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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2026-05-09 08:31:55 -0700 |
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diff --git a/78642-0.txt b/78642-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..21bdd08 --- /dev/null +++ b/78642-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1611 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78642 *** + + The Mirror of the Months + + + + + THE MIRROR OF THE MONTHS + + BY + + SHEILA KAYE-SMITH + + LONDON: THE SOCIETY OF + SS. PETER & PAUL LIMITED + WESTMINSTER HOUSE + GREAT SMITH STREET + S.W.1 + + + + + _Made and printed in Great Britain at the_ + KYNOCH PRESS + BIRMINGHAM + _for the + Society of SS. Peter & Paul + Limited_ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + JANUARY, P. 1 + _Month of the Holy Infancy_ + + FEBRUARY, P. 6 + _Month of Light in Darkness_ + + MARCH, P. 12 + _Month of the Passion_ + + APRIL, P. 17 + _Month of the Resurrection_ + + MAY, P. 24 + _Month of Mary_ + + JUNE, P. 29 + _Month of the Sacred Heart_ + + JULY, P. 34 + _Month of the Precious Blood_ + + AUGUST, P. 44 + _Month of the Most Pure Heart of Mary_ + + SEPTEMBER, P. 49 + _Month of the Sorrows of Mary_ + + OCTOBER, P. 53 + _Month of the Holy Angels_ + + NOVEMBER, P. 60 + _Month of the Holy Souls_ + + DECEMBER, P. 65 + _Month of the Incarnation_ + + + + + January + _Month of the Holy Infancy_ + + +The year begins—on a January morning, cold and early. The earth lies +frozen under her strewings of snow. There is no wind, and a great +silence broods over the fields; the faint bleating of a winter lamb only +accentuates the stillness, as it creeps from the lambing-hut with its +tale of life beginning in struggle and distress. It is the only sound of +life in all that frost-bound stillness, and it is a sound of woe. + +No promise shows in all that hard, dark soil. Surely nothing can live on +the frozen grass, or in the waters of the pond that lie black under +their scum of ice. The sun himself looks feeble as he tries in vain to +disperse the January clouds, and the long beam that at last goes down +into the woods contains no warmth and only the palest light. The fields +are bound—water-logged ditches, half-frozen soil, hedges of bare, +spindled thorn. The fields are silent—birdless, windless, lifeless; they +have no voice but the cry of the winter lamb. + + * * * * * + +It is a week now since “when all things were in a quiet silence and that +night in the midst of her swift course” the Eternal Word leaped from the +throne of the heavens to the throne of straw. For a week he has shared +the bed and shelter of the ox. Unable to do more than feed and cry, he +has lain in Mary’s arms and cried for her breast. Out into the +star-pricked winter darkness creeps the wailing of the speechless Word. +He is the Word—he cannot speak. He is the Energy that set the worlds in +motion—he lies helpless on his mother’s lap. + +But now a new note has come into his cry of hunger and helplessness—the +note of pain. He who is the End of the Law submits to the means he has +ordained for approaching himself. He who is the Light of the World +enters the thick darkness where Moses found God. He will make Sinai a +foothill to Calvary.... “Verily I say unto you, I am not come to destroy +but to fulfil”—perhaps to destroy by fulfilling, as an ancient bottle is +burst with new-made wine. The veil of the temple is rent in twain at the +cry of ‘Consummatum est,’ and in that hour the Law of Moses stands both +destroyed and fulfilled. + +So the child in Mary’s arms is really a mighty, propitiatory child. The +Precious Blood did not fall only on Calvary but at Bethlehem. It was +there that the fountain was first opened for sin and uncleanness, in the +first dark hours of the year. As the winter sun shall mount at last into +the blazing heavens of July, so he too will pass through shattering +equinoxes of redemption to his ascended summer calm. + +But our New Year’s worship is for him in his winter helplessness, his +smallness, his obedience to the frosty fierceness of the law. He is the +pattern of our Faith—its helplessness in its first struggle for life—for +what are its two thousand years in his sight but as yesterday?—its +smallness, as it lies in the stable of humble intellects and impulsive +hearts—its half-conscious obedience to laws which are the patterns of +heavenly things—its blood-shedding in that obedience.... We are often +too confident of our Faith, just as our enemies are too contemptuous of +it—we and they forget that it is still only a child, existing chiefly by +desire, by feeling, by necessity. + +The age of that child made obedient unto the law, and in the shedding of +blood first given his human name, is not more disproportionate to the +age of the Law than is the age of the Kingdom of Heaven to the age of +the earth. Millions and millions of years ago life first appeared—a +small helpless thing, scarcely distinguishable from the inorganic mass, +in constant danger of being stamped out by the mighty forces around it. +Throughout long ages it developed so slowly that its growth would be +almost imperceptible to the watchman of a thousand years ... and as it +grew, it submitted itself to the Law. Terrific forces bound it, moulded +it, complicated it, regulated it, evolved it. We see the domain of the +Law stretching back from the circumcised Christ, far beyond the Priestly +Code, far beyond the days of Moses on the Mount, back to the prehistoric +ages of the world, when in some dim secret place of the sea there was a +change, a miraculous birth. In the same way we see the dominion of Grace +stretching forward from the child of that winter’s day, beyond his +helpless infancy and suffering manhood, beyond his Cross, beyond his +empty grave, beyond the Mount of his Ascension, on into the far future +of the world, when having grown to manhood and shared his Cross, it is +raised at last to share his throne. + +On the Feast of the Circumcision the old and the new kingdoms meet—the +kingdom of Nature and the kingdom of Supernature, the kingdom of the Law +and the kingdom of Grace. We do not understand why the greater submits +to the less, why Grace is content to suffer under the Law, why the New +King weeps and the Old King carries the sword. + +“I am not come to destroy but to fulfil.” ... Not only the Law of Moses, +but the whole Old Testament of the world’s history—that which we call, +understanding but in part, the Law of Nature. The supernatural life does +not come to destroy the natural, but to fulfil it, not to supplant but +to complete it. Grace fulfils the Law, and Spirit raises Matter to the +right hand of God. On the Feast of the Circumcision the sacramental +wonder has begun. + +So we watch the New Life lying on the Winter’s lap, submitting itself +humbly and sweetly to nature and mankind, surrounded by dangers that +threaten it—the shouts of Herod’s soldiers are not far off—suffering the +pains and indignities that accompany its surrender to our limitations, +baptising itself into our humanity with blood. Mary and Joseph—the +loving and the wise among us—know that it will live best in the warm air +of simplicity, homeliness and familiarity, of childhood and the hearth. +It must be sheltered from the windy blasts of dispute, and wrapped from +the frosts of prohibitions; it must not be brought into the cold halls +of pomposity, nor starved by cutting off from the six days of common +things.... Mary and Joseph must be careful guardians of the New Life if +it is to grow through the slow ages of the world’s future—as life grew +humble and close to the ground through the ages of her past—till it is +old enough to claim its manhood—till it attains at last to the full +stature of the Cross. + + + + + February + _Month of Light in Darkness_ + + +It is still very calm—but the frost is over. The hardness is gone from +the air, and the cold, and that chill sense of binding. Instead, there +is a feeling of moisture, which is also a feeling of growth—of the first +growth. Already that growth has become apparent in the delicate catkins +that hang from the hedges, in the frail budding of the trees. As yet +there is no green, only a brown stickiness—no unfurling, only a +close-packed promise. But life and growth are there, in the hedges, in +the woods, and in the moist, rain-drenched earth, whose scents are +carried up the lane by the breeze which has the first spring warmth in +it. A slow light spreads over the fields at evening—yellow, rainy, +reflected in the ponds and in the watery ruts. It is a faint light, a +watery light, but it shines where a month ago was darkness. + + * * * * * + +Once, long ages ago, there was only twilight in the world—not a twilight +of the sun, though those were days of ice and snow and a strange +desolation, but a twilight in the soul and mind of man, dimness and +faintness and pale struggle in the spirit and mind and intellect—a world +in which the earliest man saw men only as trees walking. + +The last great ice age was approaching, and where once the forest had +grown thickly, the trees were becoming scant. The forest-belt receded +before the advancing world of ice, which came out of those parts which +are now Scandinavia, and its place was taken gradually by barren tundras +or steppes. In the forest had dwelt a strange race, common stock of +ourselves and the apes. These beings had lived in the trees, an arboreal +life, far above the ground, more or less secure from the terrible beasts +that stalked those parts of the world. When in a slow process of many +hundreds of years the tree-belt receded, a large proportion of the +tree-dwelling race went with it into the south, maintaining by migration +the ease and safety of their old conditions. These migrants were the +ancestors of the African monkey, born in the freedom and comparative +security of the jungle, faithful to the old conditions and the old +environment, to which they became more and more perfectly adapted in +succeeding generations. + +But what of those who remained behind? From tree-dwellers they had +become earth-dwellers. They must painfully adapt themselves to an +entirely new environment, and learn new ways of feeding, moving, living, +at bitter cost to the individual and to the race. They were no longer +safe from marauding beasts, the giant mammoths and buffaloes and elks +that preyed over the steppes. It would seem as if they had made an evil +choice, and would have been wiser had they done as others of their race +and clung to their old conditions, following the tree-belt southward. +Nothing but destruction could come of this defiance of their +environment, this painful adoption of new ways. Those who remained after +the trees were gone must surely perish. + +But this first race of men (that yet were not quite men) had not acted +entirely without light. Descending from the trees to the ground, their +hands and arms, used hitherto for climbing, were now set free for +enterprise. At last man stood upright. The ages went by, and his hands, +no longer needed for mere balance and locomotion, learned skill. He +picked up objects, used them, shaped them, and with using the power and +scope of using grew. At the same time, the dangers with which he was +beset sharpened his brain into resource and constructive planning. His +reason came to have a definite survival value in the scheme of things. +At first it had been by strength alone that living things survived. +Those were the days when the ichthyosaurus and the giant iguanodon +roamed the earth. Then the survival factor changed, and the battle was +to the swift—instead of the ichthyosaurus and the iguanodon flourished +the reindeer and the hare. But now at last mind became dominant, and +mankind triumphed by virtue of his better brain development, both over +the swift and over the strong. His brain taught him stratagem to atone +for his lack of swiftness, it gave him skill to make weapons so that his +weakness was a match for the strength of his enemies. + +But it taught him more than this. The light was growing, and one day a +man drew a rough picture of a buffalo on the roof of the cave where he +lived. He did not draw it in the spirit of imitation but in the spirit +of power. By placing the image of the creature there in his cave he felt +himself to have won power over it. Mere magic-making, no doubt ... +nevertheless by such an act man definitely asserted the power of mind +over matter, of the unseen over the seen. The first upward step was +taken. The Præparatio Evangelica had begun. + +The long process had started which was to end in the “ethical +monotheism” of Judea. From mere magic-making man passes on to the idea +of propitiation. He adopts a personal relation towards the Unseen. +Propitiation leads him to the idea of beneficence—his gifts are +accepted, calamities and dangers are averted, therefore the Unseen, +though cruel, powerful, and capricious must also know moments of +loving-kindness. In time his gods are half good and half bad, but it is +remarkable that continual contact with the Unseen through the ages both +before and after history, slowly deepens man’s sense of its fundamental +goodness. At last even his idea of goodness itself changes and acquires +an ethical significance. Isaiah and Jeremiah lift up their voices—Wisdom +and the Son of Sirach speak—and the spiritual environment is ready for +the coming of the New Life, of the Virgin Mary, as in the ages of the +ages ago the physical environment was ready for the birth of life in the +virgin sea. + +It was the suffering and struggle of man which made him first look +upwards, and in the whole history of the world it would seem as if no +step, either material or spiritual, was ever taken without pain. +“Without shedding of blood is no remission of sin.” Perfect adaptation +to environment—or, quite plainly, happiness—means the end of progress. +If man is to go forward, he must be in a state of warfare and +dissatisfaction with his environment—in other words, he must suffer. It +would seem as if suffering were an indispensable condition of advance. +The corn of wheat that falls into the ground cannot bear fruit except it +die, and when that process takes place in consciousness, then it is +suffering, no matter what its fruit. + +You may speculate whether suffering would or would not have been a +condition of progress if there had been no Fall. The first impulse is to +answer unhesitatingly that it would not—suffering has a place only in a +world whose processes are warped by evil, it can have no place in the +scheme of an all-loving and all-powerful God. But, after a little +reflection, you realise that, though suffering as we know it could +certainly have had no place in a sinless world, nevertheless some +process of which our suffering is a perverted image may have been a +condition of advance. The free creature gladly doing battle with its +environment in order to fulfil with a pure and loving will the +intelligible purposes of God is of a different order from the creature +bound by sin, who endures ignorantly and unwillingly its conditions of +progress, which indeed has the power to abuse them into conditions of +failure, so that pain no longer brings its certain redemption. Directly +suffering becomes voluntary and intelligent it is no longer suffering at +all. The misery lies in the clouded mind and will, and it is for this +clouding that sin is responsible. No one of us has ever suffered +entirely of clear purpose or free will, so it is impossible for us to +know the place of suffering in the Purpose of God. + +But to the stumbling pain of our first ancestors we owe the fact that we +stand upright upon our feet, to the first glimmerings of logos-light +that bade them stay and fight a new environment rather than follow their +old one into happiness we owe, humanly speaking, the fact that we are +men. The light shined in darkness, and the darkness overpowered it not. +The pale February dusk is a-flower with the promise of Spring. + + + + + March + _Month of the Passion_ + + +The softness has gone from the air, which no longer smells of earth. +Indeed some of the sharpness of January is back again; but it is back no +more as a binding force—rather as a breath, a movement, a release. The +gale sweeps the sky along with it over the fields—the clouds race their +shadows over the young grass, and over the last barrenness of the winter +ploughings. The spring ploughs are now at work, tearing up the earth’s +back, and already the first flowers are a-bloom, while the +willow-catkins in the hedge have reached a yellow ripeness. They are +like splashes of sunshine in the hedge, beside the white moony patches +of the first wild cherry. In spite of the Lenten austerity and cold of +the earth and air, there is throughout the country-side a sense of +released warmth; the flying, tattered blue of the sky has lost its +winter paleness, the sunshine already has a spring heat in it, the +shadows have in them a depth of passional violet—they are no longer cold +and grey and dead, but living, like the sun. + + * * * * * + +This is the month of the Spring Equinox, when great things happen in the +heavens, when in the ancient world worshippers were conscious of some +terrific event in the lives of the gods. It was the month when the sun’s +brightness triumphed over the winter, when the curse of the sterile +earth was removed, and life and birth and joy and fruitfulness came back +into the fields. The old astrologer-astronomers read the doings of more +than the material heavens in the slow Procession of the Equinoxes. When +Taurus was the dominant sign, then it was the bull-headed God who +triumphed over his enemies—Marduk, the bull of heaven, vanquished +Tiamtu, the dragon of the great deep, and in Assyria winged bulls were +among the gods, with mild human faces. Then, when after five hundred +years the sign changed, and Aries was ruler of the Spring Equinox, came +the reign of the ram-headed gods, of Jupiter Ammon and the gods of +Egypt. The Spring saviour became a ram—a lamb ... “the sign of the Son +of Man shall be in the heavens.”... + +But in none of these early conceptions of a triumphant god overthrowing +the powers of darkness was the victory won without blood. Tammuz, +Adonis, Baldur, Osiris, Orpheus—all were slain—all bowed whether finally +or temporarily, to the powers of the underworld and of darkness. Till at +last pagan religion reached its height, its final climax in preparation +for the Gospel—in the idea of the victim whose death brought life into +the world. + +It was not only in Judea that the conception of the Suffering Servant +prepared men’s minds for the coming of Christ. Long before the time of +Christ men had begun to rationalise the processes of suffering. They no +longer fought the cruelties of their environment—the evil and pain of +life—as beasts or as children. Both will and understanding were striving +to take their share in the conflict. Philosophers built up systems on +the idea of pain; and the popular religions dealt with it symbolically +in their sacrificial rites; the mystery religions made it the centre of +their arcana. + +All looked forward, however dimly, to a deliverance from suffering. The +stoics sought to overcome it through enduring it, the epicureans through +ignoring it; the popular religions fell back on the idea of +propitiation—on the conciliation of an anthropomorphic god who might be +appeased into sparing; the mystery religions saw as in a glass darkly +the God himself becoming the deliverer from the evils of the human +process in which he too had a share. + +Then the New Birth took place, and suffering was redeemed together with +all other human processes. The Incarnation means the taking up into the +god-head of the complete manhood, a manhood of which suffering is an +inevitable condition. By taking our flesh, Christ redeemed the entire +process of the world, which sin had made blind and futile. He gave the +world’s sorrows a place in the kingdom of heaven—grief, pain, struggle +and death were given their place in the eternal mind of God. The +fumbling processes of nature became supernatural—they were born again. + +Natural suffering, whether in man or beast, may be compared to the +sacrifices of the old dispensation—“which could never make the comers +thereunto perfect.” The Law stands for nature unredeemed as Grace stands +for nature redeemed and becomes the Kingdom of God. Instead of the old +sacrifices in which the unwilling and unknowing victim was offered by +forces outside itself, to which at best it could only submit in the +spirit of fear and meekness, came the new sacrifice of the Victim who is +also the Priest, who of free will, full knowledge and true love offers +up himself, a Priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek. + +The only deliverance from suffering is through sacrifice—through +offering. Once a man accepts pain no longer in the spirit of rebellion +or of blind endurance, or even of mere negative resignation, but in the +spirit of co-operation, he is free. He becomes as it were the +collaborator of God in the processes of the world—his will and +understanding are restored to their pre-Adamic integrity. + +One of the graces of Calvary is this grace of offering. As perfect man, +Christ offered all human suffering to God, with a perfect will and a +perfect understanding, so that now by virtue of the Cross, mankind too +becomes priest as well as victim. He too can offer what he +endures—whether the endurance be sought, as in the case of the saints +and ascetics, or merely suffered in the inevitable common way of life. +On Calvary, suffering was redeemed from the bondage of the law, of +nature and the old Covenant, and was made a part of the supernatural +order, a thing of grace. It is the old symbolical antithesis between the +Esau and Jacob, Sinai and Jerusalem, Adam and Christ—the Evangelical +message of the changed heart—the mystical doctrine of the New Birth. +Suffering has its place in the New Covenant in the Kingdom of God, and +as it was before a law of natural development, becomes now a law of +spiritual growth. The unwilling victim of blind and cruel processes is +now the priest of an all-wise, all-loving God, offering pain and grief +in union with Calvary in one tremendous sacrifice—till at last sorrow +becomes the world’s eucharist, its sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. + + + + + April + _Month of the Resurrection_ + + +The flowers are closed in the moonlight