CANA II
And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus
saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus saith
unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
mine hour is not yet come.
S. John II, 3, 4.
We, the faithful, bless thee, O Virgin Mother of God, and glorify thee as is thy due, the city unshaken, the wall unbroken, the unbreakable defence and refuge of our souls.
BYZANTINE.
hatsoever He saith unto you, do it." These words have often been called the Gospel according to S. Mary. They certainly sum up her whole attitude in life. "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word," she had said in reply to the message S. Gabriel brought her: and that is the meaning of her whole life-story, that she is at all times ready to accept the will of God, to give herself to the fulfilment of the divine purpose. There is no more perfect attitude, for it is the attitude of her divine Son whose meat it was to do the will of the Father and to finish His work, whose whole life's attitude was compressed into the words of His self-oblation in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but thine be done."
And this is the virtue that Jesus Christ inculcates upon us. "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven ... thy will be done." There is no true religion possible without that attitude. And therefore one is deeply concerned about the immediate future inasmuch as the spirit of obedience, the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of Mary, is so rare. As one looks into the social development of the Christian era, one feels that the life and example of S. Mary has been of immense influence in the development of the ideal of womanhood. The rise of woman from a wholly subordinate and inferior condition to a condition of complete equality with man has owed more to S. Mary than to any other factor. I am not concerned with political equality; that under our present conditions of social development women should have that equality if they want it seems to me just, but I am by no means satisfied that in the long run it will prove a boon either to them or to society at large. But I am at present thinking of their spiritual equality, which after all is the basis of their other claims; and this comes to them through the Gospel, and was shown to the mind of the Church largely through S. Mary. In the earliest records of the Church woman stands on the same level of privilege as man, and the same sort of spiritual accomplishment is expected of her.
There are many members of the Body of Christ and there is a certain spiritual equality among them; but "all members have not the same office." In the Holy Spirit's distribution of functions within the Body there is a difference. Some functions, by the allotment of God, women are not called to exercise: these are sacramental and ruling functions. Others, as prophecy (the daughters of S. Philip), and ministry (the deaconess), are given them. For centuries she recognised this allotment and gave her best energies to her appointed works. She showed herself a true daughter of Mary in her loyal acceptance of the divine will and her zeal in its accomplishment. And what was the result? The Calendar of Saints, filled with the names of women, is the answer. There are no more wonderful works of God than the women whose names are commemorated at the altars of the Church and whose intercession is constantly asked throughout Catholic Christendom. There can be no thought of narrowness of opportunity or limitations in life as we study that wonderful series of women who have illumined the history of the Church from the day of S. Gabriel's message to this very moment when there are many many women who are faithfully following their vocation and doing God's will, and who will one day be our intercessors about the throne of God and of the Lamb, as they are our intercessors in the Church on earth to-day. Why any woman should complain of lack of opportunity and of the narrowness of the Church--the Church that has nourished S. Mary and S. Monica, S. Catherine of Genoa and S. Theresa; the foundresses of so many and so varied Religious Orders, so many who have devoted their lives to teaching, nursing, conducting works of charity, I am at a loss to understand. To-day we are witnessing all over the world a revolt of women against the Church; we hear not infrequent threats of what is to be done to the Church by those revolted members. I am afraid that woman is on the edge of another tragedy. She is once more looking fascinated at the fruit which "is good for food, and pleasant to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise," and listening to a voice that whispers: "Thou shalt be as God."
The question which is becoming more urgent everywhere is, What are the women of the future to be,--the daughters of Eve, or the daughters of Mary? It is not a question for declamation, but a question that calls for immediate action: and the action must be the action of women. If women clamour for work in the Church of God, here it is, and here it is abundantly; and to accomplish it there is no need that they "seek the priesthood also." The work in the Church of God is in the first place a work that God has given mothers to do; it is the primary duty of a mother to bring up her children, and especially her daughters, in fear of the Lord. That she can always succeed I do not for a moment claim; there are many adverse factors in the situation that she has to deal with. But she is inexcusable if she does not give her effort to the work as the most important work of her life. She is utterly inexcusable and must answer to God for the result if she turn her children over to the care of maids and teachers while she occupies herself with society or any exterior work.
