Contents.
First Sunday of Advent:
Sermon I., B. [ 18] Sermon II., [ 20] Sermon III., [ 22]
Second Sunday of Advent:
Sermon IV., B. [ 27] Sermon V., [ 30] Sermon VI., [ 32]
Third Sunday of Advent:
Sermon VII., B. [ 37] Sermon VIII., [ 39] Sermon IX., [ 42]
Fourth Sunday of Advent:
Sermon X., B. [ 47] Sermon XI., [ 49] Sermon XII., [ 52]
Sunday within the Octave of Christmas:
Sermon XIII., B. [ 56] Sermon XIV., [ 59] Sermon XV., [ 62]
The Epiphany:
Sermon XVI., [ 66] Sermon XVII., [ 68]
First Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XVII., B. [ 73] Sermon XIX., [ 75]
Second Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XX., B. [ 80] Sermon XXI., [ 83] Sermon XXII., [ 86]
Third Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XXIII., B. [ 91] Sermon XXIV., [ 93]
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XXV., [ 97] Sermon XXVI., [ 100] Sermon XXVII., [ 103]
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XXVIII., [ 108] Sermon XXIX., [ 111]
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany:
Sermon XXX., B. [ 115] Sermon XXXI., [ 118]
Septuagesima Sunday
Sermon XXXII., B. [ 122] Sermon XXXIII., [ 125] Sermon XXXIV., [ 127]
Sexagesima Sunday:
Sermon XXXV., B. [ 133] Sermon XXXVI., [ 136] Sermon XXXVII., [ 138]
Quinquagesima Sunday:
Sermon XXXVIII., B. [ 142] Sermon XXXIX., [ 145] Sermon XL., [ 147]
First Sunday of Lent:
Sermon XLI., [ 152] Sermon XLII., [ 154] Sermon XLIII., B. [ 157]
Second Sunday of Lent:
Sermon XLIV., [ 161] Sermon XLV., B. [ 164] Sermon XLVI., [ 166]
Third Sunday of Lent:
Sermon XLVII., [ 170] Sermon XLVIII., B. [ 173] Sermon XLIX., [ 175]
Fourth Sunday of Lent:
Sermon L., [ 179] Sermon LI., B. [ 182]
Passion Sunday:
Sermon LII., [ 186] Sermon LIII., B. [ 188] Sermon LIV., [ 192]
Palm Sunday
Sermon LV., B. [ 196] Sermon LVI., [ 198] Sermon LVII., [ 200]
Easter Sunday:
Sermon LVIII., B. [ 204] Sermon LIX., [ 207] Sermon LX., [ 210]
Low Sunday:
Sermon LXI., B. [ 214] Sermon LXII., [ 217] Sermon LXIII., [ 219]
Second Sunday after Easter:
Sermon LXIV. [ 223] Sermon LXV., B. [ 225] Sermon LXVI., [ 227]
Third Sunday after Easter:
Sermon LXVII., B. [ 233] Sermon LXVIII., [ 235] Sermon LXIX., [ 238]
Fourth Sunday after Easter:
Sermon LXX., B. [ 242] Sermon LXXI., [ 245] Sermon LXXII., [ 248]
Fifth Sunday after Easter:
Sermon LXXIII., [ 252] Sermon LXXIV., [ 254] Sermon LXXV., [ 257]
Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension:
Sermon LXXVI., [ 260] Sermon LXXVII., [ 263] Sermon LXXVIII., [ 265]
Feast of Pentecost, or Whit-Sunday:
Sermon LXXIX., [ 269] Sermon LXXX., [ 272] Sermon LXXXI., [ 274]
Trinity Sunday:
Sermon LXXXII., [ 279] Sermon LXXXIII., [ 282] Sermon LXXXIV., [ 284]
Second Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon LXXXV., [ 289] Sermon LXXXVI., [ 292] Sermon LXXXVII., [ 295]
Third Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon LXXXVIII., [ 299] Sermon LXXXIX., B. [ 301] Sermon XC., [ 304]
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon XCI., [ 308] Sermon XCII., [ 311]
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon XCIII., B. [ 315] Sermon XCIV., [ 317]
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon XCV., [ 321] Sermon XCVI., [ 323] Sermon XCVII., [ 388]
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon XCVIII., [ 330] Sermon XCIX., [ 332] Sermon C., [ 335]
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CI., [ 339] Sermon CII., [ 342] Sermon CIII., [ 344]
Ninth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CIV., [ 349] Sermon CV., [ 352]
Tenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CVI., [ 356] Sermon CVII., [ 359] Sermon CVIII., [ 361]
Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CIX., [ 366] Sermon CX., [ 369] Sermon CXI., [ 371]
Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXII., [ 376] Sermon CXIII., B. [ 378] Sermon CXIV., [ 381]
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXV., B. [ 385] Sermon CXVI., [ 388] Sermon CXVII., [ 390]
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXVIII., B. [ 394] Sermon CXIX., [ 397] Sermon CXX., [ 400]
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXI., B. [ 404] Sermon CXXII., [ 406] Sermon CXXIII., [ 409]
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXIV., B. [ 413] Sermon CXXV., [ 416]
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXVI., B. [ 420] Sermon CXXVII., B. [ 422]
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXVIII., [ 426] Sermon CXXIX., [ 428]
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXX., B. [ 433] Sermon CXXXI., [ 436]
Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXXII., B. [ 440] Sermon CXXXIII., [ 442]
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXXIV., [ 447]
Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXXV., B. [ 452] Sermon CXXXVI., [ 454]
Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXXXVII., B. [ 459] Sermon CXXXVIII., B. [ 461] Sermon CXXXIX., [ 463]
Twenty-fourth or Last Sunday after Pentecost:
Sermon CXL., B. [ 468] Sermon CXLI., [ 471] Sermon CXLII., [ 474]
First Sunday of Advent
Epistle.
Romans xiii. 11-14,
Brethren:
Know that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light; let us walk honestly as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Gospel.
St. Luke xxi. 25-33.
At that time Jesus said to his disciples: There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars: and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves, men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of heaven shall be moved: and then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and majesty. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads: because your redemption is at hand. And he spoke to them a similitude. See the fig-tree, and all the trees: when they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is nigh; so you also when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen I say to you this generation shall not pass away, till all things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Sermon I.
Heaven and earth shall pass away.
—St. Luke xxi. 33.
