Page:Withgodbookofpra00las.djvu/78

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keep Him before us as the Being the most to be loved and imitated.

I may here say a word of one form of devotion to the Passion: the devout performing of the Stations of the Cross. This is a devotion as simple as it is beautiful; all that is necessary is to pass from Station to Station, praying or meditating, or both, on the sufferings of Our Lord. It is, I believe, the most richly indulgenced devotion in the Church. It is commonly said that all the indulgences given to the Crusaders, or to those who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, are now attached to the Stations, and that at least fourteen plenary indulgences can be gained. The conditions are few — being in the state of grace, of course, and a few prayers for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff. Confession and communion are not necessary.

With reference to devotion to the Sacred Heart and, at the same time, to the Blessed Sacrament, one would be inclined to suggest a pious and joyous celebration of the great feast of Corpus Christi and its octave, followed, as it is, immediately by the feast of the Sacred Heart, since these two feasts have been formally instituted by the Church — the former, because she felt that she could not