This word day is to be taken in a four-fold sense–”The day is at hand;” the day of mercy; the day of grace; the day of justice; the day of glory. The sun that makes this a fourfold day, whose advent holy Church now celebrates. The day of mercy is the birthday of the Lord, in which the Sun of righteousness arises upon us; or more truly, He who made that day so glorious. The day of grace is the time of grace; the day of justice is the day of judgment; the day of glory is the day of eternity. Joel speaks of the first: “In that day the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk” (Jl 3:18). Concerning the second, Paul writes, “Behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). Of the third sense we read, “The day of wrath, that day of tribulation” (Wis). Concerning the fourth, “But it shall be one day which shall be known to the Lord-not day, nor night; but it shall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light” (Zech 14:7. One day in thy courts is better than a thousand” (Ps 139:10). The birthday of the Lord draws near, that devoutly the day of mercy may be celebrated and honored; the day of grace that it may be received; the day of judgment that it may be feared; the day of glory that it may be attained. The Church celebrates the first, “for the Lord is at hand” (Phil 4:5). “For my salvation is near to come, and righteousness is near to be revealed’ (Is 56:1). On account of the second (day), “behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). On account of the third day, “Behold, the judge standeth before the door” (James 5:9). On account of the fourth day, “Behold, I come quickly, and My reward is with Me to give to every man according as his work shall be” (Rev 12:12).

We ought to celebrate the birthday of the Lord, the day of mercy, with mercy and truth. Christ came to us in these two ways (of mercy and truth), and so we ought to go to him. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth” (Ps 25:10). (We ought) to celebrate the day of grace with purity and humility, for these two graces make acceptable grace. concerning purity, Proverbs 22:11 states, “He that loves pureness of heart, for the grace of his lips, the King shall be his friend.” Concerning mercy, we read in James 4:6, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” The Church celebrates the day of judgment with meditation and fear. As St Jerome says, “Whether is eat or drink, that voice seems ever to resound in my ears, “rise up, you dead, and come to judgment.’” On the contrary, it is said of the wicked, “evil men understand not judgment” (Prov 28:5). We ought to run and hasten to meet the day of glory with righteousness. Let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest” (Heb 4:11). To four Christian virtues the apostle exhorts us in this Epistle (to the romans). To mercy and to truth in the words, “Let us put on the amour of light.” For the arms of of light are mercy and truth; for mercy is the shield by which we are defended from the enemy, and truth is the power by which we overcome all things. Concerning mercy we read, “Shut up alms in your store-houses, and they shall deliver you from all affliction. They shall fight for you against your enemies better than a mighty shield and a strong spear” (Eccl 29:12-13). Concerning courage, we read, , “Truth is great, and will prevail; it is great, and stronger than all things; the whole earth invokes the truth, and it blesses heaven itself; it moves all work, and they tremble because of it, and there is no iniquity in it. A wicked banquet, a wicked king, wicked women, all wicked sons of men, and all their wicked works, and truth is not in the, and they shall perish in their iniquity, and the truth shall remain” (Eccl 3:4). The epistle further exhorts us to purity and humility, “Not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envy” (vs 13). Chambering and wantonness are acts of riot which make impurity. Strife and envying proceed from pride. In prohibiting immodesty it exhorts us to humility. In the words, “let us walk honestly, as in the day,” it awakens us to reflection upon and to fear of the judgment; that is, that we should live that is is meet to live in the day of judgment. A man is in the judgment by thinking upon the judgment; he live honestly by thinking upon the judgment. It exhorts us to judgment and to dispatch-”Now it is high time to awaken out of sleep;” and, therefore, by hastening from the sleep of sin, to arise to the fulfilling of justice; and the reason is given why a man should do this: “For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed;” to which salvation we may be led by Jesus Christ Our Lord.

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Mystically begotten of Christ our Lord when his sufferings had reached their summit, emanating from his transfixed side in His very death-throes, it was nursed in sorrow, cradled in ignominy, and matured in persecution.  According to the prophetic words of her divine Founder, she, like himself, was to be the object of the worlds hatred.  “If the world hate you, know also that it hated me.  You are not of the world, therefore does the world hate you.”

But why be astonished?  Was she not to perpetuate the work of His incarnation?  Was she not to continue that labor of love which He merited by His death and made God-like by His Resurrection?  Yes, she was to continue it, not only as to the identity of the object, but also by the means which He prescribed and in the manner He appointed.

When at intervals, He gathered his little band of Apostles around Him, He did not leave them in darkness as to the future.  He disclosed to them the mysterious designs of Providence on their behalf.  He told them (and in them His Spouse on earth) that they must drink the chalice of tribulation, that “they would be led before princes and kings in testimony,” that they would be malingned and persecuted by man, and that scandals would arise, even in the midst of that family which would constitute the household of Faith.  For all this He prepared them.  All this He disclosed to them, but in requital for their sufferings He gave them reason to rejoice.

Lest they should be disheartened at the bitter prospect of the trails before them, He encouraged them in those consloing words, “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you a kingdom,” and again, “When they shall revile you and persecute you, be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.”  Again, that they might have no fear for the result, “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world.”

And who that considers the past history of the Church, will not admit that her life has been one of continued alternation of sufferings and triumphs?  As the good seed, planted by the divine Sower, has she not had to grow up sorrounded by noxious weeds, which seemed to threaten her with destruction?

She has survived in their midst; she has outlived persecution and heresy; she lives, despite the wounds received from the hands of her own children, in the midst of rationalism and indifference; in the midst of secret conspiracies, forsooth, for her destruction, and despite the foolish attmpts of an infidel press to cast aspersions on her venerable years, and degrade her in the eyes of men.  She lives, I say, despite all of this, and will continue to live, until that dread time when the angels of God shall go forth and collect the scandals from her midst.

That she has unswervingly carried on her labor with undiminished vigor and zeal, now suffering, now triumphant, a little examination of her past history will testify.  Go back to the days of her infancy, when as yet the footprints of our Lord were traceable on earth.  Those days, when her founder, after being entombed by his murderers, was derided and scoffed at; when it appeared to them that His memory was buried with His lifeless body, and that His name would be a mockery to posterity.  What is it we find?

Even here, by His glorious Resurrection, does He prove to the world that His work would not be subject to human decay.  At His Resurrection the lamp of faith was lighted in the world, never to flicker to the end of time.  In His resurrection the Church gained the first of that series of triumphs, one or more of which belong to every age of her existence.  His resurrection was proof of His power, as it was an earnest of His promises.

The second period of suffering and subsequent triumph occured when He had already returned to his Father.  He had left her as His visible presence, but He was with Her, directing and assisting her by His Holy Spirit.  The multitutes that flocked to become members of her communion through the preaching of the Apostles, increased almost beyond number.  “Thousands believed, and were baptized” daily, until at length the Roman Emperor, Nero, fearing that her progress would destructive of his ambitious views, determined to arrest it by persecution.  Accordingly, the Roman Senate assembled, and took counsel as to what seemed the most expedtious means of destruction to Christianity.  They strained every nerve, and tried every means which human ingenuity could invent to exterminate the Christian anme.  They made use of promises and threats to make the Christians apostatize; they made use of the rack, the scaffold, of fire and sword and torture of every description, to induce their return to paganism.  Read the rest (Second full paragraph: “And what was the result?”)