Ah! my friend, how are you? How do you do? Where are you going? These are everyday expressions, dear brethren. Probably some neighbor spoke to you thus as you were coming to Mass. This is the first Sunday in Advent, the Sunday of judgment, and I am going to put the same questions to you. I begin with the last one. Where are you going? Young men, old men, women, girls, children, people, priests, rich and poor, where are all of you going? Are you going to church or for a walk? No, we have a trial at court and are summoned to appear. Whose trial? Our own. Yes, we are all going to judgment, the trial of eternity before the all-seeing Judge. We are all formed in a great procession. No matter whether we are good or bad, in a state of grace or of mortal sin, no matter whether our case is a good one or a bad one, no matter if our cause be just or unjust, we are all going to judgment—all going to the great trial, in which every living soul, each man and woman and child, shall be the prisoners at the bar, and God, the judge of all, shall sit upon the great white Throne. When will that trial-day come? No one knows, not even the angels, our Lord says. Judgment will come suddenly. Time has been given you. You have been told "beforehand." The actual coming will be sudden. "Behold, I come as a thief in the night." "Behold, I come quickly." "Behold, I come as the lightning." Such are the terms in which our Lord speaks of his second advent. When men are eating and drinking, marrying, buying, and selling, burying the dead, laboring, praying, waking or sleeping, then there will be a cry heard, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet Him." Go forth just as you are; just as the moment finds you; without a moment more to prepare, without an instant in which to say, "God help me!" Where are you going, then? Going to judgment. Going to a sudden judgment. Going to meet accusers who will rise out of the graves of earth and from the pit of hell to bear witness against sinners for all the commandments they have broken, all the duties they have neglected, all the scandal and bad example they have given. Woe to bad parents in that day! Woe to disobedient children in that day! Woe to the drunken, the impure, the thieves, the liars, the false witnesses, the apostates in that day! Ah! then, how do you do. Christian, Catholic? How are you, baptized of God? How is your health, the health of your soul? Are you in the fever of sin? Do you see upon your souls great livid plague-spots of mortal offences against the Almighty? Then tremble, for you have to face the God "whose eyes are brighter than the noonday sun"! He will ask: "How are you? What mean these stains upon your soul? Where is the white garment that I gave you? Where is my image and likeness?" Woe to every one who cannot answer these questions; for to be unable to answer means to be unable to go to heaven, means that you will be found guilty by the Eternal Judge and condemned to everlasting death. Let, then, these two questions ring in your ears: Where are you going? How are you in God's sight? You are going to judgment. Are you in a fit state to appear there? Brethren, it will be an awful day, that day of judgment, even for the just. "Where, then, shall the unjust and the sinner appear?" Look up to the heavens as you leave this church. The clouds are not yet riven. The sun is not yet darkened. Oh! then there is yet time. There is a moment's lull before the storm breaks; a second's pause before the trumpet sounds. But the day of judgment will come, for Jesus Christ has told us so, and, as he says: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon II.
Brethren: Know that it is now the hour
for us to rise from sleep.
—Romans xiii. 11.
To-day, my dear brethren, is the New Year's Day of the Catholic Church. Today she begins again that round of seasons and festivals which will never cease to be repeated till that day comes of which this season of Advent reminds us—that day in which, as St. Peter tells us, "the heavens shall pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with heat, and the earth and the works which are in it shall be burnt up"; that day when He who died for us on the cross shall come to judge the living and the dead.
The church begins her year with Advent, because this season represents principally, not that last coming of our Lord of which I have just spoken, but rather that time which went before his first coming—that long period of several thousand years, answering to the four weeks of this season, with which the world's history began, and in which it was waiting for the promise of redemption to be fulfilled. But there is another very good reason for each one of us to begin our own new year now, and it is one of the reasons why the second advent of Christ is presented to our minds by the church, as well as his first, at this time.
It is that we may now make that serious examination of our past life, and those firm resolutions for the future, that we can best make at the beginning of a new year, when we feel most strongly that one more of those short cycles by which our life is measured has gone for ever beyond our reach, and brought us so much nearer not only to the day of general judgment, but also to that more imminent one in which each one of us shall stand alone before the throne of God to give an account of the use which we have made of these precious years which he has given us, and which are passing so rapidly away.
This new year's day of the church is a time, then, above all others in which we should make those resolutions without which we cannot be saved.
It is said that hell is paved with good intentions; it may with equal truth be said that heaven is paved with good resolutions. What is the difference between the two? An intention is a purpose the carrying out of which is put off till some other time; a resolution is one which is carried out now. So, as the putting off of our good purposes is the sure way to lose our souls, the carrying them out at once is the means absolutely necessary to salvation and certain to secure it.
No one ever saved his soul without some time or other making a resolution to keep the law of God, and going to work at once to carry it out, and persevering in it to the end of life, Such a resolution has got to be made at some time, and now is the time to make it.
Look back, then, my brethren, on this first day of the new year, at the one which has just gone never to return, and see if you are satisfied with the way you have spent it. Ask yourselves if you have not been trifling away enough of the short time which was given you to be spent in the service of God, and if there is any too much left to make some recompense to him for all that he has done for you; and say, with the church in the Epistle of this Sunday, that now it is indeed the hour to rise from sleep, from this fatal sleep of indifference and ingratitude, and go to work in real earnest on the business of your salvation, and not rest again till the time for rest has come. God will surely give that eternal rest to those who labor during life, but he has not promised it to sluggards and traitors, as those certainly are who care only for themselves and not for him, and who expect their reward without doing anything to deserve such a favor at his hands.
Sermon III.
Heaven and earth shall pass away.
—St. Luke xxi. 33.
By the word "heaven" our Lord does not mean that heaven to which we shall be admitted if we are faithful, for that, as we know, is eternal. No; he means some part of the visible heavens with which our earth is immediately connected. The earth, and to some extent the visible heaven also, we do not know how, will pass away as to their present state—they will be so changed that it may be said that the old earth and the old heaven have been destroyed.
It is to remind us of this second coming, or advent, of our Lord, when the world and all that it contains shall pass away, as well as of his first coming, which we are to celebrate at Christmas, that the church keeps this season on which we have just entered, and calls it by this name of Advent.
This truth, that the heavens and earth which we see shall pass away, or be destroyed, is a matter of faith. We cannot, probably, prove by science that this must take place, certainly not that such a change is so near as the Scriptures seem to indicate; but we do not need the light of faith to show us that they shall pass away from us, and that, perhaps, very soon. In a few years—perhaps in a few months or days—we shall close our eyes in death, and the heavens and earth which we now see shall disappear from our sight for ever. There are two lessons which we may learn from this evident and certain truth, and which the church wishes us to consider at this time.
The first is that the pleasures of this world are so fleeting and uncertain that it is not worth while for us to take any pains to secure them. We can only hold them for a little while at the most; they are like the treasures which one sometimes possesses in a dream and which melt away in the hands on waking. A moment after death it will make no difference to us whether we have had them or not; they will seem to have been possessed only as in a dream when we wake to the reality of the next world. "They have slept their sleep," says the Psalmist, "and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands." The life of one who makes pleasure his object is like a sleep; and, as St. Paul warns us in the Epistle of to-day, "it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed."
Our real salvation, the only life which is really worth enjoying, is coming very soon. This life is only a season of Advent to prepare for that eternal festival to which we have been invited by the King of kings.
So, as our first conclusion is that it is not worth while to seek for the pleasures of this life, our second is that it is not a matter for great grief if we have pain and affliction in it. One would not mind suffering for a day, or even for a week, if the rest of only this short mortal life was to be passed in uninterrupted enjoyment. So, if it be the will of God, perhaps we can manage to pass a few years in pain and sorrow, with the promise, which will not fail us, of happiness that shall be eternal.
Especially when we remember that pain and sorrow in this life make that promise all the more sure. "Blessed are ye poor," says our Lord, "for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for ye shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh. … Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." "Behold," he says, "I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his works." Let this, then, be our care, not to seek pleasure nor to avoid pain which shall soon pass away, but so to live that we shall be anxious to meet him and have a well-grounded hope of receiving that reward; that when he says, "Surely I come quickly," we may be able to answer with the apostle, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus." For that life is the best in which one is most willing and ready to die; in which one hears most gladly that this heaven and this earth shall pass away.