In the second place the work of the Church of God is a work that ought to appeal to all women and a work that any woman can help in. All women can help the spiritual progress of the Church by meditating upon the life of Blessed Mary and fashioning their lives upon her example. We are all tremendously affected by example, and that is especially true of young girls. Their supreme terror seems to be that they should be caught doing or saying something different from what all other girls say or do or wear. Their opinions are as imitative as their clothes. Hence the need of the pressure of a strong Christian example, which would result most readily in the union of Christian women in a single ideal. Our present difficulty is that so many of our women who are devout members of the Church in their private capacity, so far succumb to the group-mind in their social relations that they are possessed by the same terror as the young girl in the face of the possibility of being different. Therefore are they careful to hide their real feeling for religion and their devotion to spiritual things under the mask of worldly conformity which evacuates their example of much of the power that it might have. I am quite convinced that fear of the world is about as strong an impulse toward evil as love of the world.
We need that women should clear their ideals and realise their public responsibility for the presentation of them. We need terribly at this moment insistence on the purity and simplicity of the Holy Mother of God. One is stunned at the abandonment of the ideal of reserve and modesty that the last few years have seen. Women seem to take it quite gaily: men, one notes, take it much more seriously. I have been consulted by more than one father during the past year as to the possibility of sending a boy to a school where he would be kept out of the society of half-naked girls. Have mothers no longer any sense of the value of purity? Or have they simply abandoned all responsibility that normally goes with being a mother? One recognises how helpless a man is under the circumstances, that his intervention in such matters simply casts him for the part of family tyrant; but why should a mother abandon her duty simply because her daughter says: "You don't understand. Girls are not as they were when you were young. All the girls do this. No other mother takes the line that you do. You are not modern."
One knows, of course, that the whole matter of decline in manners and morals is but a part of the world-wide revolt against the morality of Jesus Christ that we are witnessing everywhere. Social and religious teachers, students of history and social movements have seen the approach of this revolt for a long time, have been watching its rise and growth. When they have pointed out the end of the path that we have been travelling, they have been disposed of by calling them pessimists. These "pessimists" pointed out long ago that the denial of the obligation to believe would be followed by an abandonment of all moral standards. They pointed out to the devotees of "liberal religion" that they are in reality the leaders of a moral revolt, that if it does not make any difference what you believe it will soon come to make no difference what you do. It is a rather silly performance to blow up the dam which holds back the mass of water of an irrigation system and imagine that no more water will flow out than you want to flow out. When the Protestant revolt blew up the restraining dams of the Catholic Religion they had no right to expect that only so much denial of Catholic truth as it suited them to dispense with would be the result. Through the broken dams the whole religion of Christ has been flowing out and it is mere empty pretence to claim that all that is of any value is left. It is impossible to maintain anything of the sort now that all the moral content of the Christian system is openly thrown overboard by vast numbers of the population of the world, in every country that claims to be civilised. It is useless to say that there has always been evil in the world and that the maintenance of the Catholic religion has never anywhere abolished sin. That is true, but it is not to the present point. The social situation is one where there are definite religious and moral ideals strongly maintained and universally recognised, though there are many men and women who violate them; it is quite another situation when the ideals themselves are repudiated and set aside as superstitions. That is our case to-day. The Christian theory is confronted with a theory of naturalism in morals, and those who follow that theory do not do so with a feeling that they are violating accepted ideals, but with the assumption that they are missionaries setting forth a new faith. Those who have revolted from the Kingdom of God have now set up another kingdom and proclaimed openly, "We will not have this Man to reign over us." The revolt which began with a breach in the dogmatic system of the Church and denial of the authority of the Catholic Church in favour of the right of private judgment, has ended, as it could not help but end, in open abandonment of the life-ideal of the Gospels. We now have the application of the right of private judgment in the theory that one's morals are one's own concern. Such things have happened before. "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did what was right in his own eyes." The social state depicted in the Book of Judges reflects this revolt. The result of the same repudiation of authority is seen in modern society where what is right in one's own eyes is the whole Law and Gospel. Are we to remain quiescent, or are we to make the attempt to generate moral force?
But how can Christendom generate any more moral force? The teaching of the Gospel which it proclaims is perfectly plain. True, but is the adherence of the Church to its statements perfectly plain? Is there no falling away, no compromise, there?
