From the Sepulchre to the Throne by Madame Cecilia

Preface This volume has for object to provide a book of spiritual readings or a series of meditations for Eastertide. The “Summaries for Meditation”—drawn up according to the Ignatian method—may be useful to those who desire to use this book for their daily meditations. The “Preludes” and “Colloquies” are merely suggestive, but they may be useful, when the mind has to be forced into a given groove. None can come between the creature and its Creator in the matter of prayer, since God asks for the spontaneous outpouring of the soul. But when the Christian walks in terra deserta et in via inaquosa, or is a novice in the science of the Saints—in meditation—a few suggestions which furnish subjects for petitions may be welcome. Such aids to devotion must be taken or left at each person’s discretion. The Author has endeavoured to bring these sacred subjects before her readers as practically and realistically as possible—to let them see these events as they probably occurred—and at the same time, to refrain from freely indulging in pure conjectures. To this end, the “side lights” of topography and Jewish customs have been thrown on the Gospel narratives as far as possible. Minute exegetical notes and controversial subjects have been excluded, as out of place in a purely devotional work. In some chapters, the Author has drawn a few paragraphs from her “Catholic Scripture Manuals,” since the same facts had to be recorded. This volume takes up the thread of the Author’s previous work, Looking on Jesus, the Lamb of God, which treats of the last six months of our Blessed Lord’s Life. This present work deals only with His Risen Life upon earth—with the events of “the Great Forty Days”; all considerations touching the Paraclete and the progress of the Church are reserved for another volume. MADAME CECILIA. January 1, 1914.