satan, as earnestly as then Why will you die?

He dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance (2 St. Peter iii.).

E. When I was daily with you in the Temple.

If sin were not poisoning the minds and hardening the hearts of these miserable men, our Saviour's word would bring home to them how blameless and inoffensive His life has been; how He has spent His days in teaching the people and healing all manner of diseases, and how He did all things well (St. Mark vii.). But now these things are hidden from thy eyes (St. Luke xix.). They understood not concerning the loaves, for their heart was blinded (St. Mark vi.).

us.

"O Lord Jesus, by Thy bitter Passion, have mercy on Chastise us not in Thy wrath. Do not say to Thy Angel of Justice: Blind the heart of this people, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes" (Isaias vi.).

F. Are you come out as it were against a thief, with swords and clubs ?

Thou, O Lord, shall laugh at them (Psalm lviii.). "When you were just now lying on the ground, what did swords and clubs avail you?

"When I was daily with you, was I a thief and a robber? or if I was then evil, had you in those days no swords and clubs to use against Me?" He is labouring to induce them to consider in their hearts, that they may be converted and live. And greatly is the Heart of our Lord now consoled, when we consider in our hearts and meditate on Gospel truths, and remember the Sacred Passion, and contemplate all the scenes of His sorrow.

G. But that the Scriptures may be fulfilled (St. Mark xiv.). Ever mindful of those around Him, our Lord again recalls to His disciples and the Priests and the Ancients that all that is going on has been foreknown and foretold. This is one more effort to rescue His enemies from the power of Satan, and to lessen the effect of temptation on the souls of His disciples.

STATION V.

But this is your hour, and the power of darkness (v. 53). A. This is your hour.

Now at length, touched with sorrow of Heart inwardly, after having shown many good works to His people, after multiplying signs and wonders, after reproving, entreating, and rebuking in season and out of season, in all patience, He at last says to the determined sinner: "Be it done to thee according to thy will". This is your hour.

With grief of heart the good father at last yields to the foolish and perverse and ungrateful and unfilial wish of his prodigal son, and gives him the portion that falleth to him.

Man does indeed an evil and a bitter thing, when at last by a terrible perseverance he constrains his Creator to abandon him. My people heard not My voice, and Israel hearkened not to Me. So I let them go according to the desires of their heart: they shall walk in their own inventions (Psalm 1xxx.). Thrice blessed those two disciples, who, on the contrary, constrained their Lord to stay with them.

When at length, after resisting our madness with infinite mercy, our most compassionate Father ceases to speak, and

lets us go according to the desires of our hearts, it is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds (Sophonias i.).

And yet it is actually in this terrible time that men say: I have sinned, and what harm hath befallen me? (Ecclus. v.). Oh, how evil and bitter a thing it is to sin and to prosper!

Why then, holy Job asks, why then are the wicked advanced and strengthened with riches? Their cattle have conceived and failed not; their cow has calved and is not deprived of her fruit. Their little ones go out like a flock, and their children dance and play. They take the timbrel and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. They spend their days in wealth. His answer to this question is short, but terrible beyond all thought. In a moment they go down to Hell (Job xxi.).

The Most High, the Holy Ghost tells us, is a patient rewarder. He has the long eternity before Him, and He need not be in a hurry to reward us here. Still less need

Thou judgest

He be quick to chastise the poor sinner here. with tranquillity, O God. For there is no cause for haste. Eternity, never-ending eternity, is long enough to reward Thy faithful servants and, alas! long enough to chastise the impenitent.

B. This is your hour, and the power of darkness.

We must notice how self and darkness go together. When man seems to be reigning and ruling, in reality the prince of darkness is reigning and ruling. Man can never be lord and master. He is created to serve. If he will not serve God, he must of necessity be the slave of Lucifer. Just as every Church that will not obey Christ's Vicar, necessarily becomes the slave of the tyrannical State, so it is with each man's soul; we never can have independence. Either we willingly submit to our God, or we become the most wretched slaves of the prince of darkness.

C. This is your hour.

Oh, say this word, Lord Jesus, in a merciful sense to