Sinner! now contrite and sorry for the bitter past, who, weeping with the penitent Psalmist, say, "My heart hath expected reproach and misery. I looked for one that would grieve together with me, but there was none; and for one that would comfort me, but I found none" [Footnote 36]—you have a Comforter to go to. Raise your drooping head, and cry—Veni, lumen cordium! Come, O Light of every contrite heart! and the seeds of the grace of contrition, which He has already planted in your soul, will spring up, and bear the sweetest fruits of peace and pardon. Go to thy God, and confess thy sins to Him, and when the Holy Ghost shall give thee the grace of absolution, thou shalt return lighter of footstep and comforted in spirit.
[Footnote 36: Ps. lxviii. 21.]
Christian mourner and sufferer, I know that the brightest days are obscured by the clouds of sorrow which hang over your bereaved head, and the nights are oppressed with a thicker darkness than comes when the sun goes down; but a Light is shining ever in heaven, behind the dark clouds which hover over this world—the comforting Light of every sad heart. Call to Him—Veni, Sancte Spiritus! Veni, lumen cordium!—and though the tears cease not to flow, yet comfort will steal in upon you, and the spirit of holy resignation to that higher and better will in which you trust will descend, and abide with you for ever.
While I am speaking, there is one, now lying in a poor, humble cabin, whom God has been pleased to afflict with a lingering illness, which must soon end in death. As she told me of the long, weary days and sleepless nights she spent, I said to her: "You must be very lonely." "Not so lonesome," she replied; "for, after all, God is not far away." On another occasion, I said: "This world is but short, my poor child; but, short as it is, it has pleased God to give you many dark days of suffering in it." "Ay, priest dear," she answered, "it is His blessed will, glory be to Him. But, then, when once I am on the bright side of the cloud, it is not much thinking of the dark side I'll be."
Oh! surely you, and all who invoke that Divine Comforter, will be ready to exclaim, in the words of the sacred song,
"Consolator optime!
Dulcis hospes animae,
Dulce refrigerium!"
O Thou of all consolers the Best! most welcome Guest of every soul! O sweet Refreshment to the weary heart! no labor for either earth or heaven tires when Thou art near. No burning heats dry up the welling springs of grace whilst overshadowed by Thy dove-like wings. No sorrow wrings the breast to which Thou canst not bring a solace, and wipe the tears away.
"In labore requies,
In aestu temperies,
In fletu solatium!"