Part 1 (2/2)

Upon the fall of Adam, a new state was introduced, which lasted about two thousand five hundred years During its continuance, the supernatural intercourse between Alraded creatures took an entirely different character What had originally been continual, and as it were natural, became comparatively rare andmen, save when at times the usual laws of the earth and the heavens were suspended and God spoke in accents which none ht refuse to hear Of these supernatural eneral aspect was essentially typical of the future redemption of the lost race by a Saviour That prohty God had vouchsafed to the first sinners, was repeated in a vast variety of h there may have been many exceptions to the ordinary character of the Patriarchal miracles, still, on the whole, they wear a typical aspect of theprominence

The first ranted to Abel that his _sacrifice_ was accepted A deluge destroys all but one family, who are saved in an ark, the type of the Church of God, and a rainbow is set in the sky as a type of the covenant between God and e, who is afterwards offered to God as a type of the Redeemer, and saved from death by a fresh supernatural manifestation of the Divine will The chosen race becoe to sin; a series of awful ht by the instrumentality of Moses himself, a type of Jesus Christ, delivers the with the institution of the Passover, when the paschal lamb is eaten, and they are saved by its blood, as mankind is saved by the blood of the Lah the Red Sea, foreshadowing the Christian's regeneration by baptism; as they wander afterwards in the desert, ushes froure that sacred food and those strearace which are to be the salvation of all men Almost every interruption of the laws of nature bespeaks the advent of the Redeee to Hith a code of laws is given to the chosen race, to separate them completely from the rest of ranted to theure of the eternal blessedness of the just From that time with, as before, occasional exceptions, the supernatural events which befall them wear a new aspect Their peculiarly typical ied for oneprinciple of the new dispensation The rites and cereure the Sacrifice and Redemption of the Messias; but the miracles of the next fifteen hundred years are for the most part directed to uphold that rule of present reward and punishment, which was the characteristic feature of the Jewish theocracy The earth opens to punish the disobedience of Core and his co croith instant death; while the proured, not by a miracle, but by the erection of a brazen serpent by the hands of Moses The walls of Jericho fall prostrate before the trumpets of the victorious Israelites; one man, Achan, unlawfully conceals some of the spoil, and an immediate supernatural panic, struck into his countrymen, betrays the committal of the sin Miraculous water fills the fleece of Gideon, to encourage hiel foretells the birth of Sae Sath; exhausted with the slaughter of his foes, he prays for water to quench his thirst, and a stream bursts forth from the ass's jawbone hich he had just slain the Philistines Bound in chains, blinded, and made a jest by the idolaters, his prayer for a return of his strength is heard by God, and he destroys a h all the history of the Kings and the Prophets, the power of God is repeatedly put forth to alter the laws of nature for the purpose of enforcing the great rule of the Mosaic law The disobedience of the Jews ht, if God had so pleased, have been invariably punished by the instrumentality of the ordinary course of events, shaped by the secret hand of Divine Providence so as to execute His will, just as noe find that certain sins inevitably bring on their own temporal punishment by the operation of the laws of nature And so, in the vast majority of instances in which the Jeere rewarded and punished, we find that the Divine promises and threats were fulfilled by the occurrence of events in the natural order of things But yet frequently miracles confir; and of the nu of the law to the co of Christ, we find that nearly all bore this peculiar character For ranted to the people in the ”Urim and Thummim,” by which they were enabled, when they chose to remain faithful, to escape all national calas of the proain, a new character is imprinted upon the supernatural history of the Church, which is, in fact, the impression of the Cross of Christ While the characteristics of the Patriarchal and Jewish miracles are not wholly obliterated, an element, which if not entirely new, is new in the intensity of its operation, is introduced into the miraculous life of the children of Christ, which life is really the prolongation of the supernatural life of Jesus Christ Himself It is accompanied also with a partial restoration of that peculiar pohich was possessed by man before he fell, when his body became a veil to hide the world of spirits from his soul While prophecies of future events have not wholly ceased in the Christian Church, andof sos, yet these other wonderful features distinguish the supernatural records of Christianity fro power of the Cross is s of the Saints, in their mystic communion with the invisible world, and in that especial sanctity to which alone ifts are for the most part accorded under the Gospel Not that all these three peculiarities are to be observed in the life of every Saint under the Gospel Far from it, indeed The supernatural life of the Saints varies with different individuals, according to the pleasure of that Alhty Spirit, who communicates Himself to His elect in ten thousandto His oill alone Still, at times, they are found united, in conjunction with those miraculous pohich were possessed under the old dispensations in one individual In such cases we behold the Life and Passion of the King of Saints visibly renewed before our eyes; the law of _suffering_,--thatas it is unfathomable,--is set before us in an intensity of operation, which at once calls forth the scoffs of the unbeliever, and quickens the faith of the hues of eternity are anticipated, and the blessings of a lost Paradise are in part restored Jesus Christ lives, and is in agony before us; the dread scene of Calvary is renewed, united with those ineffable co soul and its God, which accompanied the life and last hours of the Redeemer of mankind Our adorable Lord is, as it were, still incarnate alories of His Passion in the persons of those who are, in the highest sense that is possible, His members, a portion of His humanity, in whoree incomprehensible even to themselves, is hid with Christ in God Such a Saint was St Frances of Rorace by means of which, at the tied with pestilence, and when the heaviest disasters afflicted the Church, Al life of the Cross, and the reality of that religion which seees of its professed followers

