Читать книгу A Golden Treatise of Mental Prayer - St. Peter de Alcántara - Страница 7

PROLOGUE.

lilies of purity: these are the flowers✝ of our holy mother, the Catholic Church, which make her glorious and fruitful. These are they that make that happy change, a moment's fading pleasure for an immortal crown of glory.

Thus we see perpetual rivers streaming from the fountain of Almighty God's mercy. But let us descend a little further into his abundant charity, and take notice of his Fatherly providence, that in process of declining times, when the blood of our Redeemer hath often begun to wax cold in the hearts of men, he would not suffer it altogether to be extinguished, but according to variety of times, never ceased to repair his church, by the ministry of some elected servants, whom he sent into this world as second Apostles, who by their

✝ " Flos est ille Ecclesiastici germinis, decus atque ornamentum gratias spiritualis, latae, indolis, laudis et honoris, opus integrum atque incorruptum Dei imago respondens, ad sanctimoniam Domini, illustrior portio gregis Christi, gaudet per ipsas, atque in illis largiter floret S. Matris Ecclesise gloriosa faecunditas, quantoque plus gloriosa Virginitas numero suo addit, tanto plus gaudium matris augescit. Cypr. de habit, virg. 1. 4. c. 24.