obtain for me the virtue of temperance and the gift of counsel.
Hail Mary, etc.
Ejaculation (p. 118).
SEVENTH DAY
Mary's Sixth Sorrow: The Taking Down of Jesus' Body From the Cross
Preparatory Prayer (p. 115).
MEDITATION
WHO can describe the sorrow and anguish of Mary's heart when the body of Jesus was taken from the cross, when her tearful eyes fell upon His disfigured features! The pure and holy and beauteous form of her Son was a mass of clotted blood and unsightly wounds; and yet, disfigured as it was, there shone in His countenance a clear, calm expression of divine majesty. Now Mary views the wounds of that sacred body; she looks at the gap made in His side by the cruel spear, and can almost see the Sacred Heart of Jesus, all bruised and broken for love of man. Before her vision passes in detail His life and her own. Memory presents to her mind every day and hour of their quiet, happy life at Nazareth. Is it to be wondered, then, that at this bitter moment her sorrow was so great that, as St. An-