When one speaks thus of the Church one is conscious of a confusion of thought in the use of the word. The teaching of the formal documents of the Church is not here in question; what we necessarily mean is the effect that the existing membership of the Church is having upon contemporary life. What we have especially in mind is the attitude of the clergy and the action of the congregation in the way of moral force. What sort of a front is the church presenting to the world, what sort of moral influence is it exercising?
It seems to me perfectly evident that all along the line the conventions of contemporary society have been accepted in the place of the life-ideals of the Gospel of Jesus. We have accepted plain departures from or compromises with Christian teaching as the recognised law of action. This is due largely to the natural sloth of the human being and his disinclination to struggle for superior standards. He feels safe and comfortable if he can succeed in losing himself in a crowd: thus he escapes both trouble and criticism. A violation of law may become so common that there is no public spirit to oppose it. The same thing may happen in morals,--violations of the Christian standard, if sufficiently widespread, command almost universal acquiesence. What is actually uncovered in the process is the fact that the plain man has no morals of his own, but imitates the prevailing morality; and if fashion sets against some particular ruling of the Christian Religion he feels quite secure in following the fashion. The vox dei in Holy Scripture and in Holy Church affect him not at all if he be conscious that he is on the side of the vox populi.
It is easy to illustrate this. The non-Catholic Christian world has the Bible, and boasts of its adherence to it as the sole guide of life; but in the matter of divorced persons it utterly disregards its teachings. By this acceptance of an unchristian attitude it has vastly weakened the fight for purity in the family relation which the Catholic Church, at least in the West, has always waged. It deliberately divides the Christian forces of the community and to a large extent thereby nullifies their action. The divisions of Christendom are terrible from every point of view; but there are certain questions on which a united mind might well be presented, and in relation to which an united mind would go far to control the attitude of society. An united Christian sentiment against divorce would go far to reduce the evil.
On the other hand the progress of the movement to abolish the evils growing out of the use of alcohol has had its strength in the Protestant bodies. On the whole (there were no doubt individual exceptions) the Churches of the Catholic tradition have been lukewarm in the matter. It is quite evident that the reform could never have been carried through if left to them, and especially if left to the bishops and clergy of the Roman and Anglican Communions. It is a plain case of failure to support a vast moral reform because of the pressure of opinion in the social circles in which they move, combined with a purely individualistic attitude toward a grave social question.
Another instance is ready at hand in the practical abandonment of the religious observance of Sunday. To Christians Sunday is the Lord's day, and is to be observed as such. It is not true that an hour in the morning is the Lord's day, and is to be given to worship, and that the rest of the day is given to us to do what we will with. But in our own Communion do we get any strong protest in favour of the sanctity of the day? Or are not the clergy compromising in the hope that if they surrender the greater part of the day to the world they will be able to save an hour or two for God? But is anything actually saved by this sort of compromise? Do we not know that the encroachments of worldliness that have narrowed down Sunday observance to an hour a day will ultimately demand that hour, that is, will deny any obligation other than the obligation of inclination? Are we not bound to stand by the Lord's day? Are we to be made lax by silly talk about puritanism? Those who talk about the "Puritan Sunday" would do well to read a little of the Medieval legislation of the Church. Are we to keep silent in the pulpit because wealthy and influential members of the congregation want to play golf and tennis on Sunday afternoons, or children want to play ball or go to the movies? Are we to be taken in by talk of hard work during the week and consequent need of rest? It is no doubt well that a man should arrange his work with a view to an adequate amount of rest; but it is also well that he should rest in his own time and not in God's. The Lord's day is not a day of rest. It ought to be, and is intended to be, a very strenuous day indeed.