of the April garden, but their +perfumes fill the night—hyacinths, tulips, and ghostly white and yellow +lilies scent the air with a dim, delicious fragrance. They sleep in the +fullness of Spring, and the April moon, round and white, displays the +masses of their colours in her dazzling beam. + +Faint scents of earth come from the field, of the earth harrowed and her +hidden secrets revealed. The scent of moss and soil mingles with the +scent of the flowers in the garden. The moon rides high, then dips +towards the west—she founders in the west like a great ship; the moon +founders, and as she sinks, the sun arises on the opposite shore of the +sky, and a long golden beam slants into the garden. The flowers wake and +open their petals to the sun—the scents of the harrowed earth are lost +in the sweetness of the opening flowers. + + “The night is come—O night verily blessed!” + +The blessed night is an April night, the night of a full moon. Already +the scents of Spring are stirring in the fields—fair scents, fugitive +scents, scents of budding and growth. Yet to the watcher of the Passion, +Spring has not yet fully come. The earth is like a stage set, but with +the curtains down. All is in readiness, but the drama has not yet begun. +The watcher of the Passion feels that Spring will not have begun till he +sings among the perfumes of incense and lilies:— + + “Lo, the fair beauty of earth, from the death of winter arising, + Every good gift of the year now with its Master returns.” + +But already at those lines he will be looking back—back on a beginning +he did not see. The breaking of Easter day was hidden from all but the +moon, as none but the moon saw the Son of Man rise from the dead. So on +this most blessed night there is no watching but the watching of the +moon. The faithful have kept a sorrowful watch in Gethsemane, as a few +months ago they kept a joyful watch at Bethlehem, but this night is too +blessed, too solemn for human vigil. All we can do is to salute it as it +drops over the earth, to greet it as we should greet a joyful daybreak— + + “The night is come—O night verily blessed!” + +Then we disperse and leave that night to its own mysteries. + +The moon is high in the sky, her flooding whiteness of light has wiped +out nearly all the stars. On the earth she calls colours into being, +strange, ghostly colours. She sails across the heavens like a ship, and +to-night she seems to bear with her the wonder of all past lore: she is +the ship of the dead to which the Egyptians looked up, she is the +goddess who wooed Endymion, she is the Mystery of Mysteries in some +far-off Hindu temple. Ship, queen and goddess, mystery of mysteries, she +is by virtue of that night when she rode the Paschal heavens and saw +what was hidden from all human eyes. + +That night was nearing its close, and already the scents of morning were +in the air. The flowers and the shrubs in the garden of Joseph of +Arimathea breathed into the spring moonlight perfumes like the Song of +Solomon. In the clear light of the Paschal moon, that great moon of the +feast, their colours were flung into the flooding whiteness, the crimson +of the lilies, the flame of the flowering thorn. The garden breathed the +breath of spring and the breath of morning, as the moon dipped slowly +towards the rim of the earth. She was like the great white lamp of fire +that Enoch saw burning in the kingdom of the Son of Man. Already with +her whiteness another whiteness was mingling, the whiteness of dawn +spreading over the vault of the sky. She lay upon the rim of the earth +and her beams flowed straight as a river through the trees of Joseph of +Arimathea’s garden. Then the Wonder happened. In the whiteness of her +beams stood a Man—very still in Joseph of Arimathea’s garden. He seemed +part of the peace and tranquility of the night, and yet in his stillness +flowed the festival flood of Spring—budding, joy, warmth, light and +life. + +For a moment the moon’s rays held him, then a strange kindling flush +crept into them, as they mingled with other rays—they warmed, they +reddened ... and the sun came over the edge of the world and looked into +the face of the moon. Between them stood the Risen Lord of both—and +across the world the sun and moon gave each other the first Easter +Salutation— + + “The Peace of the Lord be always with you!” + “And with thy spirit!” + +So even to this time that night is watched by the moon, and we, like the +disciples, do not see the Son of Man arise, but know him afterwards in +the breaking of bread. In the liturgy of the Mass itself, we do not see +the fraction of the Host into the chalice which shows his rising, though +our attention is ceremonially called to the solemn moment when the Altar +becomes both Bethlehem and Calvary. We know when he takes upon himself +the veils of our humiliation, we know when his sacrifice stands lifted +to the Father, but of the moment when the Altar is Joseph of Arimathea’s +garden, when the broken body and the poured out blood attain the +re-union which is their resurrection, we know nothing till we hear the +Easter greeting—“The peace of the Lord be always with you.” It is the +priest alone who looks over the Altar as on that first night the moon +alone looked over the Altar of the world and saw the Sun of +Righteousness arise. + + * * * * * + +“A festival of the returning Spring”—“the god dies to symbolise the +apparent death of Nature in Winter, then rises again at the Spring +Equinox.” “Tammuz—Gilgamesh—Orpheus—Osiris—Jesus.” Thus the student of +comparative religion flings the solemnities of our redemption into the +same heap as the nature cults of heathendom. We are inclined to resent +this treatment, to deny its justice—but can we? Do we really need to? +Why should we be ashamed that in some far back time our father +Hammurabi, or our father Tutankhamen, as well as our father Abraham, +rejoiced to see our day, and he saw it and was glad? + +The devout pagan, whether of the valley of the Euphrates or of the Nile, +was wiser than many a learned man to-day who sees in the story of the +suffering and triumphant God no more than the story of the withering and +flowering field. Those pious heathen of old looked out on the rice +fields drowned in the winter floods, they saw the floods recede and a +cleansed and refertilised earth emerge from the waters, but their eyes +were not so dim as to see only an earthly tragedy and its overthrow—they +saw their god suffering in the drowned field, victorious in its +resurrection. They could not see the woes of earth apart from the woes +of heaven, and as their allegory of food and drink purged itself through +the ages into an allegory of sin and redemption, so that under countless +rites countless redeemers pointed to the Redeemer of all, that great +shape of human thought was made which should be the chalice waiting to +receive the wine of divine revelation. + +For the great truths of our faith were born in the same manner as all +the other wonderful births of earth, all those miraculous virgin births +which find their historical ground in the Incarnation ... “by the Holy +Ghost of the Virgin Mary”—earth prepared by the Divine Spirit to receive +the New Life of heaven. As Christ redeemed human nature, so Christianity +redeemed human thought. As for untold thousands of years the physical +processes of the earth were preparing him a body for his love, so for +thousands of years the mental processes of the human race were preparing +him a body for his truth. We have grown accustomed to the idea that +Christianity baptised into itself the best of Judaism, but we have yet +to accept the undoubted fact that it also baptised into itself the best +of paganism. We are like the pious Christianised Jew of the first +century who could not understand that the Gospel was also for the Greek. +We talk as in reproach of the “Muddy waters of Mithras,” not thinking +that by virtue of Cana even these waters can be made wine.... When St. +John saw the heavenly Jerusalem he said that “all the kings of the earth +shall bring their glory into it,” and among those kings ride Mithras, +Tammuz, Osiris, Orpheus, Dionysius ... riding to Joseph of Arimathea’s +garden, to lay their glory at the Empty Tomb. + + + + + May + _Month of Mary_ + + +At last the Spring has moved further than beauty. She has about her some +of the richness of Summer. The earth has lost the faintly wistful air +that she wore in March and April, the air of expectancy, as of one +waiting the fulfilment of a promise. That promise is already realised—in +the rich leaves that have clothed the trees, removing that earlier +suggestion of austerity in their outline—in the first springing corn—in +the first hard, small apples that appear in the orchards while the +fallen blossom is still on the ground—in the shagginess of the hedges +and the warm heaviness of the air, where scents are no longer fugitive, +but lie thick and drowsy. The air too is full of wings—the wings of +birds and insects, alert with their spring business; it is full of +sounds as well as of movements and of scents—hummings and dronings and +buzzings and trillings, the utterance of innumerable small voices. The +air teems, the earth teems, though as yet Summer has not come, and over +the hedges and fields lies the virginal white of the hawthorn and +daisies. Mingled with the richness of Summer is still the white beauty +of Spring, the expectancy of Spring, the freshness and coolness of +Spring. + + * * * * * + +For many years the religions of the world had dreamed of a woman born of +the foam of the sea. To the Greeks, Aphrodite had walked delicately over +the waves, to the Hindu, Maya was born of the churning of the ocean. The +dream was one of beauty and illusion—of beauty which in the throes of +man’s imagination became lust and illusion which became peril. The +religions of the world dreamed too of a woman who symbolised the teeming +earth, the earth which brings forth her children, rejoices in them, +loses them, seeks them and finds them again. Proserpine, Ceres, Isis, +all stand as images of the fruitful earth in her joys and distresses. It +has been made a reproach of Christianity that she has collected and +preserved these dreams in the figure of Mary, Virgin and Mother. Mary, +we are told has incorporated in her story the legends of Aphrodite, +Maya, Ceres and Isis. Her very name is the name of the bitter, +salt-tasting sea—her sorrows for her son untimely slain are the sorrows +of Ceres who sought her daughter at the throne of Pluto, and of Isis who +sought her son in the floods of the Underworld. They are all, first, in +a dim legend, the sea whence life mysteriously came, and then in later +myth the earth-mother living through the adventure of seed-time and +harvest, Spring, Summer and Winter. Mary is the inheritor of them all, +both earth and sea—the toiling mother of the year, and the far-off, +virgin source of life. + +Christianity would not be what it professes, the religion of the world +and perfect harvest of the Golden Bough, if it did not fulfil the +religious dreams of mankind, the myths, legends and allegories of a +world growing slowly lighter. Since our Lord is the embodiment of the +world’s dreams of a triumphant sun-god, slain, buried, and