Second Sunday of Advent
Epistle.
Romans xv. 4-13.
Brethren:
What things soever were written, were written for our instruction; that through patience and the comfort of the Scriptures, we might have hope. Now the God of patience and of comfort grant you to be of one mind one towards another, according to Jesus Christ: that with one mind, and with one mouth, you may glorify God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive one another, as Christ also hath received you unto the honor of God. For I say that Christ Jesus was minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made to the fathers. But that the Gentiles are to glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: Therefore will I confess to thee, O Lord, among the Gentiles, and will sing to thy name. And again he saith: Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again: Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and magnify him, all ye people. And again Isaias saith: There shall be a root of Jesse; and he that shall rise up to rule the Gentiles, in him the Gentiles shall hope. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing: that you may abound in hope, and in the power of the Holy Ghost.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xi. 2-10.
At that time: When John had heard in prison the works of Christ, sending two of his disciples he said to him: Art thou he that art to come, or look we for another? And Jesus making answer said to them: Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in me. And when they went their way, Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: What went you out into the desert to see? a reed shaken with the wind? But what went you out to see? a man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are clothed in soft garments are in the houses of kings. But what went you out to see? a prophet? yea, I tell you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my Angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.
Sermon IV.
Behold, I send my Angel before thy face.
—St. Matthew xi. 10.
I suppose, brethren, among the first things you remember hearing of in your childhood were "the angels of God" or, as people often say, "the angels of God in heaven." You remember, I am sure, how pleased you were to look at their pictures, with sweet faces and large, outstretched wings, and how glad you were when you were told that one of those guardian spirits was always by your side. But this morning I want to speak to you, not of the "angels of God in heaven," but of the angels of God on earth. And who are they? you will ask. Are they spirits? Have they wings like the angels we saw years ago in the picture-book? No, they have not wings; they are not pure spirits; they are men, women, and children just like ourselves. The word "angel" means a messenger, one who is sent with tidings. Thus St. John Baptist (who was sent to tell the world that Jesus Christ was coming) is called in to-day's Gospel "an angel"—that is, a messenger from God. Now, brethren, all of us ought to be messengers of God to our neighbor and to the world. We are all Catholics, have all been called to know the true faith, and we have all been taught how to observe God's moral law. First, then, we Catholics ought to be the angels of God on earth to those who are not Catholics. We ought to do our best in our own little circle to spread the knowledge of our holy religion. By our lives we ought to show the world that the Catholic religion makes us better citizens, better and more honest men of business, and truer lovers of our neighbors and mankind. Many of you "live out" at service in Protestant or infidel families; many of you are working for non-Catholic employers; many are employed in factories, surrounded by those who belong to false religions or who have no religion at all. Oh! what chances such have to be angels of God on earth. You can show by your fidelity to work, by your strict honesty, by your modest behavior, that you belong to a religion which comes from God. By a seasonable word, by the loan of a book, by showing your horror of cursing and swearing and of bad talk, you would be doing God's work, and showing to those outside the church that there is something in your belief which makes you good. Have you done this? Have you not, on the contrary, often scandalized our non-Catholic friends by your bad example, your dishonesty, your exhibitions of temper, your outbursts of blasphemy, and your consent to what was impure? Ah! when you do these things you are the angels of the devil on earth. You are doing his work and bearing his message. Again, to your own Catholic brethren and to your own family you can be angels of God on earth! Have you got a scandalous neighbor, a negligent father or mother, a wicked child, a profligate husband or son? Oh! be angels of God to these unfortunate ones. By your good example, your patience in affliction, by your charity and forbearance, your strict attention to your religious duties, and, in short, by a really good life, you will be able to "prepare the way of the Lord." You will "go before his face" to prepare the way for his graces. Don't let it be said by those who are not good Catholics, "I don't see that those who go to their duties are any better than I am." Show them that you are better, and that it is religion that makes you so. "Example is better than precept." Actions speak louder than words. Oh! then be angels of God to those outside the church, be angels of God to your children, to your parents, to your friends and neighbors. Once there was a child who had been very badly brought up by his parents. He went to church by chance one day, and heard an instruction on the laws of the church. When he came home, although it was Friday, there was meat for dinner. The boy would not eat it. Furious at this, his bad parents beat him; but the child remained firm, till at last, touched by his example, the parents converted themselves and lived as good Catholics. That boy was an angel of God on earth. "Go ye and do in like manner," and then our Lord Jesus Christ, the "Angel of the great covenant," will summon you at death to take your place among his holy angels, with whom you shall be glorified and chant his praises for ever and ever.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon V.
He that is not with me
is against me.
—St. Matthew xii. 30.
There are many Christians who do not seem to know that they are Christians. They do not seem to realize what the word Christian means; or, if they do, they do not act as if they did. They do not understand, if we are to judge them by their actions, that it is the name of one of the two great parties in this world—the party of Christ and that of Anti-christ.
The issues between these two parties are more important than those between any others that ever have been or ever will be; for they are questions not only of time but of eternity. And the principles of these parties are so different that no compromise between them is possible. They are fighting with each other for the possession of the world, and neither will be satisfied till complete victory is gained—that is, till the other ceases to be. Every one has got to belong to one of these parties. It is impossible for any one to remain neutral in this contest and a mere spectator of it. Every one has got to be on one side or the other. This is what our Lord himself says: "He that is not with me is against me."
Every one, then, that does not wish to be on the devil's side has got to be on that of Christ. But this is just what a great many of you, my dear friends, do not, I am afraid, see so clearly as you should. You often try, I fear, to stand off and be on neither side when duty requires you to come out boldly on the side to which you belong.
Perhaps, for instance, you are compelled to associate daily with persons—either infidels, Protestants, or bad Catholics—whose mouths are full of impious or impure talk, which they expect you to agree with or join in. They enjoy this filth and profanity, and pretend to think their foul and blasphemous jests very funny, which they very seldom are; and they expect you to laugh at them, as they themselves do.
Now, I do not say that you are bound each and every time to reprove these sins, but I do say that you are sometimes. You cannot expect not to be counted among these people, and justly so counted, too, unless you say or do enough in some way to show plainly on what side you are. Do not, then, keep your faith and piety shut up in your prayer-books, only to be brought out when you are on your knees before God and no one by who will not admire you for them. No; bring them out plainly in the sight of his enemies, and let them see that you are really in earnest—that you really and truly believe that you have got a soul to save, and that your professions are not at all a pretence.
For, if you do not do this, you will be carried over to the other side in spite of yourself. If you do not reprove and separate yourself from what is sinful, you will join in it. Your own experience ought to show you that. Your effort to be neither the one thing nor the other, neither God's servant nor the devil's, always has been in vain and always will be. For the Eternal Truth has said, "He that is not with me is against me."
Yes, my brethren, it is certain that if you will not confess Christ boldly and openly before men; if you will not acknowledge that his faith and his morals are yours also; if you will not bravely and generously take his part in the great battle which he is fighting in this world, and in which he has enlisted you to fight under him; but if, on the other hand, you sneak off into a corner and stay there as long as his enemies are in sight, he will not count you as his servants or friends, and you will not be so, either in this world or in the world to come. "He that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven." And if you will not confess him, you must deny him; there is no middle course.