In Paradise, then, as has been said, the whole nature of man ministered to the fulfile and love of God He came forth from his Maker's hands endowed not only with a natural soul and body untainted with sin, but with such supernatural gifts, arising fro but perseverance to his final perfection The various elements in his nature were not, as now, at ith one another His body did not blind the eye of his soul, and agitate it with the storms of concupiscence; nor did the soul eainst God Though not yet adlorious vision of the Eternal which was to be the reward of his obedience, yet he lived in direct commerce with the world of spirits He knew and conversed with God and His angels in a hich is noholly incomprehensible to the vast majority of his descendants

When Adam fell, he became, in one word, e all are now by nature

Not only was he placed under a curse, but his God was hidden from his eyes; and that corporeal habitation, which he had abused to his soul's destruction, becah created in the i, even when fallen, certain traces of his celestial origin, he became a mere helpless denizen of earth, and a veil descended and hid his God and all spiritual beings fro_ became not merely the law of his daily life, but the only means by which he could be first restored to the Divine favour, and finally be taken to a happy eternity

And inass of One as at once man and not s, in order to partake in the blessings they purchased for him

A mystic union was to take place between the Saviour and the fallen race, of which a co, as the instrument of restoration, was to be for ever and in every case established This anguish, further, was to be twofold, including all the faculties both of the body and the soul Man had sinned in his whole being; in his whole being, therefore, he was to suffer, both in the person of his Redeemer, as to suffer for him, and in himself, as to suffer with his Saviour A ”holocaust” was to be offered to the offended Majesty of God; an offering, not only of his _entire_ nature, but a _burnt_ offering; a sacrifice which should torture hieance, and kill hi fierceness

As, however, it pleased the Divine Wisdom to postpone for forty centuries the advent and atonement of the Redeemer, so, for the same period, the race redeeree, in those restorative sufferings which derived all their virtue fros of body and bitterness of soul were, in truth, the lot of s and bitterness of a criminal under punishment, far more than the sacrificial pains of the members of Christ crucified

Asceticisious worshi+p of the people of God, until the great atoneree, even the lowest, of acceptable obedience could ever be attained without some measure of the crucifixion of the natural man

Patriarchs and Israelites alike felt the power of the Cross as the instrument of their sanctification But still earthly prosperity, including bodily pleasures, was, as a rule, the rehich God recompensed His faithful servants That which became the rule under the Gospel, was the exception from Adam till Moses, and froreat example of Christian asceticism enforced upon a sensual people the nature of perfect sanctity Elias fasted on Mount Carh The Baptist fasted and tamed his natural flesh in the wilderness, and beheld not only the Incarnate Son of God, but the descent of the Eternal Spirit upon Him Yet, for the most part, the favoured servants of God lived the lives of ordinary men; they possessed houses, riches, and honours; and th the Cross was set up in all its awful power; suffering received its perfect consecration, and took its ruling place in the econo from the Cross, bestowed that Cross upon His children, to be their treasure until the end of the world Crucifixion with Hih Hilory Every soul that was so buried in His wounds as to receive the full blessings of His sacrifice, was thereby nailed, in Christ, to the Cross, not to descend from its halloood until, like Christ, it was dead thereon Henceforth the sanctity of God's chosen servants assu you into a land floith the milk and honey of this earth;” but, ”Blessed are the poor, and they that suffer persecution” The lot of Abrahaed for that of St Peter and St Paul In place of triumph in ith the idolaters, the Christian is _promised_ persecution; in place of ives_ hie, take place of the palaces of cedar and the luxuriant couch; e in order that in many years we may suffer much, and not that we may enjoy s with the soul since the Cross received its fullpower