mightily +risen, so our Lady is the embodiment of the world’s dreams of a woman +wonderful in her child-bearing and herself wonderfully born. The two +strains of sea-daughter and earth-mother meet in her. Her beauty is the +beauty of Aphrodite before men’s hearts corrupted it, of the virginal, +white sea-foam—her fertility is the fertility of Proserpine, lady of the +harvest, her sorrows are the sorrows of Ceres, that far-off Mater +Dolorosa who suffered in her child. + +She is the meeting-place of Spring and Summer, both Virgin and Mother. +She stands before us as the Maiden, sweet, youthful and lovely—all the +purity of the world is in her mouth and in her eyes. Yet her virginity +is not sterile—she is not only virgin but mother. She is the palace of +life—on her arm is throned the New Life come in the eternal child. + +As Virgin and Mother, Mary fulfils the world’s dreams of +womanhood—dreams more tarnished and groping than any, perhaps, since the +world was astray in strange paths of thought as it sought to realise a +perfect woman. For the world had conceived its ideal of a perfect woman +as a paradox—the paradox of virginity and motherhood. Some such ideal +would seem to lie, perversely, at the bottom of sensual and terrible +cults, corrupted almost past recognition in their development, but none +the less traceable in their origins. In other cases the two strands of +the paradox are divided, and we have the age-long and universal +reverence for virginity surviving and flourishing in the midst of cults +based on the worship of fertility and the processes of generation. + +Mary is both Virgin and Mother. Therefore she is perfect and complete. +Virginity alone lacks something—Motherhood alone has lost something. In +Mary alone there is neither loss nor lack, so she is able to stand at +the meeting-place of two worlds. Behind her lies the old Covenant that +made her—the age-long processes of nature, the agonies of the +earth-mother, the gropings and dreams of the mind of man, and finally, +as the stream narrows, the austere ways of Israel—the “ethical +Monotheism” which was to mould her conduct and belief so as to fit her +for the guidance of the Holy and True—the endless complication, the +sanctified hygiene of the Mosaic law, preparing a noble body for her who +was to give a body to her Maker. Is it fanciful to believe that the +Mosaic law—all that long elaboration of washings and cleansings and +self-denials, of regulated food and regulated marriage—had no other +object than to prepare a fit physical vehicle for Incarnate God? ... “a +body hast thou prepared me.” + +Before her lies the new covenant of grace—the assumption of nature into +supernature, the taking up of the manhood into God. The old testament +has done its work, but it can do no more—there must be a change, a new +process must be set working in the world—and once more there is a +miraculous birth—of Mary—Mare. There she stands, at the meeting-place of +the worlds, both virgin and mother—purity without sterility, experience +without corruption. Herself both Spring and Summer she is the heart and +essence of Eternal May. + + + + + June + _Month of the Sacred Heart_ + + +The trees are all covered now—they are thick with their summer leafage. +The outline of the hedge is blurred, and the hedge trees no longer stand +out spindled against the sky, but have become rich shapes of green. The +meadow trees cast wide shadows, in which the cattle sleep, and the +waters of the stream are dark with the reflected grey-green of the +willows. But the thickest shades are in the woods. The interlacing +boughs of the oaks, the denseness of the undergrowth of chestnut and +hazel, have woven a tent above a hidden place of secrets and shadows. +The woods have a secret heart—dense, green and living; the sunlight +filters only in stray drops down into the spurge, while the moss round +the trunks of the trees is still damp, though outside in the meadow the +sun has long ago drunk up the dew. There is a refuge in the secret +places, in the secret heart, of the woods—away from the dust that whirls +in the baking lane and has parched the hedgerow, from the sun that +glares down on the grass and up from the ponds, from the activity of the +fields where the haymakers are at their work. The woods know neither +dust nor heat nor toil, and keep their secret places cool and green. + + * * * * * + +“He came, a man, to a deep heart, even to a secret heart, hiding his +Godhead from human view....” So St. Augustine the Bishop quotes the +Vulgate in the Lesson from his works which is read at the Office of +Tenebrae for Holy Saturday. “He came”—God came, even the eternal Word +and Son—“a man”—in our complete human nature, in our flesh—“to a deep +heart”—even to the participation of our human emotions, our joys, our +sorrows, our fears, our indignations, which have their symbol in the +human heart. + +It is possible that many people who call themselves orthodox have little +conception of our Lord’s humanity beyond the flesh. They believe indeed +that he lived, suffered and died in a human body, but limit their +conception of a body to flesh, bone and muscle. They ignore the fact +that all psychological processes are also bodily, and imagine, somehow, +that our Lord’s psychological processes appertained purely to his +Godhead and were distinct in some mysterious fashion from the human +nature he assumed. Thus we have our modern Docetists, who reduce the +Incarnation to an appearance only, since the body is no more than an +appearance, without the human mind which moves it. Our Lord assumed the +entire man—the inward man of the emotions as well as the outward man of +the flesh. + +The Eternal, we are told in the theological definition, has attributes +but no passions. It is not true to speak of the Most High God as feeling +anger or grief or pleasure. Nevertheless by virtue of his condescension +we can speak so of the Incarnate Son. For the Christ who humbled himself +to our flesh humbled himself also to our emotions. Therefore we are told +of him that “he was wroth,” that “he was moved to compassion,” that “he +rejoiced in spirit,” that “he was in agony.” All these emotional +conditions were a limiting of the Divine Nature, just as was the +assuming of the mechanism of the human body. They were part of the +lowliness to which the Son of God stooped when he made himself of no +reputation. + +Here we have one of the great contrasts between good and evil. God +limits himself in his creation. He limits himself by the laws of the +visible universe, just as the Word was limited by the human nature he +assumed. God is continually bowing and humbling himself towards us. The +Evil One, on the other hand, exalts himself by means of the material +Universe. He has no power except it be given him. We can picture him as +keeping himself in power and life through the created universe—drawing +his life and strength and activity from that which draws its life and +strength and activity from God.... Evil moves and grows in the emotional +heart of man, entering by means of his primitive inheritance—the +instincts on which his character is built, and which have become +channels of evil instead of good owing to the first bad consent of his +will. It flows into and corrupts the emotions into which these instincts +grow, so that it can be said of the heart of man that it is “desperately +wicked.” + +But the New Life offers redemption to the human heart—offers us a New +Heart with the rest of the New Creation, offers us, in fact, his own +Heart as a substitute for ours. “I will take the heart of stone out of +your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh”—even his own Sacred +Heart, the human nature of will and emotion which he took of Mary. By +that tender stooping of the Infinite to our human joys and sorrows, all +our psychological processes are redeemed—poor distressed Psyche too +enters the kingdom of God. + +“He came a man to a deep heart, even to a human heart, hiding his +Godhead from human view.” + +But April and Easter have already told us that he did not merely stoop +to our humanity—he stooped to raise it. He became one with us “not by +the conversion of the Manhood into flesh, but by the taking of the +manhood into God.” When he ascended into the heavens, into all the gold +and glory of the eternal summer sun, he ascended in our human nature, in +our complete nature of emotion and will as well as in out flesh. Our +human nature lives in the heaven of heavens, perfect, redeemed—but human +in a sense to which our impeded humanity has never yet attained. Only +perfect God could become perfect man. + +“On the highest throne of the heavens I beheld a man sitting....” He is +there, with all our sorrows and our joys, our fears, our indignations. +His sympathy for us is not one merely of divine understanding but of +divine experience—not in some distant point of history, but now, +eternally—since upon the throne of God dwells all the longing, desire, +striving, love and anguish of mankind, the human heart which he has +redeemed and made his Sacred Heart. + +“O, Sacred Heart, our home lies deep in thee” ... all the pain, the +fear, the grief, the rapture, the wonder of my human heart, all those +emotional stresses that I only half understand and which sometimes +threaten to engulf me, all these I can bring home to that Deep Heart, to +that Sacred Heart, since for my sake, O passionless Word, you stooped to +know the shadows of human emotion, to know joy and sorrow, wrath and +compassion, and, stooping, raised them with yourself to your high +throne. + + + + + July + _Month of the Precious Blood_ + + +July comes as the climax of the year, when the months have reached their +solstice with the sun. The earth’s conversion is complete—she is born +anew in the woods where the trees are heavy and dark with their full +summer leafage, in the hedgerow where the honeysuckle hangs thick trails +over the already thick briar-rose, in the fields where the hay is cut, +and where the corn stands sunburnt and nearly ready for harvest. + +Along the side of the Down the poppies grow in a scarlet streak—like +blood. They splash the growing corn, and they flower too in the chalky +aridity of the quarry outside the field. They are the brave pennons of +July—gay and blood-red, the colour of life pulsing and triumphant, the +colour of the field’s salvation and the earth’s victory. + + * * * * * + +James Weller “got salvation,” and in the year 1842 was published at +Robertsbridge in Sussex, a little book called “The Wonders of Free +Grace.” It is the story of Weller’s short life—packed into many halting, +ungrammatical sentences, between dull brown covers, the colour of the +lanes he trod. Yet if things were to appear in their hidden reality that +book would be seen printed and bound in poppy scarlet, for it is written +in blood—the heart’s blood of the “little man of Kent” and the Precious +Blood which redeemed that heart and made it new. + +“I was born in sin.” There is something Pauline in the opening phrase, +which, however, means no more than that his parents were “very ignorant +of the power of godliness.” They were poor simple people, the father a +farm labourer earning a lean, uncertain living on the farms round +Headcorn. + +Little