Be not, then, runaways, but brave soldiers in the conflict to which you are called. The enemies of Christ are not afraid to let their principles be known; if you would imitate their example the tables would be turned. They would be ashamed of themselves, if you would not be; and it is they who ought to be ashamed, not you. Moreover, God would get the glory which belongs to him, and if you will not give it to him you cannot expect him to save your mean and cowardly souls.
Sermon VI.
What went you out into the desert to see?
a reed shaken with the wind?
—St. Matthew xi. 8.
—usccb.org/bible: St. Matthew xi. 7
In these words, my dear brethren, our Lord holds up the character of his great precursor, St. John Baptist, as a model for the imitation of his disciples, and also for our imitation. "St. John is not like a reed shaken with the wind; see that you follow his example"—that is the meaning and the lesson of this question asked by our Lord.
St. John, indeed, was not like a reed shaken with the wind. He was rather like a massive column of stone, which is not moved a hair's-breadth from its place by the most furious storms. He was firm and unyielding to all the assaults of temptation. Born free from original sin, he persevered without actual sin through the whole of his glorious life.
He has set us a magnificent example of firmness and fortitude—virtues in which Christians of the present day are wofully wanting. There is a great deal of piety nowadays, but it seems often to be of a very superficial kind. It looks well, but it does not wear well. Its outside is very promising, but there Is something wanting inside, and that is a backbone. It does very well in the sheltered atmosphere of the church, but it breaks down when it is taken out of doors into the world.
The assaults it seems to be weakest against are those which come from without. It stands well against interior temptations, on the whole, but it quails before even a word spoken against it. It is dreadfully afraid of what people will say. It is very much under the power of false shame and what is called human respect. It is a most lamentable sight to see people who are really in their hearts and principles thoroughly good Christians, and who might be the instruments in God's hands of a great deal of good both for his glory and the salvation of others, so terribly under the influence of human respect that their example counts almost for nothing, or perhaps is even a scandal and a discouragement to those around them. They have a great deal of faith, and they really want to avoid sin, but they do not seem to want anybody to know that such is the case. One would perhaps, think they were very humble and did not want anybody to know how good they are—and I have no doubt that they do not want some people, at any rate, to think that they are good; but it is not on account of humility, but on account of fear. They are afraid of what these people will say; they tremble at the slightest breath. They are very different from St. John, and very much like reeds shaken by the wind; and it requires only a very light wind to shake them, considering the strength they ought to have.
There are Catholics, for instance—and plenty of them, to the glory of our faith be it said!—who have a great horror of the dreadful sin of impurity, and would by no means of their own accord commit any offence of this kind. But their daily occupations lead them among others who have very different ideas and habits, or who, perhaps, are sinning wilfully against the clearest light. These wretched people are continually bandying jests or telling stories which show the corruption of their minds. Out of the abundance of their hearts their mouths are always speaking; they are bad trees, and all the time bringing forth bad fruit. Well, do our good Christians show any disgust for these things? Oh! no; they will say they cannot help laughing at them. I am afraid they are deceiving themselves; they could help it, if they dared to help it. They would seldom or never laugh if such foul things occurred to their own mind; they would be too much afraid of God. But now their fear of God disappears before their fear of man.
Or these good Christians meet with people who, either through ignorance or malice, ridicule and blaspheme the Catholic Church and the true faith. Perhaps these people only need to find some Catholic who will stand up boldly for his religion. If any one would only confess Christ before them it might be the beginning of their conversion. But, instead of coming out fearlessly for the truth, our good Christians are afraid of being thought foolish or priest-ridden; and if they acknowledge that they are Catholics at all, it is only to compromise or deny what they in their hearts believe, so that people may think that they are pretty good Protestants after all.
These instances will suffice to show what I mean. You can find plenty of others yourselves. Do so, and resolve, for the sake of God our Saviour and for the glory of his name, to put an end to this despicable cowardice, if you have been guilty of it. Catholic faith and morals are things to glory in, not to be ashamed of. And, besides, there is really nothing to fear. What you are afraid of is only like the wind which passes by; in their hearts even the wicked will honor and hold in everlasting remembrance the true and faithful servants of God.
Third Sunday of Advent
Epistle.
Philippians iv. 4-7.
Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: The Lord is nigh. Be not solicitous about anything: but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Gospel.
St. John i. 19-28.
At that time:
The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and levites to John, to ask him: Who art thou? And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ. And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered: No. They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? what sayest thou of thyself? He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias. And they that were sent, were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
Sermon VII.
Let your modesty be known to all men.
—Philippians iv. 5.
To-day, brethren, is called Gaudete, or Rejoicing Sunday, and is intended by the church as a little letup, as the people say, on the solemn season of Advent. To-day flowers deck the altars; at the High Mass the dalmatic, the deacon's vestment of joy, which has not been used for two Sundays, is again assumed. Where possible, and where the church is rich enough to buy them, rose-colored vestments should be worn. The first words of the Mass are, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice." It is just as if the church said to you all: "Be glad and joyful; make yourselves as happy as you can." "Ah!" some of you will say, "that is just the doctrine for us; that is just what we like." Do not be too fast, my friends. Listen to what comes next. "Rejoice," says the church; but in that rejoicing, in that striving to live happily, "let your modesty be known to all men." So, then, the Christian is to be a happy man, but he is also to be a modest man—a man of simple or moderate habits. My friends, does not the shoe pinch you a little? Do you not see the cap gradually taking a form that will fit some of your heads? You men, when you are together on some festive occasion—when you have a gala-day of one kind or another—you rejoice then, it is true, but is your modesty known to all men? Have you not often aped the manners and swagger of the worldly-minded? Have you not listened to indecent stories? Have you not told some such? Oh! what scandal you give when you do these things. Then your immodesty is known to all men. You are going with the crowd. You are following the multitude to do evil. You are walking in the wide path that leadeth unto perdition. You unfortunate drunkards that totter as you walk, who fall in the gutter and by the wayside, is your modesty known to all men? No, your shame is known to all men, and the shame of all who belong to you. Again, what think you of the woman who, because it is the fashion, goes out to balls indecently and improperly dressed—who is not covered as becomes a Christian matron or maiden, but is so clad as to bring the blush of lust to the face of the brazen, and of shame to that of the pure in heart; or of those who go to all sort of plays and spectacles, who encourage the most questionable of dances and ballets, and bring up their children in the same spirit? Is their modesty known to all men? My friends, to find the modesty of such people would be like searching for a needle in a bundle of hay. You would never find it. You, too, who spend every cent you have upon your backs, who have almost all your hard earnings invested in dry goods and millinery, who come to church tricked out in finery which belongs neither to your state nor calling, offend also against Christian moderation and modesty. Once there was an old jackdaw who dressed himself up in peacock's feathers; then off he went among the peacocks and tried to pass for one of them. But these splendid birds soon found him out and pecked him almost to death. My friends, when you deck yourselves out in clothing, in fashions which are beyond your means, unsuited to your calling as a Christian, unfit for your state in life, and fit, indeed, for none but the vain people of the world, what are you? Nothing but jackdaws in peacock's feathers. Oh! then don't make yourself ridiculous. Follow the advice of St. Paul: "Let your modesty be known to all men." These are the days of immodesty, of wasteful extravagance, of extreme vanity. Oh! then set your faces against this running tide of worldliness. Be modest, speak modestly, dress modestly, enjoy yourselves modestly. Don't dress up your children luxuriously, instilling into their minds even in childhood the spirit of vanity. Don't put on too much style or too many airs. Be happy, rejoice always, but be modest, be simple. "Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is nigh. For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon VIII.
