Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/239

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fit it is to be raised from the death of sin or tepidity, and to be placed in the bright light of the children of God, and to be enabled to pursue the road of virtue with fervor. This benefit Christ will bestow upon you to-day in the Eucharist if you approach Him with fervor. Hence He is called the bread of life; and if we shall owe to Him the resurrection of our bodies "at the last day" (John vr. 40), so are we now indebted to Him for the resurrection of our souls. (Jno. vi. 35, 40.)

III. The marks by which we may discover if we have really risen with Christ are our attention to spiritual things, and our disregard of the things of this world. "If ye be risen with Christ," says St. Paul, "seek the things that are above." (Colos. iii. 1.) Seek, therefore, only heavenly things, and as " Christ rising again from the dead, dieth now no more" (Rom. vi. 9), so you, having risen from the state of sin or tepidity to grace and fervor, persevere in your "newness of life," and continually guard against relapsing into your former state.

EASTER MONDAY

Christ's Resurrection.

I. Sufficient time having elapsed to evince the reality of Christ's death, early on the third day His divine soul hastened to bring the holy Fathers out of Limbo, to comfort His blessed mother and His disconsolate disciples, and to fill the whole world with His glory. How the holy prisoners in Limbo rejoiced when they saw that the hour of their deliverance had arrived! Free in like manner, O Lord! my soul from " the lion's mouth" and from " the deep lake," and suffer not my enemies, the devil, the world, and the flesh, to domineer over me.

II. What were the feelings of the holy Fathers, when,