James was a puny child, terrified with dreams. A frail +constitution and a hard life worked an excitable mind to the edge of +religious mania, though in those days he had learned none of the jargon +of damnation which Calvinism was to teach him later—he was a child of +the Church, which provided for his physical as well as for his spiritual +needs, since his family seem to have “come on the Parish” at a very +early date. + +When his father died they were left quite destitute, and the rigorous +old Poor Law “put out” the wretched James to work on various farms. The +spiritual history of those years reads like the blacker parts of “Grace +Abounding”—he was convinced that he had committed the Sin against the +Holy Ghost. Many times he felt urged to take his own life, and he seems +to have been unable to pass a pond or brook or well without +contemplating in it release from the existence which was fast becoming +unbearable. But he lived on, alternating frightful impulses towards +suicide and dreams of a devouring hell, with hopes of release, of +discovery and union—sometimes coming to him through the ministrations of +the various sects in which he sought relief, sometimes in the pages +(opened with ritual casualness) of that Book which, however, often +scattered its comfort with trumpet-blasts of judgment. + +Very different from the straining carefulness of his spiritual life was +the extremely haphazard way in which he managed his worldly affairs. He +drifted from farm to farm with his inefficient labour—many a hearty +Kentish kick and curse must have followed him as he roamed head-in-air, +soul-in-hell, through the tasks of his day. He was always ill, always +poor, and yet at the age of twenty-one he married in Frittenden church a +girl as penniless as himself. Then a painful internal complaint began to +afflict him. He grew unable for all but the lightest farm work, and soon +became so ill that he had to go into the infirmary at Maidstone. Here he +fell under the influence of a pious Baptist lady, who visited him on +behalf of the “Benefit Society for the Sick,” and to her he owed his +deliverance from his “legal struggles,” since she taught him the +doctrines of Election and of Uncovenanted Grace. But there was a bad +time to be lived through first. His agonies of soul increased, the +_sortes biblicæ_ yielded only blasts of damnation, and then the day came +when “I clearly saw the justice of God in my eternal overthrow, and +actually bade adieu to the world with an Amen to my own destruction.” +Immediately upon this surrender followed Illumination—“a sweet glowing, +a brilliant light like the shining of silver. I sprang up and sang and +wept and cried aloud for joy.” + +Directly after his conversion came Weller’s brief sweet experience of +the Joyful Mysteries. There is a touching account of his first happy +moments in the midst of poverty and sickness, and the cares of his young +increasing family which would not even allow privacy for his devotional +raptures.—“Having no place to retire to, I have wrapped myself in the +curtains of my bed, and in silent breathings poured out my soul to God +in the sweetest strains possible.” + +But trouble was never far from a nature combining the philosophy of +Micawber as to the affairs of this world with that of Mrs. Gummidge as +to the next. All through life his happiness was to be threatened by the +presiding evils of both states—Debt and Damnation. He tried various +means of livelihood, combining them with a new-found vocation as a +preacher. A little school, a baker’s shop, severally failed, and for +some time he tried to support himself by a peddling sale of books and +tea. Luckily he was gifted with an ingenuous humility which allowed him +thankfully to accept any gift, whether of money, food or clothing, no +matter how grudgingly it was bestowed—grateful to the Lord who had +provided for him as for Elijah out of the hard, unsympathetic beaks of +ravens. + +He received also small sums of money for his preaching, which had a +certain favour among the ‘dens’ of Kent. It had begun merely by an +account of his conversion to a few sympathisers at Maidstone, but later +he had learned, like most converts, to make a universal application of +his private experiences, and laid huge stress on the doctrines of +Predestination and Election and Free Grace. While still at Maidstone he +had joined the Baptists, but the Baptists at Maidstone were Arminians, +whereas his nature and the circumstances of his conversion inclined him +towards Calvinism. He thought of joining the Calvinists, who had small +congregations at Smarden and other hamlets. But “my pen cannot describe +the exercises of my mind on the thought of leaving the Arminian +Baptists. It would make many of my former friends my foes.” Far away at +Oxford a similar conflict was at about the same time raging in the +breast of Newman, and this mute inglorious Newman was to follow the same +course as his famous contemporary. He seceded, and became a Particular +Baptist. + +The next few years are a history of struggle, contempt, debt, care, +family trials, dependence on the charity of the Elect, whose very +cast-off clothing he and his children wore. But the greatest experience +of his regenerate life was at hand—the Word which was to send him out of +his native and familiar Kent into unknown Sussex, carrying his Gospel to +the Gentiles. The call came to him as it had come to the Apostle Paul +from the Man of Macedonia—“Come over and help us.” The Man of Sussex was +a “miller in Ticehurst, a perfect stranger to me,” whom he met on the +Headcorn Road. “He had passed but a few rods, when these words were +powerfully impressed upon my mind—‘that man comes out of Sussex to +invite you to go down there to preach.’ At which I immediately said +‘Dear Lord, I am not fit to go into Sussex.’” However, he dared not +refuse so imperative a summons, enforced through the continual +impression on his mind of the words “I will send thee far hence to the +Gentiles.” To the Gentiles he went, the barbarians of Shovers Green, +from whom soon afterwards came a definite call. He went in the greatest +agony of mind, full of doubts and fears and distresses, but in spite of +this his preaching was found acceptable to the little knot of believers +at the cross-roads beyond Bantony. Here he continued going once a +fortnight for some time, though in due course opposition arose—he was +accused of being “an Antinomian, a Huntingtonian, a High Calvinist, a +Beemanite,” and a large party withdrew from the chapel, though as others +came from surrounding parishes, he still had a good congregation. +However, in time the disaffected party got the upper hand, and there +seems to have been a sort of riot—“an unusual concourse of people in the +public road, with loud hollowings and shouts of Horrible! ‘Bominable! +Stuff!” In the end, Weller’s career as an apostle of the Gentiles came +to rather a tame conclusion in his being dismissed by the Deacon, who +paid him his salary and told him that his services would be no further +required. + +However, his work was only apparently ended. Soon afterwards he received +a call to Mayfield, with occasional returns to Frittenden and Smarden, +and finally he detached himself altogether from Kent and became a +regular preacher at Burwash, whither followed him the loyal part of his +congregation at Shovers Green. The story of his life at Burwash is his +usual mixture of good works and bad debts; however, his circumstances +both spiritual and material, seem to have grown more stable. His +ministry was becoming famous among the farms, and in 1842 a friend at +Robertsbridge offered to “give me a house to turn into a chapel, with a +lease of fifty years and ten pounds per annum towards the support of the +cause. This gave me fresh reasons for prayer.” The offer was accepted, +and the foundation stone was laid in November 1842, the opening taking +place in January of the next year. Preachers came respectively from +London and the Upper Dicker, and “were much favoured in their own souls; +but as for myself, I was sorely tried the whole of the day with my own +debts and those of the chapel.” + +So ends the story of the “Wonders of Free Grace.” Weller did not long +enjoy his more established existence, for he died five years after +coming to Robertsbridge. But his Bethel and his book remain, both akin +in their ugliness and humility. One reads the book with much the same +feelings as one looks at the Bethel. It is written entirely without +art—a wordy stammering narrative, mixed with minute reports of dreams, +spiritual experiences, marvellous conversions, digests of sermons and +Calvinistic arguments. It is all obscure, voluble, earnest and naive. + +A remarkable and poignant thing is his utter blindness to the beauty +spread round him in the fields of Sussex and Kent. He seems to have +tramped the Kentish lanes, gone to and fro among the red villages of the +Sussex weald, crossed the still, sweet valleys of the Rother and the +Glotten Brook, without a thought for their loveliness. This exile in +darkest Geneva was blind to all beauty save that which reached him in +occasional, tortured flashes from the Thick Darkness where God was. The +coloured, wooded country round Sissinghurst, the brooding, merging +greens of the Rother Marshes, the farm-patched mound of the Isle of +Oxney, the flushed hillock of ancient Rye had no voice for the messenger +of Grace. Even the coming of Spring, to be to the earth what conversion +is to the man, to do yearly for the Benenden meadows what Free Grace had +done once for James Weller, brought no sympathetic thrill to the heart +which saw only its own Particular mercies. As he groped and stumbled on +his way, nature walked beside him through her mysteries, from the Spring +Annunciation to the Falling Asleep of December. He might have had the +comfort of her beauty, the fellowship of her experience, but he went +aloof—the Protestant, the individualist, his eyes cast down up the +narrow lane of his salvation where his footsteps were marked in blood. + + * * * * * + +To the Catholic Christian there is a special glamour about such stories +as this of James Weller, of conversion and salvation outside the normal +sphere of the Covenanted Mercies. They are like stories of men who win +their way across uncharted seas in unseaworthy craft—of men who miss +their way up a mountain, yet, somehow, arrive at the summit, bleeding +and exhausted, by another path. So powerful is the Precious Blood that +it can work its changes on mankind apart from the means appointed for +its operation. Unlike the old life, the New Life is not bound by its own +laws, and again and again it amazes us with miracles. “Behold, ye +despisers, and wonder and perish....” + +The normal channel of the Precious Blood as it flows from the Sacred +Heart of Christ, making us all partakers of his divine humanity, is the +sacramental system of his Church, which is his Body. But just as there +can be contacts between mind and mind without the agency of the +body—though such contacts must always be abnormal, uncertain and +unsatisfactory—so there is contact between the New Life and human lives +which as yet stand outside the body of its functioning. And as these +telepathic