There hath stood One in the midst of you,
whom you know not.
—St. John i. 26.
St. John spoke these words, as the Gospel tells us, not to his disciples, but to those who had been sent from Jerusalem to question him on his mission, to ask him what business he had to preach and to baptize. It may be that both those who were sent and those who sent them had no real desire to know if he were indeed a prophet, but were merely trying to make him say something which could be used against him—to set a trap for him, like those which they afterward tried to set for our Divine Lord—since his language to them certainly seems like a rebuke.
For who was this One who had stood in their midst, and whom they had not known? It was our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the Son of God, the Word made flesh. He had been living in their midst since his childhood, but they had not known him. Even those in his own town of Nazareth, who had often met him in their streets, who had often seen him and spoken to him, had passed him by as if he was no more than one of themselves, as if he were only a poor carpenter's boy.
Now, we, my dear brethren, are something like these Jews at that time. For during our lives there has stood One also in the midst of us, whom we have not known. And it is the same One whom the thoughtless and the sinful passed in the streets of Nazareth, and whom they afterward crucified in Jerusalem. The King of Glory is in our midst at this moment; he who dwells in the tabernacle of the altar is indeed God made man.
It is true for us as well as for them that we cannot see that it is he with our bodily eyes; but there is much more to point him out to us than there was to them. The church has taken care that we shall not pass him by unnoticed; all the worship of the sanctuary is directed to his throne—that poor throne in our midst which he has come down from heaven to occupy. It is because of him that the altar blazes with candles and is adorned with flowers, and that the clouds of incense rise; it is to him that we bend the knee; all the splendid ceremonial of the Catholic religion is only our poor effort to worthily honor Him who has condescended to dwell among us under the sacramental veils.
And yet, in spite of all the care which his church has taken, do we not too often behave as the Jews of his own time had a better excuse for behaving? A better excuse, I say, for they needed a special light to recognize him; but all we need is faith, and that we all have. But one would think that his people had no faith, to see the way in which they sometimes conduct themselves in his most holy presence.
It would seem as if a Christian had not faith in that Real Presence when you see him pretend, as it were, to reverence the altar by a sort of half-genuflection, very quickly made, which looks more like a sign of disrespect than of adoration. What would you think if you should see the priest, when saying Mass, making his genuflections in this way? Well, you ought to do the same as he. Our Lord is as really before you as before him; and you are not more exalted in your station than the priest, that you can afford to treat God more familiarly. Bring the knee to the floor slowly and reverently when you pass the high altar, or any other altar, while the Blessed Sacrament is on it. And when our Lord passes in procession, or in any other way, through the church, kneel down and pray; do not stand or sit and stare about.
And remember, too, that he is as really present when he goes outside the church as when he remains in it. The state of things in this country requires us to carry him to the sick without the solemnity which should be observed; but he is as truly in your houses when he comes to give himself to you there as if the priest brought him with lights and sacred vestments, with the sound of the bell, and with a train of attendants to do him honor. Imagine what you would do if he should come visibly at the side of the priest, with that Face with which you are so familiar, with glory shining round him, and with the prints of the nails in his hands and feet; and do the same now. Do not stand around and talk to the priest as if he had come for a social visit; kneel down as soon as he enters the room, if the Blessed Sacrament is with him. And do not kneel leaning on a chair, with your backs to our Lord; that is a strange way to show respect for him.
If you will only think who it is that stands in the midst of you, you will find out many other things which I have not time to suggest. It is not really so much want of faith as want of thought that makes people behave to our Lord in the irreverent and almost insulting way that they sometimes do. Think, then, about this matter, and you will need no rubrics to teach you what to do in the presence of Him whom you really know and love.
Sermon IX.
I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make straight the way of the Lord.
—St. John i. 23.
Whenever, my dear brethren, men are going to a place they always ask the way. They also make up their minds as to which is the long way, which the short way, which the most convenient and easiest way. They do this with reference to the places to which they go in this world. Now, we are all going to heaven; at least, each one of us will say, I hope I am going there. We know there are many places to which we can go in this world, and many different ways by which we can get to them. There are also many places in heaven, but there is but one way of getting to any one, even to the least of them.
Which is that way? Some will say it is the good way, or the way of the good man. Another will say it is attending to your duties, to your church. Yet another will say it is by keeping away from mortal sin. Each answer is a good one, but neither one brings out the important point. The true answer, and the first one to be given, is that it is God's way—the way of the Lord. Yes, my dear brethren, it is the very way, the one and only way, that our Lord Jesus Christ has travelled before us. Every step he took along this path was marked by the precious Blood from his own veins. It is the way of the cross, of sacrifice, of penance and mortification.
Are we all going this way? Is each one of us now here present moving daily and hourly on this path? It is almost useless to ask this question, for I know many, very many indeed, will answer. No! It is indeed a sad truth that most people, most even of our Catholic people, are not going this way.
But why is this? One reason is because they do not try, sincerely and earnestly, to fix in the mind that this is the only condition upon which any soul can be saved. For our Lord himself declares that unless a man take up his cross daily and follow him he cannot be his disciple. They do not realize that there is an absolute necessity, an unchangeable law in this assertion. God has said it, and will not unsay it. Yet how quickly will men stop a business or a transaction that will surely cause them to lose their money! How quickly will they turn from a road that is sure to lead to death! They realize the necessity when property and life are to be lost; but they will not see or feel the same necessity when their souls and eternal life are most certainly to be forever lost.
Again, they are discouraged because the way is hard and difficult. Show me any way in life not hard and difficult. Ask the father, the mother, the single man, the married man. Ask the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the active business man, the idle and slothful man, as well as the common tramp. All have the same answer—that life is a hard road any way you may take it.
Man, then, is reduced to the necessity of suffering and mortification. The secret of this is that all men are under sin, all poisoned by it. The only remedy is to cure ourselves, to get rid of this poison. The way of the Lord is the way given us to go in order to find this cure. All along this way we find the remedy at every turn. It is found in a good confession, in true penance and mortification, in the sacrament of the altar, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is intended to nourish our souls and to act against this terrible poison.
Make straight, then, the way of the Lord. Do not be terrified by trouble, pain, and difficulties of any kind. Do not permit the devil to make you think it will always last, always be the same. These difficulties become less and less by degrees. They wear away, as it were, or God so fills the soul with strength and patience that it is the same in the end. We then bear easily by the grace of God that which was so troublesome at first.
Set to work, then, at once. Let your souls be ready for the holy Feast of Christmas. Remember that we must celebrate that as Christians ought to do. Gratitude, love, Christian manliness, and honor require that all shall celebrate the birthday of a suffering God in such a manner as to make him feel he is truly remembered and honored. The least one can do, then, is to begin to make straight the way of the Lord by cleansing the soul of all mortal sin and by making a good Christmas communion. That feast, you know, is a time when great graces are given to the sincere soul. Do not, then, for the sake of your own soul, fail to keep Christmas day as a true Catholic should keep it.
