be restrained and elevated by it. Familiarity might deaden at last our vivid sense of so near an approach of the supernatural world and we might cease to realise it. But the Holy Mass is more than all this. It is the personal Presence of the Lord of angels and of Saints; and yet, through familiarity with the exceeding condescension of His great humility, we may gradually lose the vividness of our perception. The Council of Trent teaches us that the Presence of Jesus is above the laws and order of nature.[1] He is there, God and Man in personal reality and substance; and we, when we hold the Blessed Sacrament in our hands, are in contact with the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier of the world. The Council says again that He is present, not as in a place, but as He is—a substance.[2] In the divine order there is no time, and place is not. We are in contact with the eternal world; and that contact is real and substantial and personal, both on His side and on ours. We behold Him face to face by the vision of faith. Beyond this there is nothing but the vision of the blessed. After the consecration we are already admitted to it under a veil. Nobis quoque peccatoribus, to us sinners also is granted in the Holy Mass a share and a friendship with the Saints and
