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 XXXVII.

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem!"

We have come to the last week of our Lord's Life. The Evangelists could not set down all the wonders of that Life, for St. John tells us every day was filled with marvels. But when they come to this last week they follow their Lord, as it were, with slower and more reverent step, giving a fuller and more minute account of His actions day by day.

There are many reasons for this. It is not only that in this week He accomplished the great work He came to do; redeemed us from sin and hell; reconciled us with His Father; opened the gates of Heaven to us, and set up the New Law, the New Sacraments, the New Priesthood in place of the Old; but it is because in this week the tenderness of His love comes out more wonderfully than ever. His words and acts and prayers are so brimming over with love and sweetness that the Evangelists could not bear to pass them over in silence. We owe these blessed writers more for their account of this week than for all beside. And we should come to the history of these last days of our dear Lord's Life on earth with hearts more reverent, more full of love and gratitude than hitherto, that we may believe and understand and feel about them as is pleasing to Him and helpful to our own souls.

The day after the supper in Simon's house was chosen by Christ for His solemn entry into the City in which such great things were to be done. Accompanied by the Twelve and by a crowd going up for the