Sermons, And Lectures On Moral And Historical Subjects (1873) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE CHUKCH THE MOTHER AND INSPIRATION OF ART. t Lecture delivered by the Very Rev. T. N. Burke, O.P., in the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer, New York, March 10, 1872.] Dearly Beloved Brethren: This morning I told you the Holy Catholic Church was the spouse of the Lord Jesns Christ, so described to us in Scripture as "dear to the Lord," the interior beauty of which the Psalmist says is " like the beauty of the king's daughter," and of the exterior of Vhich he spoke when he said: " The queen stood at His right hand, in golden garb, surrounded with variety." We saw, moreover, this morning, that the interior beauty and ineffable loveliness of the Church consists, above all, in this, that she holds enshrined in her tabernacles the Lord, the Redeemer of the world, as the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, held Him in her arms in Bethlehem, as the cross supported Him on Mount Calvary; that she possesses His everlasting truth, which He left as her inheritance, and which it is her destiny not only to hold, but to proclaim and propagate to all the nations; and, finally, that she holds in her hands the sacramental power and agencies by which souls are sanctified, purified, and saved. In these three features we saw the beauty of the Church of God; in these three we beheld how the mystery of the Incarnation is perpetuated in her, for Christ our Lord did not for ever depart from earth, but, according to His own word, came back and remained. ''' I will not leave you orphans," He said, " but I will come to you again, and I will remain with you all days, even to the consummation of the world." We see in these three wonderful features of the Church's interior beauty how she is truly "the city of the Living God," " the abode of grace and holiness;" and, therefore, that all the majesty, all th...