UNPUBLISHED RELIGIOUS MEDITATIONS
[HOMILETIC.]
Meditations de la seconde annee.
[France, c. 1700.]
Manuscript on paper, 8vo, pp. [xii], 596, [4 (blank)]; early eighteenth-century French hand, brown ink, approximately 18 lines to a page, running titles, contemporary pagination; a very good specimen in contemporary vellum, leather ties; binding a little shaken and worn, ties perished.
Apparently unpublished set of meditations for the Sundays in the liturgical year running from the seventh to the twenty-fourth week after Pentecost, shedding light on tools and practices in the homiletic art. Themes range from reflections on the Eucharist, to considerations on mortality, on values, on grace, and on the human capacity for redemption. The meditations are often prompted by the Gospel reading of the day, lending strength to the notion that this book served as a cleric’s personal tool for delivering semi-impromptu homilies: an aide-memoire, a structured repertoire of themes and examples made more convenient by a detailed table of contents.
