whose breast Incarnate God had rested as inviolate and secure as on the
Bosom of the Eternal Father, that Mother who was His Heaven on earth.
Standing beside her is the one human being who is least unworthy to be
there, now that Joseph has passed to his reward and John the Baptist has
gone to join the Prophets--_the disciple whom Jesus loved_, who had lain
on the breast of Jesus as Jesus had lain on the breast of Mary.

Our Lord has just shown how He deals with His dear sinners; now He shows
how He will _be glorified with His Saints_. The Paradox of this Word is
that Death, the divider of those who are separated from God, is the bond
of union between those that are united to Him.

I. Death is the one inexorable enemy of human society as constituted
apart from God. A king dies and his kingdom is at once in danger of
disruption. A child dies and his mother prays that she may bear another,
lest his father and she should drift apart. Death is the supreme sower
of discord and disunion, then, in the natural order, since he is the one
supreme enemy of natural life. He is the noonday terror of the Rich Fool
of the parable and the nightmare of the Poor Fool, since those who place
their hope in this life see that death is the end of their hope. For
these there is no appeal beyond the grave.

II. Now precisely the opposite of all this is true in the supernatural
order, since the gate of death, viewed from the supernatural side, is an
entrance and not an ending, a beginning and not a close. This may be
seen to be so even in a united human family in this world, the members
of whom are living the supernatural life; for where such a family is
living in the love of God, Death, when he comes, draws not only the
survivors closer together, but even those whom he seems to have
separated. He does not bring consternation and terror and disunion, but