And to the full as mysterious is the new character imprinted upon the miraculous life of Christian sanctity The phenoht into mystic communion with the unseen world, bear the print of the wounds of the Eternal Son in a manner which fills the ordinary ChristianIt is by a painful crucifixion of the natural man, both soul and body, carried to a far more than ordinary perfection, that the soul is introduced into this miraculous condition Ienerated, is through sin foul, earthly, and blinding as ever, the mind can only be adly held with His Father and with the world invisible, by attaining some portion of that self-mastery which Adam lost by his fall The physical nature orous repetition of those many painful processes by which the ani is rendered the slave of the spiritual, and the will and the affections are rent away fro and abstinence are the first elelected, thwarted, and torratification, it ceases to interfere with the independent action of the soul The appetite is further denied its wonted satisfaction as to quantity of food By fasts gradually increasing in severity, new modes of physical existence are introduced; that which was originally an impossibility becoetting its former lusts, obeys almost spontaneously the dictates of the victorious spirit within

The hours of sleep are curtailed under judicious control, until that mysterious sentence which compels us to pass a third of our existence in unconscious helplessness is in part repealed The soul, habituated to incessant and self-collected action, wakes and lives, while ordinary Christians slumber, and as it were are dead The infliction of other severe bodily pains co-operates in the purifying process, and enables the ard the dictates of nature to an extent which to many Catholics seems almost incredible, and to the unbeliever an utter impossibility Physical life is supported under conditions which would crush a constitution not supported by the hty power; and feeble men and women accomplish works of charity and heroic self-sacrifice froetic of the huhest state of _natural_ perfection, would shrink back in dismay as hopeless impossibilities The senses are literally tyrannised over, scorned, derided, insultingly tra, the touch, and the taste, are taught to exercise theinal inclinations They learn toone rebellious symptom

Matter yields to spirit; the soul is the ence attain an exquisite sensibility, and the ifted with faculties absolutely new, the flesh submits, almost insensible to its condition of servitude, and scarcely murmurs at the daily death it is compelled to endure

The process is the saards the affections and passions of thethat it desires, which is not God However innocent, however praiseworthy, ratification of certain pursuits in ordinary Christians, in the case of these favoured souls nature is crushed in _all_ her parts Her faculties res alone Possessions of all kinds, lands, houses, books, pictures, gardens, husband, wife, children, friends, --all share the same tremendous sentence God establishes Himself in the soul, not only supreme, but as the _only inhabitant_ Whatsoever remains to be done in this world is done as a duty, often as a most obnoxious duty Love for the souls that Christ has redeeated; and wheresoever the ele with this Christian love, they are watched, and restrained with unsparing severity, that the heart , except _in_ Christ Himself

All this, indeed, repeatedly takes place in the case of persons in whom the purely miraculous life of the Christian Saint is never even comgle for, according to the different rules to which they have respectively received their vocation And, by the mercy of God, this perfect detachment from earth, and this marvellous crucifixion of the flesh, is accoious, to whoifts of the Holy Ghost are as unknown as His extraordinary graces are familiar Still, in those exceptional instances where miraculous powers of any species are bestowed, this bitter death, this personal renewal (as far as onies of Calvary, is ordinarily the necessary preparation for adlory, and to the other mysteries of thethus subdued, and taught to be the obedient servant of the sanctified will, the history of the Catholic Church records a long series of instances in which the soul has been brought into direct coels, and with devils, h the _sensible_ instrumentality of the bodily senses, thus spiritualised and exalted to a new office The ineffable glories of the _life_ of Christ are renewed in those who have thus endured the _cross_ of Christ The death of the body is the life of the soul; and the Son of God is, as it were, again visibly incarnate in the world which He has redeemed

