And the glittering Morning Star toward the end of my time out earlier for the first walk but Dawn came bright not long after, although there remain clouds in the sky. None of these days just past made it to the low teens in temperature but one of them, certainly, did to the upper half of that range: I devoutly wished for a long-sleeved shirt beneath my sweater that morning!
From Dom Prosper today.
We, Mary! have corrupted our way; we have disobeyed our Lord; we have broken His law; we have preferred our own selfish gratifications to the service we owed Him: but thou wast ever filled
with His holy love, and there passed not even shadow of sin upon thy soul, spotless mirror of justice and holiness! Virgin most faithful! the grace of Son ever triumphed in thy heart. Mystical rose! the fragrance of thy virtues unceasingly ascended to His throne, changing only in its daily increase of sweetness. Tower of ivory! fair beyond measure, without one spot to mar thy purity! House of gold! thou didst ever reflect the precious gifts of the Holy Ghost. Have pity, then, upon us, for we are sinners. We have obliged our God to repent that He made us: but in thee, dear Mother, He has ever been well pleased. Thou art the good land, wherein His divine seed yielded its thousandfold of fruit: pray for us, that He give fresh fertility to our hearts, and root up from them the thorns, which choke the heavenly plant. We are defiled by sin; may He, through the merits of the tears thou didst shed at the foot of the cross, mercifully cleanse us. If thy divine Son have already pardoned us, there are the consequences of our sins, which still weaken and humble us, like the sores of wounds that have been cured: take us, sweet Mother of our Jesus, under the mantle of thy tender care. We have too little dread of sin; we are so often on the verge of offending our God; oh! get courage for these poor children of thine, and firmness of resolution, and ambition for holiness of life.
The venerable abbot uses titles of Our Lady from her Litany: speculum iustitiae, Virgo fidelis, rosa mystica, domus aurea, turris eburnea. And the fruitful land yielding good fruit and so forth is a figure taken from Our Lord's words in the Gospel of Sexagesima itself.
LDVM
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