April 21

Third Sunday in Lent

Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Ephesians 5:8.

WE see with what subtle corruption our enemy was once destroying us, and we cannot but love what we shall be better the more clearly we discern and loathe what we once were. There is no need of money, of bribery of the hand or work of man, to attain this highest dignity and power. It is the free, gratuitous gift of God. As the sun radiates, the day illuminates, the fountain irrigates, the shower bedews of its own accord spontaneously, so the Spirit of God infuses itself into us. They who live a life of active self-denial, charity, and purity will be ever brought to the knowledge of God; to them He will reveal His mysteries, for they cannot live such a life without the good Spirit of God; and the Spirit of God, being truth and light, will enlighten their minds and lead them into all truth. Since, therefore, God imparts the knowledge of truth to those that obey Him, our Lord teaches us to look to the lives of men to know whether it be the good Spirit that leads them. When the soul, gazing heavenward, has come to know its Maker, it is exalted far above all earthly principality and power, and begins already to be what it believes itself to be. There can be no poverty when the wealth of heaven has once satiated our heart. We speak with God, and God with us. He instructs us, He disposes of us. The house which He enriches none can impoverish; it must abide in living beauty, untarnished honour, undecaying splendour. In God's

Sight no gift has worth Save a Christ-like life on earth.