y virtue, it demands
justice, and it infallibly obtains it. It is in this blood, says St.
Bernard, that all righteous souls are purified; but by a prodigy
exactly opposite, it is also in this same blood that all the sinners
of the land defile themselves, and render themselves, if I may use the
expression, more hideous in the sight of God.

Ah! my God, shall I eternally appear in thine eyes polluted with that
blood which washes away the crimes of others? If I had simply to
bear my own sins, I might promise myself a punishment less rigorous,
considering my sins as my misfortune, my weakness, my ignorance. Then,
perhaps, Thou wouldst be less offended on account of them. But when
these sins with which I shall be covered shall present themselves
before me as so many sacrileges with respect to the blood of Thy Son;
when the abuse of this blood shall be mixed and confounded with all
the disorders of my life; when there shall not be one of them against
which this blood shall not cry louder than the blood of Abel against
Cain; then, O God of my soul I what will become of me in thy presence?
No, Lord, cries the same St. Bernard affectionately, suffer not the
blood of my Savior to fall upon me in this manner. Let it fall upon me
to sanctify, but let it not fall upon me to destroy. Let it fall upon
me in a right use of the favors which are the divine overflowings of
it, and not through the blindness of mind and hardness of heart which
are the most terrible punishments of it. Let it fall upon me by the
participation of the sacred Eucharist, which is the precious source
of it, and not by the maledictions attached to the despisers of Thy
sacraments. In fine, let it fall upon me by influencing my conduct and
inducing the practise of good works, and let it not fall upon me for
my wanderings, my infidelities, my obstinacy, and my impenitence.
This, my brethren, is what we ought to ask to-day from Jesus Christ
crucified. It is with these views that we ought to go to the foot of
the cross and catch the blood as it flows. He was the Savior of the
Jews as well as ours, but this Savior, St. Augustine says, the Jews
have converted into their judge. Avert from us such an evil. May He
Who died to save us be our Savior. May He be our Savior during all the
days of our lives. And may His merits, shed upon us abundantly, lose
none of their efficacy in our hands, but be preserved entire by the
fruits we produce from them. May He be our Savior in deat