unions between mind and mind have a special glamour about +them which perhaps we do not find in ordinary human intercourse, so +these uncovenanted graces of the New Life give us a new thrill as of +power unguessed and unrealised. + +It is true that there is always something a little terrible about the +experiences of the separated saints. They are not quite natural, and +therefore not quite spiritual. Where the conversion is not too +subjective to last, the New Life often has to grow in an atmosphere of +fear—fear of sin and fear of hell, or fear even of the homely shapes of +earth, which the separated Saint sees unredeemed, as vessels of wrath. + +It is for our sins that the Precious Blood does not flow in the veins of +Christ’s Body only. As long ago on Calvary, it is still poured upon the +ground. The spear of schism pierces his side, and thereout flows blood +and water—the sacraments poured out in death. It is through our guilt +that men such as James Weller obtain their Particular Mercies. We have +pierced his heart, and it is because his heart is broken that there is +grace not only for us but for all the children of God that are scattered +abroad. + + + + + August + _Month of the Most Pure Heart of Mary_ + + +The sun has set, but there is still colour in the sky and colour on the +sea. Pale streaks of rose lie along the horizon, both on cloud and on +water. The sea, where it meets the sky is a lightless pink, where it +touches the land a lightless blue. It is strange, this lightless colour +of the sea. Under all the riches of its summer twilight changes the sea +seems lifeless. There is a deadness too in the sky now that the sun has +gone. It is all like a painted memory of something once seen, a dream of +something once alive. Then a wind goes over the waters, and suddenly a +point of living light is kindled, as the first star shines out in the +lifeless sky. The planet named long ago after the goddess of beauty is +still the star of the sleeping August sea. It shines one tiny brilliant +point of light in all that rose-blue lifelessness of sky and sea. Round +it and beneath it clouds and water waken into darkness, so that by the +time the other stars have kindled, and the moon has risen, the whole +dead scene has come to life again in glowing depths of gold and blue. + + * * * * * + +The human race flowered in Mary. Sown in the garden of man’s universal +dream, tended and watered by the Law of the chosen race, the Rose of +Sharon bloomed to be fertilised by Godhead. Mary stands alone as the +single perfect flower brought forth by that sad sowing of the human +race. Rich was the soil and many were the gardeners, yet only one +blossom opened perfectly to the sun. + +So once again the adventure of life could be made, the suitable medium +having been found. The medium of the natural life that first came +wonderfully to an inorganic world was the sea, in which organic life +arose—Aphrodite, beautiful and fertile, born of the sea-foam. The medium +of the supernatural life that came wonderfully into nature was the pure +will of Mary when she proclaimed herself the handmaid of the Lord. Her +name signifies saltness, bitterness, in fact, the salt and bitter +sea—there is no flowering in her name—but her perfect will is the star +of the sea, which makes a guiding path across its mystery—the star which +yet is not a star, but a planet blazing with reflected glory. + +Thus she is the rose to symbolise that she is the flower of all life, +the flower of the long growth of the ages; she is also the sea to +proclaim that she is the virgin source of the New Life, of the ages yet +to come; she is the star of the sea to show the guidance of her perfect +will, perfect only in its reflection of the glories of the will of God. +“Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” When Mary speaks these words a new +star is kindled, and the dead world comes alive in the night. + +The sanctified myths of Genesis point to the failure of the purpose of +life through the corruption of a woman. This need not involve the belief +that the first perversion of free will came through woman as distinct +from man. Eve symbolises the feminine principle in things—the receiver, +the reflector, the material, the medium. Through the wrong choice of the +first human wills, the medium of creation was spoiled, and the human +race became in its tendencies a part of nature rather than of +supernature. Intended for the spouse of heaven, it turned instead to +Adam—Edom—red earth, and by turning earthwards away from heaven, to the +knowledge of good and evil, it lost its purpose even in regard to the +earth it turned to, its powers of redemption, its functions as mediator, +and cursed became the ground for our sake. + +Mary too stands as a symbol—the symbol of the restoration of the lost +purpose of life through the sanctification of a woman. The medium, the +receptacle is rehabilitated in Mary, “spiritual vessel, wondrous vessel +of devotion,” and becomes the vehicle of the divine. By the Holy Ghost, +Mary is made the spouse of heaven and the mother of heaven’s Lord. + +The body which the Redeemer took of his Virgin Mother was not an +inheritance of the flesh only, but the inheritance of a human heart and +will. We all receive from our parents a heart and will made crooked by a +perverted inheritance, in other words by sin. The heart and will of our +Lord were clean and straight and without sin. His psychological +processes were as God intended them to be—an orderly development from +primitive yet honourable instincts moving towards completeness, which is +perfection. “The sin is in the will.” There was no sin in the will of +Mary, which was simply the will of God, so she was able to give her son +what no other human parent has been able to give. The doctrine of the +Virgin Birth proclaims that he took from her the feminine principle +only—the vessel, the vehicle—while Godhead provided the masculine or +quickening element. If he had been born according to nature he would +have belonged to nature, but he was born the mediator of two worlds, the +natural and the supernatural—“by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary.” +Once more the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters, and the +New Creation is begun. + +It was Mary’s privilege to give our Lord all that he took of manhood. +She gave him human nature at its best—the perfect vehicle. She gave him +not only a human body but a human mind—and she did more than give. What +she had already given she trained and guided. Again and again, +psychologists tell us, even a good inheritance will be wasted by the +mistakes of the parents during the first years of their child. The +delicate child-mind may be hopelessly warped and spoiled by the +mishandling of those that train it. The more we learn of the discoveries +of modern psychology the more we are impressed by the terrific +responsibility of the Mother of God. To her care was committed not only +her infant’s tender body, but his beautiful, perfect, sensitive mind. +Those early years which psychologists tell us make or mar a whole life +were entirely in her keeping. It was for her to sow the seed of early +impressions, to impart the first teaching. Only the glory of her own +submitted will could have guided her through the ocean of her +motherhood’s cares—that will which was simply the perfect reflection of +the will of God. + +The spirit of God moves over the face of the waters, and the waters +become a miraculous source of life. Above the waters a single star is +bright with the reflected glory of the sun. + + + + + September + _Month of the Sorrows of Mary_ + + +There is a new sharpness in the air—the first sharpness of Winter +returning. There is a sharpness which is only just not the sharpness of +frost on the dew that lies so late and thick upon the morning grass. The +winds sleep, and the air is bound. But this sharpness and stillness are +not as in frozen January, for they are no longer sterile—they are rich, +fruitful, golden. Up into the still air ascends the straight blue +smoke-column of the bonfires that consume the dross of summer, and in +that burning there is a sweetness, a richness that makes the heart beat +quickly and almost chokes the breath. There is no perfume like that of a +September garden fire, burning away the summer in an agony of sweetness. +The smoke of it goes up like incense through the gold and blue of the +afternoon. The breath of the earth is like incense as she turns slowly +to her sleep. The earth is emptied of her harvests, but not of their +perfume—it hangs still about her, perfume of the crops she has brought +forth, corn and hops and hay, merged into one rich sweetness in the +September sunshine. She is stripped but she still is sweet, indeed +sweeter in this autumn spoliation than ever in her sun-baked fertilities +of Summer, just as the trees are lovelier in their golden dying than in +the pale austerity of their budding or in the green monotony of their +July crown. The trees are still bearing fruit. The crimson of the apples +hides among the golden green of the leaves. September is the month of +the fruitful trees, of the harvest of the golden bough. The field has +given up the last of her harvests, but the orchard is still heavy, and +in the wild trees of the woods the acorns, the nuts, the sloes are ripe +among the yellowing leaves. + + * * * * * + +Two women stand at the foot of two trees. The women are weeping, the +trees are heavy with fruit. Eve stands at the foot of the tree of the +knowledge of good and evil—Mary stands at the foot of the Cross. Both +are Matres Dolorosæ—sorrowful mothers—Eve the mother of all living, Mary +the mother of life. Eve has betrayed her children, through the perverse +choice of her will, but weeps for herself rather than for them—Mary has +been redeemed by her child through the offering of her will, and she +weeps for him alone. + +The sorrows of Mary are fertile sorrows—the ground watered by her tears +is rich for all mankind, whereas the tears of Eve water only thorns and +thistles, cockle and darnel. The sorrows of Mary are sweet as the +perfume of the September fires, they go up as incense to heaven. The +sorrows of Eve are bitter as the smoke of green wood, and the gusts of +her self-love blow them along the ground. + +It is not the first time that Eve and Mary have stood over against each +other in the scheme of the ages. They are both the medium of creation, +vessels of life, the material of the active, creative principle of the +universe. But in Eve this material has failed, it thwarts the life that +works in it, so that its energies are not only cramped but perverted. +Eve fights against the power that uses her—hence her own suffering, and +the apparent failure of the power, due to the defects of its instrument. +For Eve has discovered herself, and uses her will for her own purposes, +with the result that both her own purposes and the purposes of God as +far as she is concerned are lost. She knows both good and evil, but can +use neither. The serpent deceived her by biting his own tail and calling +himself eternity, hence she is caught in the round of things and cannot +escape. + +Mary stands at the foot of the Cross as the second Eve. Once more the +creative principle has sought a medium, and this time the medium has +responded perfectly, so that the work of the new creation of the new +heavens and the new earth has not been foiled by its instrument. Mary +used her freedom, her will, not for herself but to further the purposes +of God. She became as it were the collaborator of God by yielding +herself as his handmaiden. As a reward he has made her a sharer of his +joys and sorrows. The sorrows of Mary are fertile because they are the +sorrows of the Cross. Every one of them, from the flight into Egypt till +the moment when she holds the slain body of her son upon her knees, +every one of them draws life from the fountain of the Precious Blood. +The mother standing there weeps no vain tears of selfish grief nor vain +regret—her sorrows are already united with the sacrifice of her Son, she +offers them to God with his, for the purposes of redemption. Her sorrows +are fruitful for the assistance of the world on its new ways, in company +with all human sorrow which is offered at the foot of the Cross. They +are part of the new processes of life—the sublimation of the old laws +whereby nature groaned and travailed towards higher things; they are +part of the supernatural evolution, in which sorrow is eucharistic, a +sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. + +The sorrows of Mary go up to heaven in perfume, like the fires of +September. Her motherhood burns in an agony of sweetness. She is the +rich earth, scented and fertile, at the foot of the golden bough, now +ripe for harvest. + + + + + October + _Month of the Holy Angels_ + + +The sky is black. The great moonless arch sweeps from horizon to +horizon, high over the zenith. It is black, and utterly unlit except for +a golden shimmer, a dust of light, which is less light than radiance, as +it were a bloom upon the grape of darkness. Here and there against this +background of darkness and dim bloom, the nearer constellations swing +their homely shapes—the chair, the horse, the plough; and high across +the heavens is the span of that great road, track of the sun’s chariot +astray in mortal hands, the road of stars, where they lie like dust. + +Looking up into the sky, into the blackness lit by radiant dust, we +almost forget the earth under our feet. It shrinks in all this hugeness +of space, and we ourselves shrink with it till we cry the age-long cry +of those that watch the stars—“What is man that thou art mindful of him, +or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower +than the angels....” + +We see the earth as one of the smaller planets revolving round one of +the smaller of the myriad suns that are as small dust in the small +corner of the universe that is before our eyes. We see mankind as one of +innumerable forms of life, some known, some unknown. Important in his +small sphere, what is he in the spaceless immensity of the stars? Where +does he rank in the scale of being, with its hierarchies that tower +above him into eternity? Is he only a little lower than the angels? + +We cannot count the suns we see—we cannot imagine the counting of the +suns we do not see. We cannot count the miles, nor the years of the sky. +We can only gaze upon it as it hangs above us in this moment of time, +and use for our homely ends the faint glimpses we have down here of its +wonderful order.... + +A red star suddenly cleaves the heavens. It appears to fly through them, +though in reality it is far below them, burning because of its contact +with the earth’s atmosphere, and only for that reason visible. It +streaks the sky with a fading crimson gleam—then sinks among the woods +and is lost. + + * * * * * + +“How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning,” + +It is easier to drop the counting of years and go outside time. Created +will exists, and has power of itself. In part it has made the evil +choice, it has turned away from the Creative Will which is both its +source and goal. It has become evil. It is at war with good. There is +war in heaven. Michael and his angels fight against the dragon; and the +dragon fights and his angels, but they prevail not, neither is their +place found any more in heaven. “And the great dragon was cast out, that +old serpent, called the Devil and Satan ... he was cast out into the +earth, and his angels were cast out with him.... Woe to the inhabiters +of the earth, and of the sea: for the devil is come down unto you, +having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” + +Evil, in itself, must die, since life subsists alone in God. Therefore +every existence cut off from him must end. The dragon must perish apart +from the Lord and Giver of life, his only hope is to establish an +indirect and factitious union with his God in time. This he achieves +through the material universe with which he is able to ally himself and +which itself is sustained by God. He maintains his life through the +elements—he becomes the Prince of the Power of the Air. + +He enters the cycle of evolution, and we can follow his trail through +natural law—in the cruelty and futility of nature, which we cannot +believe formed part of her Creator’s original design. As life develops, +becomes more subtle, rich and various, we see the adversary’s growth +more explicitly revealed, till at last in animal consciousness, with its +capacity for fury and pain, he attains a new power and satisfaction. The +world is like a beautiful tree with a worm gnawing at its +roots—twisting, stunting, and warping it, so that the fruit shrivels +among the wilting leaves. Jömungund gnaws at the root of Yggdrasil. + +But a new wonder happens upon the earth. To consciousness is added mind +and will. Created will makes a new appearance—in time. Here is a great +new opportunity, both for good and evil. If the adversary can obtain +power over this new form of conscious will, he can prolong indefinitely +his own life and activity—perhaps even obtain once more a holding in +eternal things, by means of this new creature which has been made in the +image of God. On the other hand, man may by a right use of his free will +redeem the world, save nature from her curse of cruelty and futility, +and set her free to return to the kingdom of God. Then the evil one and +his angels would fail and perish—they would be cast out of earth as +before they were cast out of heaven, and be unable to maintain any +longer through creation their illicit hold on life. + +These were the issues, and the myths of many races tell us how mankind +failed to rise to his high calling. Instead of devoting the sword of his +free will to the service of good, and assuring thereby the overthrow of +evil in time as it had been overthrown in eternity, man, thinking +thereby to serve himself, turned it to the service of evil. Thus evil, +defeated in eternity, became victorious in time. The adversary’s power, +till then bound by the limited consciousness of animal life, was +enormously increased by its new hold on human mind and will. He was now +the Prince of this World, its ruler and potentate, and would inevitably +have destroyed it if the Almighty King of Heaven had not decided that +evil should not triumph even in time—that mankind’s lost battle should +be fought over again, and won. + +By assuming our manhood, God fought our lost battle over again in his +own person, and won it for us, redeeming not only ourselves but the +kingdom of nature which we had betrayed. The serpent’s head was +bruised—he lost his kingdom. He has no more real power even in time—he +is bound by time and must end in time. The Prince of this World is +judged. + + * * * * * + +This is only a dream of good and evil, of the mystery of their conflict. +It is only a theory, a guess at the explanation of the apparently +distorted processes of nature, and the slavery of mankind to the +elements of the world. The eternal issues between good and evil have +been fought outside time, by beings of a different nature from +ourselves, in that symbolic heavenly war wherein Michael and his angels +triumphed over the devil and his angels. In that conflict the victory is +already won by the forces of good. Evil is already cast out of the +eternal sphere, neither is its place found any more in heaven. There is +no dualism in the Christian religion, no setting of Satan against God as +Ahriman is set against Ormuzd in the Persian myth. For evil is +definitely cast out and trampled under the foot of triumphant Godhead. +It has only a secondary and limited existence—in time; whereas good is +primary, unlimited and eternal. + +In time, the forces of good are in conflict with the forces of evil, +though outside time their victory is won. Michael and his angels still +have need to succour and defend us on earth, and their power lies in the +fact that they also do continual service in heaven. Their power is not +secondary and limited by time as is the power of their adversary and +ours—it derives from an eternal source, it is the same power that +overthrew the Dragon on the plains of heaven—the power of God. + +The power of the dragon lies in the life he is able to absorb from +creation—from ourselves—just as the meteor owes its light to its passing +through our earth’s atmosphere. In one of Dr. M. R. James’s ghost +stories there is a spectre which makes itself a body out of some +bedclothes, but is unable to injure its victim, as its strength lies +entirely in the medium it has chosen, which is merely a bundle of linen. +So the harm that evil can do is merely a question of the body it +acquires. It rests with us whether it embodies itself in our highest +thoughts and strivings or can do no more than frighten us with a bogey +made of our discarded primitive instincts. Its most common embodiment is +in the elements of our human psychology which we inherit from our animal +ancestors—the grave clothes that the risen man has cast aside. + +In our fight against evil we fight against what is merely temporary, +parasitic and doomed, and on our side are forces which are primary, +self-existing and eternal. On our side are the unchanging stars in their +order, and our adversary is only the meteor that streaks the sky for a +moment of earth-derived brightness, falls and is lost. + + + + + November + _Month of the Holy Souls_ + + +There is a great silence over all the land. The furrows hold in +stillness the new seed—brown, bare, and earth-smelling, they keep the +secret of the life that has been buried in them. There is darkness too. +At night the galaxy has faded from the sky—here and there rarely some +greater lamp shines through the mists that veil the zenith, but more +often even the moon herself is hidden, fog-wrapped, a mere dim spilling +of light into the clouds. By day too the mists hang thick. The earth +lies motionless and silent under a veil. Trees and hedges near at hand +are hidden away or only loom occasionally through the mists as +monstrous, unnatural shapes. There is something terrifying about the +familiar barns and haystacks that the mist has blotted into ghostliness. +The dimness and the silence bring a sense of fear, as of a land changed. +Yet it is only the exhalations of the earth that have given this +sinister, mysterious cast to loved, familiar objects. A gleam of +sunlight falls upon the