Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/236

 purify your  heart  in  the  most  perfect  manner  when  you approach Him  in  the  holy  Eucharist. Christ wishes  His mystical members — that  is,  the  faithful — to  be  embalmed, as well  as  His  corporal  members,  with  the  myrrh  of  mortification and  penance,  according  to  the  Apostle,  "  Always bearing  about  in  our  body  the  dying  of  Jesus;  that  the life  also  of  Jesus  may  be  made  manifest  in  our  bodies." (2 Cor.  iv.  10.)

III. When they  had  buried  Christ,  each  one  returns  to his  home;  for  they  are  not  permitted  to  remain  and watch at  the  sepulchre. Imagine what  was  the  solitude of the  blessed  Virgin  and  other  pious  persons,  and  how they devoted  themselves  to  prayer  and  contemplation, " waiting  for  the  blessed  hope  and  the  coming  of  the glory  of  the  great  God,  and  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." (Titus ii.  13.)  The  holy  Virgin  might  comfort  herself  with the words  of  the  Psalmist,  "  In  the  evening,  weeping shall  have  place;  in  the  morning,  gladness." (Ps. xxix. 6.)  In  desolation  do  you  also  have  recourse  to  prayer, and learn  to  put  your  confidence  in  God  alone.

The meditation  of  the  mysteries  which  followed  the resurrection of  the  Redeemer  belongs  to  the  unitive  way. In these  exercises  the  soul  unites  itself  to  God  by  making His  will  its  own,  and  by  adhering  to  the  divine  will as the  rule  of  all  good,  according  to  the  Apostle,  "  He  who adheres  to  the  Lord  is  one  spirit." (1 Cor.  vi.  17.) Hence the  unitive  way  has  different  affections,  peculiar to it,  which  ought  to  be  indulged  during  the  ensuing meditations. The chief  subjects  of  these  affections  are as follows: