Our Lady Saint Mary Part 12

Another instance is ready at hand in the practical abandonment of the religious observance of Sunday. To Christians Sunday is the Lord's day, and is to be observed as such. It is not true that an hour in the morning is the Lord's day, and is to be given to wors.h.i.+p, and that the rest of the day is given to us to do what we will with. But in our own Communion do we get any strong protest in favour of the sanct.i.ty of the day? Or are not the clergy compromising in the hope that if they surrender the greater part of the day to the world they will be able to save an hour or two for G.o.d? But is anything actually saved by this sort of compromise? Do we not know that the encroachments of worldliness that have narrowed down Sunday observance to an hour a day will ultimately demand that hour, that is, will deny any obligation other than the obligation of inclination? Are we not bound to stand by the Lord's day?

Are we to be made lax by silly talk about puritanism? Those who talk about the "Puritan Sunday" would do well to read a little of the Medieval legislation of the Church. Are we to keep silent in the pulpit because wealthy and influential members of the congregation want to play golf and tennis on Sunday afternoons, or children want to play ball or go to the movies? Are we to be taken in by talk of hard work during the week and consequent need of rest? It is no doubt well that a man should arrange his work with a view to an adequate amount of rest; but it is also well that he should rest in his own time and not in G.o.d's.

The Lord's day is not a day of rest. It ought to be, and is intended to be, a very strenuous day indeed.

One could easily spend hours in pointing out where and how the Gospel standard of life has been abandoned or compromised, and the life of the Christian in consequence conformed to the world. The result would only strengthen the position that has been already sufficiently indicated that a wholly different standard of living has been quietly subst.i.tuted throughout the Western world for the standard that is contained in Holy Scripture. Now we are either bound to be Christians or we are not; and we are not Christians solely by virtue of certain beliefs more or less loosely held. Our Lord's word is: "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." And the Gospel view of life is a perfectly plain one, and is as far removed from the common life of Christians to-day as it possibly can be. The Gospel conception of the Christian life is contained first of all in our Lord's life. That is the perfect human life; and the New Testament optimism is well ill.u.s.trated by its conviction that that life in its essential features can, with the grace of G.o.d, be imitated by man. And by those who have approached it in this spirit of optimism it has been found imitable. Innumerable men and women have lived the Christian life in the past and are living it in the present. To-day the possibility of living the Christian life, of bringing life approximately to the standard of the Gospel, is declared to be an impracticable piece of optimism, and our Lord's teaching hopelessly out of touch with reality. When people talk of the difficulty of living the Christ-life under modern conditions, the plain answer is that there is in fact only one difficulty in the matter, and that is the difficulty of wanting to do it. It is a confession of utter spiritual incompetence to say that we cannot follow the Gospel standards under modern conditions because of the isolation in which we at once find ourselves if we attempt it. If the attempt to be a Christian isolates us, it tells a pretty plain tale about our chosen companions.h.i.+p. It is a.s.serting that it is hard for us to be Christians because we are devoted to the society of those who are not Christians, of those who ignore it and habitually insult the teachings of our Saviour. That is surely an extraordinary confession for a Christian to make! Can we imagine a Christian of the first period of the Church excusing himself for offering incense to the divinity of Augustus on the ground that if he did not do so certain court festivities would be closed to him, and that his friends would think him odd!

"Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you," "The friends.h.i.+p of this world is enmity with G.o.d." We have to choose. It is not that we may choose. It is not that it is possible to have a little of both. As Christians it is quite impossible in any real sense to have the friends.h.i.+p of the world, though many Christians think that they can.

What really is open to us is the enmity of the world if we are sincere and strict in our profession, and the contempt of the world if we are not. You have not to read very deep in contemporary literature to learn what the world thinks about the Christian who ignores or compromises his standards. The world knows perfectly well what const.i.tutes a Christian life, and it shows a well merited scorn of those who, not having the courage openly to abandon it, yet show by their lives that they do not value it. We may not show the same sort of contempt for the "weak brother" as S. Paul calls him, but we ought to make it plain that we have no sort of approval of the brother who pleads weakness as an excuse for laxity.