mists, and for a moment they part and show us +the waiting furrow, and the hedgerows pearled with moisture and bloomed +with a soft, spring-like purple that reminds us of March’s brave +passional livery of redemption. Though despoiled, and bound, the earth +is not dead, and in her already a new harvest sleeps. + + * * * * * + +“For thou, O Lord, changest, but takest not away the life of thy +people....” They are changed, they have gone from us, the mists of earth +hide them from us and give to their loved, familiar personalities a +touch of the sinister, of ghostliness. If we would let her, the earth +would make them ghosts. But as our prayers strive through the mists that +veil not them but us, a gleam of sunlight falls, and for a moment we +catch a glimpse of them in their passional livery of redemption, waiting +there under the altar, the prisoners of hope. “Turn ye to the +stronghold, ye prisoners of hope.” + +They are changed. They no longer look into the same mirror as ourselves, +the mirror of nature where supernature lies reflected as in a glass +darkly. They do not yet see face to face, but theirs is no longer the +mirror of the months, where together with divine things strange +troubling things of earth are shown, where often Narcissus sees but his +own image calling him down into the well of shadows. Their mirror, +though a reflector only, is unclouded and cannot deceive. They have +escaped out of the deceiver’s power, and can no longer be touched by the +evil that preys on the world. They have left that evil behind in space +and time, by virtue of him who for their sake assumed space and time +that he might bind with them the enemy of eternity. + +They are changed. They have entered as it were into a new function as +mediators, for they are now a link between us and those unknown worlds +whose complexity makes the unity of creation. We cannot limit our +conception of life to beings like ourselves. If they live, and we know +that they live, they do not live as we do, but manifest themselves in +other ways and under other conditions. Spirit and manifestation—the +first is always the same, the latter is constantly changing. But spirit +shall never be without manifestation—that truth was proclaimed for all +time in Joseph of Arimathea’s garden, and is preserved for all time in +the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. We shall not live as the +helpless and futile shades of a Greek paradise, but as body and spirit, +though that idea of a body need not bind us to the body as we know it +now. The body of the springing corn in May is very different from the +body of the seed that was cast into the November furrow, but it is as +much the corn as ever was the seed—indeed it is more, for in the seed +the idea of the corn slept undeveloped, uncertain and incomplete. +Nevertheless the body of the springing corn was formed invisibly in the +seed, and invisibly in the bodies of our flesh that spiritual body of +our glory may be forming itself even now, waiting for the sowing in the +ground which shall set it free to grow and lift itself out of the +bondage of the earth into the liberty of the sun. + +They are changed. They are learning perhaps painfully to develop this +new body, from which the husk has fallen away. As yet they have not the +new vehicle, though they have lost the old, their spirit fumbles for its +manifestation in that Mediatory Kingdom where they wait. They are +prisoners, but they are prisoners of hope, for their new faculties and +powers are forming themselves in that unknown land. Once again, as it +were, they go through the processes of birth, as at the beginning of +their earthly life they went through them in their mother’s womb. A new +body is forming itself in the shelter of that land we call Purgatory, +where evil cannot seize upon the growing form as it seized upon that +which was cast off. For those who escape the bondage of the earth, the +Old Testament fierceness of natural law, the continual harrying and +preying of evil seeking to maintain its life parasitically through ours, +Purgatory even if viewed as a place of retribution as well as of +cleansing must also be a place of refreshing, light and peace. + +For there only good wills move in an orderly growth, an evolution which +sin has not corrupted and debased. There the mists of earth can no +longer hide from us the stars which are the burning of spirits aflame +with the love of God, the angelic hierarchies that fill a universe in +which our earth and its humanity holds only a small space. The shelter +of the furrow is paradoxically the freedom of the sky. The prisoner of +hope is the freeman of love. + + + + + December + _Month of the Incarnation_ + + +The earth has gone back to the beginning. Her secrets are locked up. The +year’s tale is told. She lies at the end of the months as she lay at the +beginning—still and frozen, wrapped in the swaddling clothes of frost +and snow. The beginning and the ending are the same. + +There seems to be neither growth nor change nor life in the iron-hard +soil, powdered here and there with snow, in the bare hedges and the +barren woods, in the ponds that are black under their bondage of ice. +Even the sun in the heavens stands still at his winter solstice. The +glory and bravery of summer are almost unimaginable—it is hard to +remember the changes of the months—the kindling gleam of February, the +brightness of the April garden, the whiteness of the May-day hedgerow, +the calm, star-lit seas of August, the fruitful golden trees of +September. All have ended as they began in this darkness and stillness. +The year’s tale is told, and the beginning and the ending are the same. + + * * * * * + +The months end as they began—with the Child. In December we meet the +Child again, the Child of January, the Child who is Alpha and Omega, the +beginning and the ending, saith the Lord. In this Child the Christian +faith begins and ends. All the doctrines of Councils, all the learning +of doctors, all the disputations of scholars, all the splendour of +creeds, have their beginning and ending in the Child born of the Virgin +Mary. The Christian Gospel is simply the Gospel of the Incarnation—of +the New Life born of a Virgin into the world, redeeming man from his +bondage to the Law which was added because of transgressions—making him +a citizen of a new and heavenly kingdom and a partaker of a new and +heavenly nature—redeeming through him the rest of creation, of which he +was first appointed a mediator, so that there shall be in eternity not +only a new heaven but a new earth—an earth set free from the bondage of +sin that held her in time, her processes redeemed for mercy, her +creatures redeemed for joy. + +It is this and nothing less than this that the New Life comes to +accomplish—the first life having been corrupted by the enemy, and +mankind having failed to fulfil his appointed purpose of restorer and +healer. By virtue of the Incarnation of the Son of God, there is now a +new power working in the world towards its at-onement with its maker. +The Divine Humanity of our Lord, both superseding and containing ours, +has already fulfilled the purposes of God for us, and through it we have +union with God and are accounted his obedient sons, with power to +co-operate in his eternal work. + +The New Life works through the old. It uses matter in the way it was +originally intended—as the vehicle and manifestation of spirit. Through +Christ even the earth knows the glory of the Resurrection of her body. +As long ago water gave birth to life, so now water is made the vehicle +of the new birth and supernatural life—“Therefore do I hallow thee, O +thou gift of water,” says the Priest at the Blessing of the Font on Holy +Saturday, “by God the faithful, by God the holy, by God who in the +beginning by his word divided the land from thee, by whose Spirit the +waters were overshadowed.” As bread and wine have been the bodily food +of man, giving strength and joy to his flesh, preserving his body in +life, so now they are made his spiritual food, giving strength and joy +to his soul, preserving his body and soul unto everlasting life. By +natural modes they have been assimilated by man’s body and made a part +of his humanity, and now by spiritual modes they are assimilated by God +and made a part of his divine humanity. “Hear us, O merciful Father, we +most humbly beseech thee, and grant that we receiving these thy +creatures of bread and wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus +Christ’s holy institution ... may be partakers of his most blessed Body +and Blood.” + +The Sacraments go down to the very roots of creation—they go further +down than our humanity, though our humanity is the means by which they +descend, thus restoring it to its original mediatory purpose. Water, +bread and wine—the elements and our own uses of the elements, inorganic +and organic nature—are made the vehicles of supernatural life. Thus we +are brought into a wonderful and mystical union between the earth and +ourselves and the divine. Instead of remaining a creation at issue and +enmity with itself and separated from God, we become a creation working +together in mutual love and co-operation in union with God. Thus is the +atonement wrought between God and man and the earth. + +For our redemption is not only nearer but wider than we believed, and +includes not only humanity but the whole creation groaning and +travailing in pain together.... It is not only in poetry but in truth +that the Priest bids nature join in his thanksgiving after every Mass. +“Let us sing the song of the Three Children which they sang when they +blessed the Lord in the furnace of fire.” And the Song of the Three Holy +Children, redeemed from the furnace, is also the song of earth redeemed: +“O let the earth bless the Lord, yea let it praise him and magnify him +for ever.... O ye mountains and hills bless ye the Lord.... O all ye +green things upon the earth bless ye the Lord.... O ye wells bless ye +the Lord.... O ye seas and floods.... O all ye fowls of the air.... O +all ye beasts and cattle—join to-day with the angels and with the +priests of the Lord, with the servants of his sanctuary and the spirits +and souls of the righteous, with all holy and humble men of heart, in +singing the song of our redemption which we sing in the midst of the +furnace of fire, praising and magnifying him for ever.” + +“The angel of the Lord came down into the oven and smote the flame of +the fire out of the oven; and made the midst of the furnace as it had +been a moist whistling wind. Then the three, as out of one mouth +praised, glorified and blessed God in the furnace, saying: Blessed art +thou, O Lord God of our fathers, and to be praised and exalted above all +for ever.” + +The heart of the burning fiery furnace has become Joseph of Arimathea’s +garden—the garden of the new earth and of the new spring, the blessed +country where all the works of the Lord praise the Lord, the home of the +children of men, of the holy souls and of the angels, where the risen +Christ stands between the sun and moon, and greets the Church of his new +creation with “Peace be unto you.” + + + + + ● Transcriber’s Notes: + ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78642 *** |