Fourth Sunday of Advent.
Epistle.
1 Corinthians iv. 1-5.
Brethren:
Let a man so look upon us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers, that a man be found faithful. But as to me it is a thing of the least account to be judged by you, or by human judgment: but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet in this am I not justified: but he that judgeth me, is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise from God.
Gospel.
St. Luke iii. 1-6.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina, under the high-priests Annas and Caiphas: the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins: as it is written in the book of the words of Isaias the prophet: A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled: and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
Sermon X.
Christmas Eve.
For he shall save his people from their sins.
—St. Matthew i. 21.
To be saved, dear brethren, always supposes a previous danger. Thus, we say saved from drowning, saved from a fire, saved from a terrible accident. Also it supposes a person or thing that saves. Now, dear friends, we are met together here to-day, and it is Christmas Eve. The church tells us in the holy Gospel that Jesus Christ came to save his people. Let us think, then, for a few moments what danger it was that he came to save us from, and who he was who came to act the part of Saviour. The danger from which we were to be saved was the danger of sin. Sin is dangerous in the extreme. It is more dangerous than the most terrible disease, more perilous than the cholera or the plague. These things only kill the body; mortal sin kills the soul. If Jesus Christ had not redeemed us sin would have destroyed us. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. Sin spread with the awful swiftness of an epidemic. It threatened to descend upon mankind and to bury everything beneath the ruins of everlasting death. Then, when poor human nature seemed about to be overwhelmed, Jesus came and saved it, washed us in his precious Blood, and snatched the uplifted sword from the hand of the enemy. Yes, the danger was great, but we were saved from it. But a little while ago we read in the papers of an awful calamity—the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre. We can imagine how frightful was the scene of hundreds of human creatures fighting for life—the all too narrow door before them, the crying multitude around them, the scathing, ruthless flames behind them. What would we think of one who, saved from such a place, should afterwards make light of the danger and care nothing for the one who saved him? O brethren! it was not from the danger of earthly fire, from the peril of blazing rafters, falling beams, and a trampling multitude, that Christ saved you and me. 'Twas from the fire of hell that he snatched us. 'Twas from the danger, the all-surrounding danger, of sin. And what have we done, many of us? We have turned back, let go the hand that held us, and gone back into the appalling peril. Because men do not see a material danger they will not believe there is any. Dear friends, there is danger. You that have gone back into the ways of sin, you that are in mortal sin now, at this moment—you are in an awful danger. Save your lives, then; take the hand held out to you or you are lost! Brethren, some of those poor creatures who perished in the Brooklyn fire were so charred, so burnt that they could not be recognized. Take care that you do not become so disfigured by sin that at the last day God will say to you: "I know ye not."
Who saved us from the awful peril? It was Jesus Christ, Jesus the Son of God, Jesus the Babe of Bethlehem. In the morning it will be Christmas day. The church will bid you come to the crib. Will you still persist in rejecting the Saviour? You know who he is. You know he is God. You know he is full of love and full of power—full of love for your souls, full of power to rescue you from the danger in which you stood. Come to him then, and no matter how black or how many your sins may be, you will know that "he shall save his people from their sins." Brethren, I doubt not that many of you mourn the loss of some dear ones. Within the last few years some one has gone from the fireside, some sweet voice has been stilled for ever. Perhaps a father or a tender, beloved mother has gone home to rest with God—gone in the peace of Christ to their reward. 'Tis Christmas Eve in heaven to-day, and oh! don't you think they are waiting for you—praying for you that you may be there with them? Don't disappoint them. Don't let them wait in vain. Flee from sin, the danger that threatens to separate you from them for ever. Do not disappoint Jesus and Mary and Joseph. Do not spend this holy time in sin. Don't go back into the danger. Keep Christmas like a Christian. Then, brethren, in the morning, the bright morning of eternity, the Christmas morning of heaven, we shall see His glory. We shall be united to Jesus and our dear ones who have gone before. We shall hear them and the white-winged angels who circle around the throne, singing aloud: "Glory be to Jesus Christ the Babe of Bethlehem, for he hath saved his people from their sins!"
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XI.
Preaching the baptism of penance
for the remission of sins.
—St. Luke iii. 3.
St. John Baptist certainly seems, from what we read about him in the Gospels, to have been quite a stern and uncompromising preacher. He did not come with a coach and four to take people to heaven. He had but one message for every one, high and low, rich and poor; and that message was: "Repent of your sins; do penance for them, and bring forth fruits worthy of penance. Cease to do evil, learn to do good; get rid of your bad habits, and put good ones in their place. If you have wronged any one, make restitution for it; and, moreover, practise charity even to those whom you have not wronged. These things you must do; there is no other way possible in which you can flee from the wrath to come."
This was St. John's doctrine, everybody must acknowledge. But some people seem to think that our Lord, when he came, offered salvation to sinners on somewhat easier terms than these. This, however, is a great mistake. There never has been, is not, and never will be any way for a sinner to be saved except by doing penance. Our Saviour did, indeed, by his coming make salvation easier; but how was it that he did so? It was not by offering it on any other terms than these, but by making it easier for men to comply with these terms. He did not free us from the obligation of doing penance, but gave us more abundant grace that we might be better able to do penance. That is plain enough to every one who will stop and think.
And yet some Christians seem to imagine that it is enough to be a Catholic, to be quite sure of one's salvation. Practically, at least, they hold the heresy which the devil brought in at the time of the so-called Reformation, and which before that time hardly any one had dared to put in words—that a man may be justified by faith without good works. They say to themselves the very thing which St. John warned the Jews not to say: "We have Abraham for our father." They say to themselves: "We are Catholics; we are children of the holy church; all we have to do is to remain so (and, thank God! we have not the least idea of being anything else), and then to receive the rites of our church when we come to die, and we will be as sure of going to heaven as a child which has just been baptized."
But, my friends, this is a fatal delusion. Depend upon it, the devil is glad when he sees men or women with this notion in their heads, for he has got good hopes of having them with him in hell. He knows well what such people do not seem to know: that it is not enough to be a Catholic, but that one must also be a good Catholic, if he is to be saved. He knows as well as St. John that penance is necessary now, as it always has been; but he takes good care not to preach what he knows.
And what is penance? Is it a mere confession that we are sinners? No, by no means. If it were, every one would be a penitent who was not a fool, for every one who has common sense must acknowledge that he has sinned. Nor is it a mere acknowledgment that sin is a bad thing, and a wish that we had not committed it, and that God had given us more grace that we might not have done so. No, it is a real and hearty sorrow for it, with a conviction that we might have avoided it, and that the fault was not with God, who gave us plenty of grace to avoid it, but with ourselves, who did not make use of the grace which he gave. And following from this, as a matter of course, is a firm conviction that we can avoid it for the future, and a firm determination to do so. And following from this, also as a matter of course, is a real change in our lives, a real giving up of sin. That is the only certain mark of a true repentance and of a good confession—that a man stops committing mortal sin. The priest may indeed give absolution to one who continues to fall; but it is with the gravest fears that the sentence which he pronounces is not confirmed by Him who alone has power to forgive.
