Page:Meditations For Every Day In The Year.djvu/386

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readily discover, with what great propriety you may employ the publican's prayer.

II. You ought to deem it a motive of great confidence, that after your repeated sins and transgressions, you have for your advocate the Judge's Son, and besides, that Christ Himself is your propitiation. For, " He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world." (1 John ii. 2.) Although He be always and every where merciful, yet He is never more so, than in the holy Eucharist, in which, in order that he might be more propitious to us, He condescends to be incorporated with us. That which covered the ark of the covenant in the old law, [was called the propitiatory; with much more reason, therefore, may the Eucharist claim that name, for it contains and conceals the living ark of the true covenant between God and man.

III. The Jews were forbidden to do any servile work on the day of propitiation. "You shall do no servile work, in the time of this day," because it is a "day of propitiation." (Lev. xxiii. 28.) Sin is properly a servile work. "Amen, amen, I say unto you, that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin." (John viii. 34.) Abstain, therefore, from sin, even from the least fault, especially on days of communion; say to your Lord, when he enters your soul, "For Thy name sake, O Lord, Thou wilt pardon my sin, for it is great." (Ps. xxiv. 11.)

MONDAY.

The Lord's Prayer.— I.

I. As a perfect master of spiritual life, Christ, whilst He was teaching on the mountain, did not omit to inform His disciples, how they ought to pray. The prayer,