Saturday, November 26 : Saint John Henry Newman

Sympathy may be called an eternal law, for it is signified or rather transcendentally and archetypically fulfilled in the ineffable mutual love of the Divine Trinity. God, though infinitely One, has ever been Three. He ever has rejoiced in His Son and His Spirit, and they in Him… When, for our sakes, the Son came on earth and took our flesh, for thirty years He lived with Mary and Joseph and thus formed a shadow of the Heavenly Trinity on earth… For in truth it was fitting that He who was to be the true High Priest, should thus, while He exercised His office for the whole race of man, be free from all human ties, and sympathies of the flesh… So, in the old time, Melchisedech is described as without father or mother (Heb 7,3)… In like manner our Lord said to Mary, “What is between Me and thee?” (Jn 2,4). It was the setting apart of the sacrifice, the first ritual step of the Great Act which was to be solemnly performed for the salvation of the world… Nor did He, as time went on, give up Mary and Joseph only. There still remained to Him invisible attendants and friends, and He had their sympathy, but them He at length gave up also. From the time of His birth we may suppose He held communion with the spirits of the Old Fathers, who had prepared His coming and prophesied of it. On one occasion He was seen all through the night, conversing with Moses and Elias, and that conversation was about His Passion. What a field of thought is thus opened to us, of which we know how little. When He passed whole nights in prayer… Who could support and (so to say) re-invigorate the Divine Lord better than that “praiseworthy number” of Prophets of which He was the fulfilment and antitype? Then He might talk with Abraham who saw His day (Jn 8,56), or… David and Jeremias; or with those who spoke most of Him, as Isaias and Daniel. And here was a fund of great sympathy. When He came up to Jerusalem to suffer, He might be met in spirit by all the holy priests, who had offered sacrifices in shadow of Him
maronite readings – rosary,team