The Irish standard., 1911-10-07

t:on-meaningful as it is in the coun-
sells of the Godhead-if men do not ap-
proprate it to themselves through
earnest and submissive faith? HE
that believeth in Him is not Judged.
But he that doth not believe is already
judged, because he believed not in the
name of the only begotten Son Of
God"
He was in the world, and the world
was made by him, and the world knew
Him not" Well may we repeat to-
day the lament penned by ST. John
with regard to his own times-with
greater truth today than at any other
era of history since ST. John wrote
his narrative of the coming of Jesus
into the world. Despite the evidences
of His grandeur and power, told in
the gospel, despite the records of the
marvels wrought by Him in His
Church, despite the tall-towering intel
lectual and moral civilization, which is
christendom, the work of His Church
In the past eighteen centuries, the
world seeks to hide from it's vision the
splendors of His majesty, denies his
Godhead, and fan would lower Him
to the level Of the ordinary humanity.
The war is against the Incarnation. To-
wards the Incarnation speed the pois-
oned shafts of the vain-glorious scien-
tist the reader of distorted history, the
proud and rebellious nationalist.
Whencesoever the attacks, and they
come from all quarters, whatever the
Immediate target of their aim, the
citadel towards which they hurry is
the Incarnation. The Incarnation still
believed, the whole editce of the
Christian religion stands safe and er-
ect The Incarnation blotted out from
the thoughts Of men. the Christian re-
ligion is the meaningless legend, the
impotent hope of the dying dreamer.
None has discerned more clearly the
darkening signs, none has sounded
more loudly the trumpet of alarm,
than the Waterman of the Vatican,
Plus X. Hence his repeated calls to
the battlefield in defense of the In
carnate Word.
You have observed at the same time
in favor OF vigorous faith in the Eu-
charist. With the clear sighted eye OF
the successor of st. Peter the Pontiff
recognizes that the Eucharist is the
palladium of the Incarnation, that the
most effective remedy against modern
unbelief is the Bethlehem of long ago,
is the vivid and adoring remembrance
OF the ever-present Eucharist.
There is peril in remoteness: dis
tant events, distant teachings appeal
but little to the imagination and chal-
lenge but weakly the attention Of the
mind: the intellect is more sluggish
in yielding assent, however otherwise
compelling be their historic claims.
Set those events and teachings within
the immediate purview of thought and
spiritual sight: they are more easily
grasped, more quickly admitted to
willing and joyous belief. All this was
in the mind of Jesus when He said:
"Do this in commemoration of me-"
let the repetition OF this Last Supper
be, through ages, an effective remind
er of me, of what I am, of what
have done.
An act Of faith in the real presence
of Jesus in the Eucharist, sacrament
and sacrifice, is an act of faith in the
Incarnation. The Incarnation is a
fact: else there is no Eucharist. The
Eucharist is near us: its necessary
prerequisite, the Incarnation, is made
to be near us. Jesus is in the Eu-
charist is real and living presence,
outside of dreaming or imagining on
our part, effectively in Himself, indie
pendently of mental conception of
ours: and SO the Incarnation, neces-
sarily so, is an absolute objective fact
in history-not the fruit of mans i'm
manent craving, or vague and imag-
mary summarizing Of humanitys own
evolutions. The Eucharist concretes
and precises, in opposition to fatal er-
rors of modern days, the Jesus of his
tory, while at the same time through
the closeness with Him into which it
draws us, it renders faith in Him cas-
.~r to the human mind
I The Eucharist in the act of faith
1t wins from us fills the intellect with
the love of Jesus; and so illumined, so
.ignited, the soul dashes aside, as the
hazy mists and the cobweb threads
that they are, the quibbling arguments
which foes of the Incarnation scatter
across the bridge of time, sees Jesus
In the effulgence of His divine maj
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