I said in the beginning that salvation was easier than before our Lord came, because we have now more grace to help our weakness. But that only makes penance the more necessary. "A man making void the law of Moses," says St. Paul, "died, without any mercy, under two or three witnesses; how much more, do you think, he deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the Spirit of grace?" Be warned, then, in time; repent indeed, and change your lives. Make not only a confession but a good confession at this holy time, and cease, for the love of God, to offend him any more.
Sermon XIL.
Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
—St. Luke iii. 4.
Before our Blessed Lord came into public notice his missionary, St. John Baptist, appeared in the wilderness preaching penance, and good works worthy of penance, to the people, who were in the darkness and bondage of sin. He cried out in a loud, thrilling voice; "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." So the church on the last Sunday of Advent, the first before Christmas, cries out to those who expect to meet our Lord on Christmas and worship him on that glorious feast: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." To the tepid and lukewarm she cries out: "Come away from your darling venial sins; fill up your empty hearts to the brim with the overflowing love and grace of God; be more generous in his worship and service." To the young: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Give me your heart while you are young and tender; do not be allured by the empty joys and false pleasures of the world; avoid those dangerous occasions of sin that are about to entice you, and keep your youth innocent and pure, that you may see the evening of your life in joy, and not in bitter remorse.
To the old: Forget the past; if it has been bad, ask pardon and do penance; if good, preserve it and live in grace and fervor, so that when you are near the end of your pilgrimage here you may attain to the great destiny for which you have been created.
To the sinner—to the one in mortal sin; the one who has not had a happy Christmas for many a year, for the sinner has no chance to have part in the real joy of Christmas; to the sinner who has been exalted with pride and worldly pleasure, who has been in the valley of impurity, and wilful neglect, and cold indifference—oh! to you there is a voice terrible and irresistible: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Prepare it by prayer for grace; warm your heart by gratitude and love; fall on your knees at the foot of the cross in the confessional; have your heart purified by the bitter waters of penance, and you will indeed have a happy Christmas.
Then the promise: All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Yes, to know and to feel and see the pardon and peace and love of God—to have the consciousness that he is our friend, and that we have no enmity against him—is the way to see on this earth the fruits of salvation.
The poor shall see the salvation of God. O ye poor men and women who have nothing in this world but sorrow, tears, and bitter suffering! to you this coming feast of Christmas is a foretaste of the great reward that is prepared for you. God loves you. He spurned the palaces and royal robes of the Cæsars when he came on the earth, and chose a poor Virgin for his mother and a hovel for his birthplace. The poor shepherds were the first to see him, and they will be near to him in his glory. "Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of heaven." For He who was rich, for your sakes became poor.
The poor shall see the salvation of God; for He who was rich, for their sakes became poor.
The rich shall see the salvation of God; for they will be taught humility by looking into the crib at Bethlehem, and learning a lesson that they can learn nowhere else, and that will dazzle them more than their jewels, diamonds, dresses, or palaces.
So if we prepare the way of the Lord we shall finally see the salvation of God in eternity, where we shall rejoice evermore in the thought that all our preparation here to please God, by keeping the commandments, suffering, and toiling, will be rewarded by the vision of the Redeemer of all nations who washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb.
Sunday within the Octave of Christmas
Epistle.
Galatians iv. 1-7.
Brethren:
As long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all: but is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father: even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son, made of a woman, made under the law: that he might redeem those who were under the law; that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore now he is no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God.
Gospel.
St. Luke ii. 33-40.
At that time:
Joseph, and Mary the mother of Jesus, were wondering at these things, which were spoken concerning him. And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the ruin, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own soul a sword shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed. And there was a prophetess, called Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; she was far advanced in years, and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity. And she was a widow until fourscore and four years; who departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving night and day. Now she at the same hour coming in, gave praise to the Lord; and spoke of him to all that looked for the redemption of Israel. And after they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in him.
Sermon XIII.
And the Child grew, and waxed strong,
full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in him.
—St. Luke ii. 40.
Jesus Christ is our model in all things, and in the verse above quoted we see him presented as the model of youth. Your children, brethren, ought to be strong in body, wise in mind, and to have the grace of God in their hearts. Now, who is to form them after the model of Jesus Christ? It is the duty of parents. First, then, you ought to take care of the bodily wants of your children, in order that they may grow and wax strong. How often parents offend against this duty! There are some who let their children eat just what they please, who pamper their appetites, who give them all kinds of unwholesome food. Such children will never be healthy. There are others who spend all their money in drink—who leave their poor little ones at home, moaning and starving with hunger; who, through their imprudence, leave their children without food for a whole day, having squandered their earnings in all sorts of foolish and wicked pleasures. Then, too, there are those who allow their children to sit up till all hours of the night, who let them go off to heated ball-rooms, who dress them either too much or too little—who either coddle them up so that they can hardly stand a whiff of air, or else send them out to shiver with cold. No wonder that our city children are unhealthy; no wonder death sweeps them away as it does. Is it not because parents are neglectful? Look to it, then; see to the diet, the clothing, the habits of your children. Do not overtask their feeble strength by sending them too soon to work. Never permit them to form luxurious appetites. Watch over their daily lives, see that they take proper exercise; then, like the child Jesus, they will "grow and wax strong." Neglect the duty of corporal education, and we shall have a generation of sickly children and adult invalids. And if it be so necessary for parents to watch over the bodies of their children, what shall I say of the duty of watching over their minds and souls? Your children should be full of wisdom, and the grace of God should be in their hearts. Oh! when I think of the neglect of many Catholic parents in this respect I am tempted to take up the Gospel's most awful tone, and cry. Woe to you, careless parents! woe, eternal woe to you guilty fathers and mothers, who are letting your little ones run to destruction!
You make your home uncomfortable by your crossness, by your curses, by your slovenly, untidy habits. Your children, from their earliest infancy, take to the street. They hear impurity, blasphemy, and cursing. They hear words and see sights which are not fit to be mentioned here on God's altar. They keep what company they like. They learn infamous and immoral habits that destroy both body and soul. Oh! for God's sake beware, beware! Do you think they will ever be full of wisdom or have the grace of God in their hearts? Again, you are anxious enough that they shall learn to read and write, to keep books and be quick at figures, but are you sure they know their catechism or can tell a priest all they ought to know of Jesus Christ, their Saviour, or how many sacraments and commandments there are? Where are they on Sundays? Where are they when confession day comes around? Oh! these are vital questions, if you want them to be full of grace and wisdom. Some boys and girls of our day, brethren, have lost a great deal of their freshness. They smoke, they chew tobacco, they flirt, they act like little men and women. There is no innocence about them. They are revolting spectacles to men and angels. Wisdom, forsooth! They have none. Grace of God? It is destroyed. Their childhood is more like the childhood of an incarnate devil than of an incarnate God. Look, then, carefully to your children. Look to the little ones; correct them when they are babies. Don't wait till a child is in its teens; then it will be too late. Set them a good example. You know the story of the old crab, who said to her little ones, "Why do you walk sideways?" "Suppose, mother," they said, "you show us how to walk straight." Yes, if you are wicked, foolish, and sinful, your children will be like you. "Like father, like son," says the proverb. Oh! then you parents, be pure as Mary, be industrious, modest, patient like St. Joseph; then your children, like Jesus, will grow and wax strong, full of wisdom and of the grace of God.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XIV.