The phenomena of this miraculous state are as various as they are wonderful There is scarcely a natural law of our being which is not found to be frequently suspended Such is the _odour of sanctity_, a celestial perfume that exhales from the person of the Saint, in conditions where any such delicious fragrance could not possibly spring from natural causes, and where even, as in the case of a dead body, nature would send forth scents of the most repulsive kind In such instances, sometimes in life, sometimes in death, sometimes in health, sometimes in loathsome diseases, there issues from the physical fra itself to objects which touch the saintly fore supernatural warmth pervades the entire body, wholly independent of the condition of the atmosphere, and in circumstances when by the laws of nature the limbs would be cold; soree of exhaustion, and brought on so morbid an action of the functions, that the stomach rejects, with a sort of abhorrence, every species of food, the most holy Eucharist is received without difficulty, and seems not only to be thus received, but to furnish sufficient sustenance for the attenuated frame

Not unfrequently corruption has no power over a sacred corpse; and without the e, centuries pass away, and the body of the Saint re the i to dust, as in cases of natural preservation, when exposed to the action of the athtness hich at ti body is endowed by Divine power; the physical accompaniround, and its suspension in the air for a considerable space of time; and we have sufficient examples of the mysterious ways in which the bodies of Saints bespeak the purity which dwells within theree anticipate the corporeal perfections of those glorified habitations in which the souls of the just will dwell after the resurrection

By another class of miraculous powers possessed by Christian Saints, they are enabled to recognise the true nature or presence of purely spiritual objects by the instruans of sense Thus, a mere touch at times reveals to them the moral condition of the person on whoular distaste for natural food is accompanied by a perception of a celestial sweetness in the holy Eucharist Gross sinners appear to the sight in the form of hideousthe look of the most repulsive of the brute creation The sense of smell, in like manner, detects the state of the soul, while the ear is opened to heavenly sounds and voices, and Alhty God speaks to the inner consciousness in a uage of human science, is shown by incontestable proofs to be a real coence

In certain cases the anie to the presence of a Saint As God opened the eyes of Balaaer of Divine wrath standing with a sword in his hand, so birds, fishes, insects, sheep, and the wildest beasts of the forests, have at ti aside their natural ti the hour when Adam dwelt in sinless peace in Eden, surrounded by the creatures which the hand of God had made All nature is bid thus to arise to welco up beneath their feet; fruits suddenly ripen, and invite theentle winds refresh the sky Every where the presence of Hinised in the souls in whom He dwells, and in whom He thus, in a mystic sense, fulfils His own proain, tiree comparatively annihilated for the sake of some of these favoured servants of the Eternal and Omnipresent St Pius V, while bodily in Rome, was a witness of the naval victory of the Christians over the Turks; St

Joseph of Cupertino read letters addressed to hi theenses, and the death of Peter of Arragon; and St Ignatius beheld his successor in the Duke of Gandia A similar mysterious faculty enables its possessor to discern the presence of relics and other sacred objects, more especially of the adorable Eucharistic species; or even to behold Jesus Christ Hilorified human form, in place of the usual appearance of bread and wine; while in some instances the Host has darted, unborne by mortal hand, into the mouth of a Saint about to communicate at the foot of the altar

On those species of miracles which are in no way peculiar to the Christian dispensation I need not linger Such is the gift of healing, whether by the Saint's will and touch while alive, or by his relics and intercession when dead Such is the gift of prophecy, which abounded, as we ht have expected, far more in the Saints before the advent of the Redeeidly confined to ious character Such are those supernatural powers by which our present tes, in addition to the cure of diseases, are conferred upon individuals or communities by the instrumentality of holy men and women I confine es, which, though they were not wholly unknown to the Patriarchal and Mosaic Saints, are yet elorification of the hulories upon the bodies of those who s of His cross

Some of these tokens of the perpetual death of the Son of God in His Saints were, indeed, for several centuries either unknown, or extraordinarily rare in the Christian Church herself Such is thatpower of the Cross, in which the actual wounds and tortures of the crucified Jesus are visibly renewed, by a ency, in the persons of His chosen ones This enerally preceded by so the visible representation of the scene on Calvary about to be set up before the eyes of men At one time it is a species of bloody sweat, like that of Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemani; at another, a visible print of the cross is iels present aSaint Then follohat is termatisation_, or the renewal of the actual wounds of the Crucified, accompanied with the bloody marks of the crown of thorns upon the sufferer's head; for the most part one by one, until the whole awful commemoration is complete, the skin and flesh are rent on the forehead and round the head, in the hands, in the feet, and in the side; a strea down in slow drops, at tionising pangs of body, and except in the fiercest moments of spiritual conflict, with interior consolations of ravishi+ng sweetness The wounds pierce deep down into the flesh, running even through the hands and the feet