There is one law of life and only one; and that is summed up in our Lady's direction to the servants at Cana in Galilee: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." There is no ground for pleading that our Lord's will is an obscure will, or that circ.u.mstances have so changed that much that He set forth in word and example has no application to-day in the America of the twentieth century. Perhaps if any one feels that there is some truth in the last statement, he would do well to examine the case and to find out just what and how much of the Gospel teaching is obsolete, and how much has contemporary application, and to ask himself whether he is constantly putting in action that part which he thinks still holds good. It will, I think, on examination be found that none of our Lord's teaching is obsolete, though in some cases changed circ.u.mstances may have changed its mode of application. Certainly there is nothing obsolete in His teaching in the matter of purity. The virtues that He dwells upon--humility, meekness and the rest--are universal qualities on which time and social change have no effect.

What Christian conduct needs on our part is interest. We have to make clear to ourselves that a certain kind of life is like the life of G.o.d, and therefore is the medium for understanding G.o.d, and ultimately for enjoying G.o.d. The Christian life is not an arbitrary thing; it is the highest expression of humanity. Any other life is a distortion of the human ideal. People talk as though they thought that by the arbitrary will of G.o.d they were obliged to be good--a thing wholly contrary to our nature and to our present interests. But goodness is the natural unfolding of our nature as G.o.d made it: we find our true expression in the likeness of G.o.d. Perfection is what nature aspires to. Religion is not a curb on nature; religion is a help to enable nature to express itself. Nature reaches its perfect expression when by the grace of G.o.d it becomes G.o.dlike.

And the words of Christ are our guide to the perfect expression of our best. Therefore the earnest Christian is willing to give time to the careful study of them, and of the whole ideal of life that is contained in them. He is not concerned with what they will cut him off from; he is concerned with that to which they will admit him. He is concerned to find the meaning of Christ's teaching. This that S. Paul says is fundamental is his rule of life: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of G.o.d."

Of one that is so fayr and bright _Velut maris stella_, Brighter than the day is light, _Parens et puella_; I crie to thee, thou see to me, Levedy, preye thi Sone for me, _Tam pia_, That I mote come to thee _Maria_.

Al this world was for-lore _Eva peccatrice_, Tyl our Lord was y-bore _De te genetrice_.

With _Ave_ it went away Thuster nyth and comz the day _Salutis_; The welle springeth ut of the, _Virtutis_.

Levedy, flour of alle thing, _Rosa sine spina_, Thu here Jhesu, hevene king, _Gratia divina_; Of alle thu ber'st the pris, Levedy, quene of paradys _Electa_: Mayde milde, moder _es Effecta_.

PART TWO

CHAPTER XV

WHO IS MY MOTHER?

Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother,

S. Matt. XII, 50.

Grant, we beseech thee, almighty G.o.d, that we may keep with an immaculate heart the sacrament which we have received in honour of the blessed virgin mother Mary; so that we who celebrate her feast now, may be found worthy when we have left this life to pa.s.s into her company.

Through &c.

SARUM MISSAL.

Our Blessed Lord had begun his ministry of preaching. The mark of the early days of that preaching was success. Crowds came about Him wherever He taught. The fact that there were frequent miracles of healing no doubt added to the popularity that He achieved. It was largely the popularity of a new and strange movement, of a preaching cutting across the normal roads of instruction to which the Jewish people were accustomed. There was a fascination about its form, its picturesque way of conveying its meaning, its use of the parable drawn from the everyday circ.u.mstances of life. There was nothing of hesitation in the words of the new Preacher, but the ring of a dogmatic certainty. "He taught as one having authority, and not as the scribes." He pushed aside the rulings of the traditional teaching with His, "Ye have heard it said ...

but I say." "Verily, verily, I say unto you." And yet there are people who tell us that there was nothing dogmatic about our Lord and His teaching! One would infer from much that is written upon the subject of our Lord's teaching that He was a very mild giver of good advice but evidently the Scribes and Pharisees did not think so. They saw in Him a man who was setting himself to undermine their whole authority.

This popularity was at a high point when an interesting event happened of which we have an account in the first of the Gospels. "His mother and His brethren stood without, desiring to speak with Him." One gathers from the whole tone of the narrative that they were anxious about Him, that they looked with doubt upon this career of popular teacher that He was launched upon and felt that He was going too far. He needed advice and restraint, perhaps; it may be that there were already reports of possible interference by the national authorities. The fact that His "brethren" were present suggests the well meant interference of the older members of the family, who must always have thought Jesus rather strange. That they had induced His mother to come with them makes us think that they were counting on the influence naturally hers, an influence which must always have been apparent in their family relations. So we reconstruct the incident.