One could easily spend hours in pointing out where and how the Gospel standard of life has been abandoned or compromised, and the life of the Christian in consequence conformed to the world. The result would only strengthen the position that has been already sufficiently indicated that a wholly different standard of living has been quietly substituted throughout the Western world for the standard that is contained in Holy Scripture. Now we are either bound to be Christians or we are not; and we are not Christians solely by virtue of certain beliefs more or less loosely held. Our Lord's word is: "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." And the Gospel view of life is a perfectly plain one, and is as far removed from the common life of Christians to-day as it possibly can be. The Gospel conception of the Christian life is contained first of all in our Lord's life. That is the perfect human life; and the New Testament optimism is well illustrated by its conviction that that life in its essential features can, with the grace of God, be imitated by man. And by those who have approached it in this spirit of optimism it has been found imitable. Innumerable men and women have lived the Christian life in the past and are living it in the present. To-day the possibility of living the Christian life, of bringing life approximately to the standard of the Gospel, is declared to be an impracticable piece of optimism, and our Lord's teaching hopelessly out of touch with reality. When people talk of the difficulty of living the Christ-life under modern conditions, the plain answer is that there is in fact only one difficulty in the matter, and that is the difficulty of wanting to do it. It is a confession of utter spiritual incompetence to say that we cannot follow the Gospel standards under modern conditions because of the isolation in which we at once find ourselves if we attempt it. If the attempt to be a Christian isolates us, it tells a pretty plain tale about our chosen companionship. It is asserting that it is hard for us to be Christians because we are devoted to the society of those who are not Christians, of those who ignore it and habitually insult the teachings of our Saviour. That is surely an extraordinary confession for a Christian to make! Can we imagine a Christian of the first period of the Church excusing himself for offering incense to the divinity of Augustus on the ground that if he did not do so certain court festivities would be closed to him, and that his friends would think him odd!
"Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you," "The friendship of this world is enmity with God." We have to choose. It is not that we may choose. It is not that it is possible to have a little of both. As Christians it is quite impossible in any real sense to have the friendship of the world, though many Christians think that they can. What really is open to us is the enmity of the world if we are sincere and strict in our profession, and the contempt of the world if we are not. You have not to read very deep in contemporary literature to learn what the world thinks about the Christian who ignores or compromises his standards. The world knows perfectly well what constitutes a Christian life, and it shows a well merited scorn of those who, not having the courage openly to abandon it, yet show by their lives that they do not value it. We may not show the same sort of contempt for the "weak brother" as S. Paul calls him, but we ought to make it plain that we have no sort of approval of the brother who pleads weakness as an excuse for laxity.
There is one law of life and only one; and that is summed up in our Lady's direction to the servants at Cana in Galilee: "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." There is no ground for pleading that our Lord's will is an obscure will, or that circumstances have so changed that much that He set forth in word and example has no application to-day in the America of the twentieth century. Perhaps if any one feels that there is some truth in the last statement, he would do well to examine the case and to find out just what and how much of the Gospel teaching is obsolete, and how much has contemporary application, and to ask himself whether he is constantly putting in action that part which he thinks still holds good. It will, I think, on examination be found that none of our Lord's teaching is obsolete, though in some cases changed circumstances may have changed its mode of application. Certainly there is nothing obsolete in His teaching in the matter of purity. The virtues that He dwells upon--humility, meekness and the rest--are universal qualities on which time and social change have no effect.
What Christian conduct needs on our part is interest. We have to make clear to ourselves that a certain kind of life is like the life of God, and therefore is the medium for understanding God, and ultimately for enjoying God. The Christian life is not an arbitrary thing; it is the highest expression of humanity. Any other life is a distortion of the human ideal. People talk as though they thought that by the arbitrary will of God they were obliged to be good--a thing wholly contrary to our nature and to our present interests. But goodness is the natural unfolding of our nature as God made it: we find our true expression in the likeness of God. Perfection is what nature aspires to. Religion is not a curb on nature; religion is a help to enable nature to express itself. Nature reaches its perfect expression when by the grace of God it becomes godlike.
And the words of Christ are our guide to the perfect expression of our best. Therefore the earnest Christian is willing to give time to the careful study of them, and of the whole ideal of life that is contained in them. He is not concerned with what they will cut him off from; he is concerned with that to which they will admit him. He is concerned to find the meaning of Christ's teaching. This that S. Paul says is fundamental is his rule of life: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God."
Of one that is so fayr and bright
Velut maris stella,
Brighter than the day is light,
Parens et puella;
I crie to thee, thou see to me,
Levedy, preye thi Sone for me,
Tam pia,
That I mote come to thee
Maria.
Al this world was for-lore
Eva peccatrice,
Tyl our Lord was y-bore
De te genetrice.
With Ave it went away
Thuster nyth and comz the day
Salutis;
The welle springeth ut of the,
Virtutis.
Levedy, flour of alle thing,
Rosa sine spina,
Thu here Jhesu, hevene king,
Gratia divina;
Of alle thu ber'st the pris,
Levedy, quene of paradys
Electa:
Mayde milde, moder es
Effecta.