Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/416

 least from  this  time,  with  young  Samuel,  "Speak,  Lord, for  Thy  servant  heareth." (1 Kings  iii.  10.)

III. When the  vision  had  ceased,  our  Lord  forbade His disciples  to  divulge  it  to  any  one. "Tell the  vision to  no  man,"  He  said,  "till  the  Son  of  man  be  risen  from the  dead." (Matt. xvii.  5.)  By  this  command  He  wishes to inculcate  the  necessity  of  humility,  and  to  teach  us that  extraordinary  favors  of  God  ought  to  be  kept  secret and not  divulged,  unless  some  great  necessity  or  spiritual good  requires  it,  and  even  then,  that  we  ought  to acknowledge  them  to  be  the  gratuitous  gifts  of  heaven, and not  merited  by  ourselves.

I. "Then  came  to  Him  the  mother  of  the  sons  of Zebedee." (Matt. xx.  20.)  The  mother  presents  herself to offer  a  petition  for  her  sons,  to  obtain  an  honor  to which  they  aspired,  and  they  made  use  of  her  intercession as  a  cloak  to  their  ambitious  views. Thus mankind often attempt  to  gain  some  object  of  inclination  or  passion under  false  pretext,  and  often  make  use  of  the  interposition of  others  to  accomplish  their  own  designs. Observe how  this  mother  comes  in  an  humble  and  suppliant manner  and  presents  her  petition  in  the  act  of adoring  Christ. "Ambition," says  St.  Ambrose,  "is  first servile,  in  order  that  it  may  afterward  domineer;  it stoops  to  mean  offices,  in  order  that  it  may  be  afterward served  with  honor."

II. The petition  of  this  misguided  mother  was:  "Say that  these,  my  two  sons,  may  sit,  the  one  on  Thy  right