QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY.
Christ the Light of Your Soul.
" Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee; for the Lord shall arise upon thee." (Is. lx. 1.)
I. Imagine yourself to be that blind man who, as is recorded in the Gospel of to-day, sat by the road begging. (Luke xviii. 35.) You are spiritually blind in many things, since you are not able to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong, real and apparent good. You are also unable to discover your own defects in such a manner that you may justly say with royal David, " My iniquities have overtaken me, and I was not able to see." {Ps. xxxix. 13.)
II. What a cheerless and disconsolate life it is to be in continual darkness, without corporeal light! How much more so is it to dwell in spiritual darkness and mental blindness! "What manner of joy shall be to me," says the blind Tobias, " who sit in darkness and see not the light of heaven?" (Tobias v. 12.) Reflect upon yourself, and examine if you see the clear light of heaven, or whether you are not satisfied to see the dim, and false, and fading light of the earth and earthly things. Consider how dangerous it is to be in darkness; for he that " walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth" (John xii. 35), and is exposed to a thousand unknown dangers and falls. Learn, hence, sufficiently to esteem the benefit of divine light.
III. Christ our Lord is "the sun of- justice" (Mai. iv. 2), and "the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world." (John i. 9.) Entreat Him, then, when He visits your soul to-day, to produce in it
