assimilated the truth, accepted by both our faith and our reason, that
for those who are in the friendship of God death is simply not that at
all which it is to others. It does not, as has been said, end our lives
or our interests: on the contrary it liberates and fulfils them.

And all this it does because Jesus Christ has Himself plunged into the
heart of Death and put out his fires. Henceforth we are one family in
Him if we do His will--_his brother and sister and mother_; and Mary is
our Mother, not by nature, which is accidental, but by supernature,
which is essential. Mary is my Mother and John is my brother, since, if
I have died with Christ, it is _no longer I that live, but Christ that
liveth in me_. In a word, it is the Communion of Saints which He
inaugurates by this utterance and seals by His dying.




THE FOURTH WORD

_My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?_


Our Blessed Lord in the revelation He makes from the Cross passes
gradually inwards to Himself Who is its centre. He begins in the
outermost circle of all, with the ignorant sinners. He next deals with
the one sinner who ceased to be ignorant, and next with those who were
always nearest to Himself, and now at last He reveals the deepest secret
of all. This is the central Word of the Seven in every sense. There is
no need to draw attention to the Paradox it expresses.