e blessed
mother is committed to us; to-day she is our care. We see the
fulfillment of this trust in the love and reverence wherewith
Christendom from the beginning has surrounded S. Mary. It has accepted
the charge with a passionate devotion. The growth of devotion to her is
recorded in the vast literature of Mariology which comes to us from all
parts and all eras of the Catholic Church. The details of the expression
of this devotion have been wrought out through the centuries with
loving care, and the result is that wherever there is a Catholic
conception of religion, either in East or West, there is a grateful
response to our Lord's trust of His Blessed mother to His Church in the
person of S. John.

We feel, do we not? that it is one of the great privileges of our
spiritual life that we have found a personal part in this trust, that it
is permitted us to preserve and hand on this reverence for Blessed Mary,
and in so doing to gain personal contact with her as a spiritual power
in the Kingdom of God. It means much to us that we can have the love and
sympathy which are blended with her intercession, that we can associate
our prayers with hers in the time of our need. Much as we value the
sympathy and prayers of our friends here, we cannot but feel that in
Mary we have a friend whose helpfulness is stimulated by a great love
and directed by deep spiritual insight into the reality of our needs. We
turn therefore to her with the certainty of her co-operation.

Our Lord on the Cross had now fulfilled His mission in the care of
individual persons, had prayed for His tormentors, had forgiven the
penitent thief, and had commended those who were the special objects of
His love to one another, and could now turn His thoughts away from earth
to the love of the Father. His last words are intimate words to Him.
They express the agony that tears His soul as the Face of the Father is
for a moment hidden, and the peace of an accomplished work as He
surrenders Himself into the hands of the Father that sent Him. He who
had been our example all His life, showing us how to meet life, is our
example in death, showing us how to meet death.

But just wherein does the dying of Christ become an example for us? This
final surrender to the Father of a will that had never been separate
from the Father,--what can we derive from all that? There are many lines
of approach and application. I can only touch on one or two:--

"I have glorified Th