No doubt S. Mary herself was anxious. She must always have been anxious as to what would be the next step in the development of her mysterious Child. And while there was one side of her relation to Jesus which would always have run out into mystery, the mystery of the as yet unrevealed will of G.o.d; on the other side she was no doubt a very real normal human mother, with all a mother's anxiety and need of constant intervention in the life of her Child. I do not suppose that S. Mary, any more than any other mother, ever understood that her Son had grown up and could be trusted to conduct the ordinary affairs of the day without her help. She was no doubt as much concerned as any mother with the fact that His feet might be wet, or that He might not have had any lunch, or that he might have got run over by a pa.s.sing chariot, or have been taken mysteriously ill. It was, we may think, this mother-att.i.tude which brought her along with the brethren to give some advice as to how to carry on the preaching mission and avoid getting into trouble with the religious authorities. "One said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and my sister, and my brother."

Our Lord had a way of turning the pa.s.sing incidents of the moment to account in His preaching, making them the texts of moral and spiritual teaching. One gathers that more than one of the parables and parabolic sayings was suggested by something that was before the eyes of His hearers. He was quick to seize any spoken word, any question, any exclamation, and to turn it to immediate account. It was so now. The report that His mother and His brethren were seeking Him, He made the occasion of a statement of vast import. When we try to think it out, it was not in the least, as it has been perversely understood, an impatient rebuff of an untimely interference, an indication that He did not care for their intervention in a work that they did not understand. There is really nothing of all that, but a seizing of a pa.s.sing incident as the medium of an universal truth. It is the skill of one who knows that the human attention is caught by a matter, however trifling, which is vividly present. The scene is sharply defined for us: our Lord interrupted in His talk; the report of the mother and the brethren seeking Him; the obvious interest of the people as to how He will take their intervention; and then the rapid seizing of this interest to make His declaration: "Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and my sister, and my brother."

And what are we to understand Him to mean? Surely He is declaring that through the revelation of G.o.d that He is, there is a new stage in G.o.d's work for man being entered upon, and that this new stage will be characterised by the emergence of a new set of relations, relations so important that they throw into the background the ordinary relations of life. He is proclaiming to them the advent of the Kingdom of G.o.d; and in that Kingdom, the service of G.o.d will be put first, before all human relations. It will not be antagonistic to human relations; indeed, it will hallow them and raise them to a higher level; but in case they, as not infrequently they will, decline to adjust themselves to the work of the Kingdom, or set themselves in opposition to it, then will they be brushed aside, no matter what they be. If we can consecrate our human relations and bring them into G.o.d, then will they be ours still with a vast enrichment and a rare spiritual beauty; but if they remain selfish, insist on absorbing all attention and energy, then they must be broken.

The love of father and mother and children is an holy thing wherever we find it, but it is capable of becoming a selfish and perverse thing, insistent upon its own ends and declining wider responsibilities. In that case it must be regarded from the standpoint of a higher good: if it stand in the path of the Kingdom it must be swept aside. So our Lord declared in one of the most searching of His utterances; one of the utterances which we feel could come only from the lips of G.o.d: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be those of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

That is the teaching of the incident before us. Our Lord's primary mission is to declare the will of G.o.d, and to make known the mind of the Father to all who will heed. Their acceptance of this will of the Father will bring them into a new relation to Him more important than, and transcending, all relations of flesh and blood. But--and this is important to mark--it does not exclude relations of flesh and blood; but it demands that they shall be put on a new basis and be a.s.similated to the higher relation. In our Lord's case they were in fact so a.s.similated. The blessed Mother and the brethren did not resist G.o.d's will when they came to understand it. They were, we know, glad of the higher relation, the new privilege. There is no ground at all for the suggestion of any breach between them. They are of the inner circle always in the Kingdom of the regenerate.

This fundamental truth of Christ's teaching, that through Him a new and closer relation to the Father becomes possible, and that the Kingdom is its embodiment, is one of the truths which have received constant lip-service, but have never been really a.s.similated in the working life of the Church. That the Church is the Body of Christ and we His members, and that by virtue of this members.h.i.+p in Him we are also members one of another; that we are, at our entrance into the Kingdom, made, as the Catechism puts it, members of Christ, children of G.o.d, and heirs of the kingdom of Heaven are truths of most marvellous reach and of splendid social implications. But can we say that they have very wide or real acknowledgment?

