I will offer with Him His sacrifice and mine, a gift of infinite value from my grateful heart. I will receive into my poor heart, whose powers, stretched to their utmost, fall infinitely short of what is due to Him, the Heart of the Man-God. * * * * * My God, I rejoice beyond measure that in Mass and Holy Communion I can offer You a thanksgiving that is adequate because infinite, a thanksgiving worthy of Your acceptance. Look not on the poverty of my praise, but “look upon the Face of Thy Christ”.[68] _Per Ipsum, et cum Ipso, et in Ipso ... omnis honor et gloria. Amen._ [57] _Cf._ 2 Esdras xii. [58] 1 Kings v. [59] Tobias viii. [60] Psa. cii. [61] _Ibid._ cvi. [62] Psa. cxxxiv. [63] _Ibid._ cxlvi. [64] 1 Kings i. [65] Psa. lxv. [66] 1 Par. xxix. [67] _Ibid._ xvii. [68] Psa. lxxxiii. XXII. DARKNESS. My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?--_Matt._ xxvii. 46. _My God!_ as if You belonged to no one else in the wide world. As if You and I were alone in creation. As if neither in heaven above nor in the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth, You had a single other creature! _My God!_ as if for me alone you had done all in the orders of nature, grace, and glory; working for me from the beginning, through all causes, by all creatures, in all events. As if for me alone were the earth and the sea and all within them. For me all the ordering of Your Providence in the affairs of time. For me the heaven of heavens and all the concourse there. For me the Saints and Mary; the Incarnation, the Life, and death, and teaching of Christ; the Church and Sacraments; the Eucharist, and Mass, and Communion. For me life everlasting and the Blessed Vision of Yourself. _My God!_ for Whom I am made. Without Whom happiness for me were the wildest of impossibilities. The Supreme Good able to satisfy to the full every want of my complex nature. Infinite Goodness providing for all and for each with an exquisite discrimination of my need. _My God!_ in a sense known to myself and You alone--father, mother, sister, brother, lover, friend--all in all to me. _My God!_ as if You belonged to me rather than to Yourself; belonged to me rather than I to You. As if You were for my sake rather than I for Yours. Or at least as if we so belonged to one another as of necessity to imply and supplement each other--as hill and valley, light and shade, the ocean and the void it fills. * * * * * _My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?_ Why this darkness in which I grope for You in vain, in which I seek in vain to find Your Face? Why these nameless fears, this dread of You, this shrinking from You? Or, harder still to bear, this heaviness of soul, this hardness of heart, this weariness of You, my God, this restlessness in Your presence, this impatience of Your ways--why all this inconsistency and perversity?