EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
" I will love Thee, 0 Lord, my strength, the Lord is my firmament, my refuge and my deliverer." (Ps. xvii. 2.)
Christ the Strength of Your Soul.
I. It is read in the gospel of to-day, that Christ cured a man that was afflicted with a palsy. (Matt. ix. i.) Spiritual palsy is an enervation of the soul and an utter decay of its strength, caused by sloth and pusillanimity. Reflect how prone you are to this complaint, how weak you are in bearing adversity, how faint-hearted in undertaking any thing for God, and lastly inconstant in keeping your good resolutions. How remiss you are in your prayers and indevout in your spiritual exercises. You may truly say with the Prophet, " My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue has cleaved to my jaws." (Ps. xxi. 16.)
II. Christ is properly the fortitude and strength of your soul; "O Lord," says the Prophet, " my might and my strength" (Jer. xvi. 19), and another Prophet exclaims, " The Lord, my strength and my praise." (Is. xii. 2.) This effect He chiefly produces in the Holy Eucharist, for in that sacrament, when worthily received, He gives the soul strength to overcome every fear and difficulty, and to undertake and succeed in every enterprise, however great when it has for its object the glory of God. Hence the Eucharist is called by the holy Fathers, " the bread of the strong, the food of the great, the bread that confirms and strengthens the heart of man." The loaf of bread which was given to Elias, and which enabled him to walk forty days and forty nights, to the mountain of
