Do not, then, make the foolish excuse either that you have been to Communion at Christmas or there about, or that you have nothing to confess now. Come this week; if you put your Communion off one day beyond next Sunday you are guilty of breaking this law. If you are in mortal sin, get out of it by making a good confession and Communion; if you are not, do not fall into it by refusing to obey this most peremptory and most urgent command. Any one who has not received since Lent began, and refuses to do so on or before next Sunday, may, indeed, call himself a Catholic, but is not worthy of the name.
Trinity Sunday.
Epistle.
Romans xi. 33-36.
O the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and recompense shall be made to him? For of him, and by him, and in him, are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen.
Gospel.
St. Matthew, xxviii. 18-20.
At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples: All power is given to me in heaven and on earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you; and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
Last Gospel.
St. Luke vi. 36-42.
At that time, Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you: good measure and pressed down, and shaken together and running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you shall measure it shall be measured to you again. And he spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master; but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not? or how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull the mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye.
Sermon LXXXII.
The Divine Majesty.
For of him, and by him, and in him are all things;
to him be Glory for ever and ever. Amen.
—Epistle of the Day.
To-day, my dear brethren, the church, having completed the round of feasts and fasts which she began on Christmas, having brought to our remembrance our Lord's birth, his holy childhood, his ministry on earth, his Passion and death, his glorious Resurrection and Ascension, and the coming of the Holy Ghost as he had promised, finally brings us into the presence of the Being by whom all these wonderful works have been accomplished, and who is the sole object of our adoration, the ever Blessed Trinity, the three Divine Persons, the one God. She bids us contemplate, so far as it is possible for us, the great and ineffable mystery into the faith of which we have been baptized, and to join with the angels and saints in the canticles of heaven, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come."