In face of a divided Christendom it seems almost farcical to talk of a Christian Brotherhood. The baptismal members.h.i.+p of the Church of G.o.d has fallen into group organisations whose mutual antagonism is of the bitterest kind. The so-called "religious press" is perhaps the saddest picture of modern Christian life. One could name a half dozen journals off hand, organs of this or that group, every one a sufficient refutation of the claim of the Christian Religion to be a Brotherhood of the Redeemed. There is no possible excuse for the tone of such publications.

No doubt it is an inevitable result of the state of a divided Christendom that there should be disputes and controversies. We shall never reach any expression of the Brotherhood that is the Church by saying, Peace, Peace, where there is no Peace. The unity we look to must be reached through painful sacrifice and through conflict; and we know that the wisdom that is from above is "first pure, and then peaceable,"

But it is quite possible while holding with all firmness to the truth, to hold it in the fear and love of G.o.d.

So long as Christendom is thus divided into hostile camps the ideal of brotherhood is impossible of realisation. I do not want however to discuss this matter from the point of view of Church unity. I want to point out that within the groups themselves there is small vision of the meaning of the oneness of Christ. For brotherhood is the expression of a spiritual reality. It looked for a moment in the early days of the Church as though the ideal would be realised. The description of the Church was that "all that believed were together, and had all things in common: and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need." That was, no doubt, a pa.s.sing phase of the life of the Church in Jerusalem, but we have evidence that elsewhere all distinctions based upon social considerations were for the moment swept away. There is "neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."

Our glimpses of the congregations of the early Church are of men and women of all cla.s.ses held together by the bond of a common members.h.i.+p in Christ, so strongly felt as to enable them to forget all worldly distinctions. Their sense of redemption was strong. They thrilled with the joy of deliverance from the old life "after the flesh." They knew that they were regenerate, new creations, and that this was the distinction of the brother who knelt beside them at their communions. It mattered not at all what he was in the world, whether he were Greek or Barbarian, whether he were patrician or freedman, whether he were of the slaves of Rome or of Caesar's household. The man who knelt to receive his communion might be a great n.o.bleman, the priest who communicated him might be a slave: that did not matter; the significant thing was that they were both one in Jesus Christ.

That did not last. I suppose that it could not be expected to last in an unconverted or half converted world. It could only last on condition of the fairly complete isolation of the Christian group from the rest of society, pending the conversion of society as a whole. But it proved impossible to secure the isolation. The only real isolation was in monastic groups which naturally could contain only such men and women as G.o.d called to a special sort of life: the whole of society could not be so organised. As the Church grew and took in the various social const.i.tuents included in the Empire, it took them in differentiated as they were. There seems to have been no real effort to break down race distinctions or cla.s.s distinctions. There were no doubt protests, but the protests were as ineffective then as now. "You cannot change human nature," men say; but that in fact is precisely what Christianity claims to do. Unless it can change human nature it is a failure.

The ideal of Christianity is not the abolition of inequality (only a certain sort of social theorists are insane enough to expect that). All men are born unequal in a variety of ways, physical, intellectual, moral; and under any form of society that so far has been invented they are born in social cla.s.ses which remain very hard realities in spite of our theories. What Christianity aims at accomplis.h.i.+ng is to transcend these inequalities, natural and artificial, by raising men to a state of spiritual equality, a state which ensures true and full enjoyment of all the privileges of the child of G.o.d. In this state there is open to all the gift of sanctifying grace which is the possession of G.o.d now, and in the future will unfold into the capacity of the complete partic.i.p.ation of the life of heaven. This belongs to, is within the grasp of, any child, any ignorant peasant, any toiler, as much as it is within the grasp of bishop or priest or Religious. And this much--and how much it is!--the Church has succeeded in accomplis.h.i.+ng. It may be slow in offering the riches of the Gospel to the unconverted world, but where it has presented the Gospel, it presents it to all men as a Gospel of salvation and sanctification. When tempted to discouragement let us remember that whatever the shortcoming of the Church, it is yet true that every man, woman and child in these United States of America can through its instrumentality, become a saint whenever he desires. But, naturally, to become a saint, effort is necessary.

