Library of the Holy Ghost

Vol. I

The Bread of Life:

or

St. Thomas Aquinas

on the

adorable sacrament of the altar.

arranged as meditations

with

Prayers and Thanksgivings for Holy Communion,

by

father rawes, d.d.

‘They shall live upon wheat, and they shall blossom like a vine.’ Osee 14:8.

london: burns and oates.

1879.

with

adoration and love and uttermost worship

i lay

This Book

at the feet of

jesus in the blessed sacrament,

the word made flesh

dwelling in the inaccessible light.

‘To the Rev. Father Rawes, S.T.D.

‘My dear Father,—When you founded the Confraternity of the Servants of the Holy Ghost a little more than two years ago, I felt a lively sense of joy and thankfulness. It was the embodiment of a devotion to which for more than thirty years I owe the chief blessings and graces of my life.

‘I see it now reorganised and blessed by the Vicar of Jesus Christ, and founded in an Archconfraternity in the Church of the Oblates of St. Charles. I rejoice all the more in this because I believe that devotion to the Holy Ghost ought to be the special devotion of priests. We are consecrated and anointed by Him. The grace that is in us by the imposition of hands is infused by Him, and our whole priestly and pastoral work depends on Him. If by His indwelling we are spiritual and supernatural, we shall draw souls to Him by His own light and power. If we are natural and external, or merely logical and learned, we shall be praised and followed by the world, and thereby have our reward. St. Gregory the Great says, “Nemo docenti homini tribuat quod ex ore docentis intelligit, quia nisi interius sit qui doceat doctoris lingua exterius in vacuum laborat.”

‘I am also greatly rejoiced to see your scheme for a “Library of the Holy Ghost.” For many years I have sought out all the writings and treatises I could find on this great subject, which, as it pervades the preaching and writing of the Apostles, so it is to be found with singular fulness in the Fathers and in the Saints of the Church.

‘My two poor books on the Temporal and Internal Mission of the Holy Ghost were written with the hope and prayer that they might rouse some of you to carry on more worthily what I had slightly begun. Your Library will, I hope, more than fulfil this desire.

‘May God give you many years to serve Him fervently in the light and the love of the Holy Ghost.—Believe me always, my dear Father, yours affectionately in Jesus Christ,

‘Henry Edward,

Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

‘Archbishop’s House, Whitsuntide, 1879.’

Preface

to the servants of the holy ghost

There is a very beautiful treatise of St. Thomas Aquinas on the adorable Sacrament of the Altar. It is hard to know which to admire more, the fulness and precision of its arrangement, or the way in which he brings in the words of the Holy Ghost from the Sacred Scriptures. From this treatise, and nearly always in its very words, I have arranged these Meditations for the Servants of the Holy Ghost. In fact, all that was needed was to ...