Where the Church has failed is not in the offer of salvation and sanct.i.ty, but in removing some of of the obvious obstacles to its attainment by many to whom it appeals, to whom its divine mission is. It has not succeeded in convincing us that we are members one of another, that is, it has not succeeded in persuading us to act upon what we profess in any broad way. The Church is not a fellows.h.i.+p in any comprehensive sense. The divisions which run through secular society and divide group from group run through it also. The parish which should be the exemplification of the Christian brotherhood in action is not so.

Too often a parish is known as the parish of a certain social group.

There are parishes to which people go to get "into society." Very likely they do not succeed, but that is the sort of impression that the parish members.h.i.+p has made upon them. Then there are parishes to which people "in society" would not be transferred. There are churches in which no poor person would set foot, not that they would be unwelcome, but that they would feel out of place. So long as such things are true, our practice of brotherhood has not much to commend of it.

And when we go about setting things right I am not sure that we do not mostly make them worse. I do not believe that it is the business of the Church to set about the abolition of inequalities and the getting rid of the distinctions between man and man. Apart from the waste of time due to attempting the impossible, what would be gained? Pending the arrival of the social millenium we need to do something; and that something, it seems to me a mistake to a.s.sume must be social. "We must bring people together": but what is gained by bringing people together when they do not want to be together, and will not actually get together when you force them into proximity. There is nothing more expressive of the failure of well-meant activity than a church gathering where people at once group themselves along the familiar lines and decline to mix, notwithstanding the utmost endeavours of clergy and zealous ladies to bring them together. The thing is an object lesson of wrong method.

Is there a right method? There must be, though no one seems to have found it yet. There is in any case a right point of departure in our common members.h.i.+p in Jesus Christ. Suppose we drop the supposition that we make, I presume because we think it pious, that if they are both Christians a dock labourer ought to be quite at home at a millionaire's dinner party, or a scrub-woman in a box at the Metropolitan opera house.

Suppose we drop the attempt to force people together on lines which will be impossible till after the social revolution has buried us all in a common grave, and fasten attention on the one fact that, from our present point of view, counts, the fact that we are Christians. Suppose one learns to meet all men and all women simply on the basis of their religion; when that forms the bond that unites us when we come together, we have at once common grounds of interest in the life and activities of the Body of Christ. Suppose the millionaire going down town in his motor sees his clerk walking and stops and picks him up, and instead of talking constrainedly about the weather or about business, he begins naturally to talk to him about spiritual matters. Why could they not talk about the Mission that has just been held, or the Quiet Day that is in prospect? One great trouble, is it not? is that we fight shy of talking to our fellow-Christians of the interests that we really have in common and try to put intercourse on some other ground where we have little or nothing in common. The things that should, and probably do, vitally interest us, we decline to talk about at all. We are so stiff and formal and restrained in all matter of personal religious experience that we are unable to express the fact of Christian Brotherhood. The fact that you smile at the presentment of the case, that you cannot even imagine yourself talking about your spiritual experience with your clerk or your employer, shows how far you are from a truly Christian conception of Brotherhood.

Our Lord's words that we are making our subject indicate the paramount importance that He laid upon the acceptance of G.o.d's will as the ultimate rule of life. "Whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is my mother, and my sister, and my brother." "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." That is the common ground on which we are all invited to stand, the ground of a common loyalty to G.o.d, of intense zeal for the cause of G.o.d. Our Lord gave His whole life to that cause. As His disciples watched Him on an occasion, they remembered that it was written: "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up." Zeal is not a very popular quality because it is always disturbing the equanimity and self-complacency of lukewarm people. And then, we dislike to be thought fanatics. But I fancy that there will always be a touch of the fanatic about any very zealous Christian, and it is not worth while to suppress our zeal for fear of the world's judgment upon it. What we have to avoid is the misdirection of zeal.

There is, no doubt, a zeal which is "not according to knowledge." We need to be sure, in other words, that our zeal is a zeal for G.o.d, and not a zeal for party or person or cause. It is no doubt quite easy to imagine that we are seeking to do G.o.d's will when we are merely seeking to impose on our own will. Self-seeking is quite destructive of the friends.h.i.+p and service of G.o.d. The Kingdom whose interests we are attempting to forward may turn out to be a Kingdom in which we expect to sit on the right hand or the left of the throne because of the brilliance of the service rendered.

Life is simplified very much when the will of G.o.d thus becomes its guiding principle, and all other relations of life are subordinated to our relation to our heavenly Father. Then have we brought life to that complete simplicity which is near akin to peace. When we have learned in deciding any line of action not to think what our neighbours and friends will feel, or what the world will think, but only what G.o.d will think, we have little difficulty in making up our minds. Suppose that a boy has to make up his mind whether he will study for the priesthood, the vital thing on which to concentrate his thought and prayer is whether G.o.d is calling him to that life, and if he is convinced that he is being called the whole question should be settled. In fact in most cases it is far from being settled because this simplicity has not been attained. There is a whole social circle to be dealt with, who urge the hardness of the life, the scant reward, the greater advantages of a business career, and so on; all of which have absolutely nothing to do with the question to be decided. It is so all through life. In most questions of life's decisions, no doubt, there is no sense of any vocation at all, of a determining will of G.o.d; but is not that because we a.s.sume that G.o.d has no will in such matters, and leaves us free to follow our own devices?

Such an a.s.sumption is hardly justified in the case of One to Whom the fall of a sparrow is a matter of interest. It is our weakness, or the sign of our spiritual incompetence, that we have unconsciously removed the greater part of life from the jurisdiction of the divine will. We do not habitually think of G.o.d as interested in the facts of daily experience; we do not take Him with us into offices and factories.

Perhaps we think that they are hardly fit places for G.o.d, and I have no doubt that He has many things to suffer there. But He is there, and will suffer, until we recognise His right there, and insist upon His there being supreme.

Let us go back for a moment to Our Lady standing outside the place where Jesus was preaching, perplexed and worried at the course He was taking.

I suppose that it is always easier to surrender ourselves unreservedly into G.o.d's hands than it is to so surrender some one we love. I suppose that S. Mary so trusted in G.o.d that she never thought with anxiety of what His providence was preparing for her; but she would not quite take that att.i.tude about her Son; or rather, while she did intellectually, no doubt, take that att.i.tude, her feelings never went the whole distance that her mind went. But surrender to the will of G.o.d means complete surrender of ourself and ours. It means absolute confidence in G.o.d, it means lying quiet in his arms, as the child lies still in the arms of his mother. It means that we trust G.o.d.

Rose-Mary, Sum of virtue virginal, Fresh Flower on whom the dew of heaven downfell; O Gem, conjoined in joy angelical, In whom rejoiced the Saviour was to dwell: Of refuge Ark, of mercy Spring and Well, Of Ladies first, as is of letters A, Empress of heaven, of paradise and h.e.l.l-- Mother of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway.

O Star, that blindest Phoebus' beams so bright, With course above the empyrean crystalline; Above the sphere of Saturn's highest height, Surmounting all the angelic orders nine; O Lamp, that s.h.i.+n'st before the throne divine, Where sounds hosanna in cherubic lay, With drum and organ, harp and cymbeline-- Mother, of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway,

O Cloister chaste of pure virginity, That Christ hath closed 'gainst crime for evermo'; Triumphant Temple of the Trinity, That didst the eternal Tartarus o'erthrow; Princess of peace, imperial Palm, I trow, From thee our Samson sprang invict in fray; Who, with one buffet, Belial hath laid low-- Mother of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway,

Thy blessed sides the mighty Champion bore, Who hath, with many a bleeding wound in fight, Victoriously o'erthrown the dragon h.o.a.r That ready was his flock to slay and smite; Nor all the gates of h.e.l.l him succour might, Since he that robber's rampart brake away, While all the demons trembled at the sight-- Mother of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway,

O Maiden meek, chief Mediatrix for man, And Mother mild, full of humility, Pray to thy Son, with wounds that sanguine ran, Whereby for all our trespa.s.s slain was he.

And since he bled his blood upon a tree, 'Gainst Lucifer, our foe, to be our stay, That we in heaven may sing upon our knee-- Mother of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway,

Hail, Pearl made pure; hail, Port of paradise; Hail, Ruby, redolent of rays to us; Hail, Crystal clear, Empress and Queen, hail thrice; Mother of G.o.d, hail, Maid exalted thus; O Gratia plena, tec.u.m Dominus; With Gabriel that we may sing and say, Benedicta tu in mulieribus-- Mother of Christ, O Mary, hail, alway.