This Child is set for the fall,
and for the resurrection of many in Israel.
—St. Luke ii. 34.
These words of to-day's Gospel, my dear brethren, have, perhaps, a strange sound to us at this joyful Christmas season. It seems strange that holy Simeon should have said that the blessed Infant whom he held in his arms, and who had come to save the world, should have been set for the fall of many of even his own chosen people.
And yet we know that his coming was actually the occasion of the fall not merely of many but of far the greater part of that chosen people of Israel. However strange Simeon's prophecy may seem, we see that it was a true one. Up to that time the Jewish people were God's true church on earth; now almost all of them are wanderers outside of it, rejecting the true Messias whom their fathers crucified, and either vainly looking for one who will never come or ceasing in despair to look for any Messias at all. Instead of Christ's coming having been the means of salvation for them, it has really been the occasion of their fall from the grace which they had before.
But though we know that it has been so, it may still seem strange that it should have been so. One would think that the Saviour, who is our joy, our pride, and our glory, would have been theirs too, and even more theirs than ours, having been born of their own nation, a Jew of the royal line of David. But if we consider the matter a little we shall see that it was natural enough that it should turn out as it did; and we shall see, moreover, that there is a good deal of danger that, as they fell from grace when Christ was presented to them, so we may do the same.
For we shall, if we think, find out the reason why they fell, which is the reason why we may fall too. They were looking for a Saviour, indeed, but not for such a Saviour as actually came. They were looking for one who would redeem them from their subjection to the Roman Empire; who would make their nation what it had been in the days gone by; who would make them an independent and powerful people; who would give them the greatness and glory of this world. So when he did not fulfil their expectation, when he came not with earthly splendor but in poverty and suffering, they were scandalized. It was only his miracles which made them hesitate; and when he would work miracles no longer, when he would not save himself from the cruel and ignominious death of the cross, they rejected him with the horrible imprecation, "His Blood be upon us and upon our children."
Yes, my brethren, the cross was their scandal, and the cross is likely to be our scandal, too, for we have the same fallen human nature as they. "We preach Christ crucified," says St. Paul, "unto the Jews indeed a stumbling-block, and unto the Gentiles foolishness"; and it is a good deal the same with us Christians now.
We feel glad, indeed, when Christmas comes; but I am afraid that if we had been living at the time of the first Christmas we should not have been much more likely to rejoice at the birth of our Lord than his own people were at that time. Christmas now is very pleasant, with its festivity, its amusements, its giving and receiving of presents; but there is not much of the cross in this. The original Christmas, with its cold, its poverty, and its humiliation, was quite a different thing.
It is right for us to rejoice at Christmas; but perhaps we should not rejoice if we remembered that our Lord came to bring into the world the cross not only for himself but also for us too. That is the scandal for us now. We can see what the Jews could not, that it was right that he should suffer; but we cannot see that it is right that we should suffer too—that what holy Simeon said to his Blessed Mother is true for each one of us: "Thy own soul a sword shall pierce." So in this way, even now, "this Divine Child," with his cross in his hand for a Christmas present to us, "is set for the fall of many in Israel." We are too apt to shrink away when he urges us to accept it for his sake.
Indeed, we should always fall away when the cross is offered to us, had we only our own natural strength to depend upon. It is not in us, by any natural power, to bear the cross of Christ. But he offers with it the grace to bear it. And in this way he is set also for our resurrection. For it is only by the cross, by bearing the cross ourselves, that we can rise from sin, which is the only death which we really have to fear.
This Child, then, is set for our fall by our natural weakness, but for our resurrection by his supernatural grace. His will is that it should be for the latter; let his will, then, be done. Let us welcome him, then, at Christmas, but let us welcome his cross too; for it is only by bearing it ourselves that we can come to eternal life.
Sermon XV.
Behold, this Child is set …
for a sign which shall be contradicted.
—St. Luke ii. 34.
My brethren, can this be possible? It is not only possible but too true. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the sign of the love of God the Father to us, is contradicted, is resisted, by those whom he came to save.
And is it only those who are strangers to him that contradict him? No; it is those who know him well and who ought to be his friends—his own people, who call themselves Catholics, who claim to belong to his true church.
What does the word "contradict" mean? It means to speak against or in opposition to any one. It may mean, also, to act against any one, or even to reject inwardly what one say's, though not a word of contradiction be spoken. Fervent gratitude would now exclaim: "Surely no Catholic can do any of these to Jesus Christ?" Yet such there are, though perhaps many of them do not realize what they do.
Who are they? They are those who speak against and resist the teachers he has sent them; who put themselves always in opposition to the authority of the church, and even to its head, the Vicar of Christ on earth; who believe no more than they are obliged to under pain of ceasing to be Catholic at all; and who never obey except when it suits their own convenience. "Well," you will say, "I am not that kind of a Catholic." I am glad you are not; still, there are many such. But there are many more who do not go quite so far as that, and yet have a good deal of the same spirit. Perhaps you are one of them.
Who are these that I speak of? They are those who are always opposing their pastors and confessors, finding fault with and criticising their words and their actions. They reject their counsel. They even make a jest of their opinions. They think them behind the times, and not up to the spirit of the present day. They even sometimes violate the sacred confidence of the confessional, and talk thus lightly even of what has been said to them there.
Or they oppose outwardly the plans and efforts of their parish priests. They think that they know more about everything than their pastors. Unwilling to unite with them in their work for our Lord, they are discontented because others are not as rebellious and disobedient as themselves. They do not rest until they succeed in making a party against those whom they should unite to support, which destroys a great deal of the good which they have done, and prevents much which they could otherwise do. In vain do they pretend to be friends of Christ when they thwart and spoil his work. The work of the parish is as much his work as that of any other part of the church. The church makes parishes wherever she sends her priests. If the people in them oppose her she cannot do God's work.
Or if they do not resist, they despise their priests, or certainly act as if they did. They do not seem to remember that every priest, unworthy as he is, of course, still represents our Lord. If they respect him, it is as a man, not as a priest; that is, they do not respect the priest at all as such. They use him for their own convenience when their conscience requires them to hear Mass or approach the sacraments; but otherwise they treat him just as a Protestant might do. And by this bad example they lessen the respect of others for him, and weaken the authority and influence for good which he ought to have. This really is resisting and contradicting our Lord, whom he represents. Let all, then, examine themselves, and see if they are not in the habit of speaking, acting, or neglecting their duties in such a way as to oppose and contradict our divine Lord. Be humble as he was on the first Christmas day, and try to help, not to hinder, his agents in all they are obliged to do to carry out his work; for he has said to them: "He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me."
The Epiphany
Epistle.
Isaias lx. 1-6.
Arise, be enlightened, O Jerusalem: for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. Lift up thy eyes round about, and see: all these are gathered together, they are come to thee: thy sons shall come from afar, and thy daughters shall rise up at thy side. Then shalt thou see and abound, and thy heart shall wonder and be enlarged; when the multitude of the sea shall be converted to thee, the strength of the Gentiles shall come to thee. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Madian and Epha: all they from Saba shall come, bringing gold and frankincense: and showing forth praise to the Lord.
Gospel.
St. Matthew ii. 1-12.
When Jesus, therefore, was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of King Herod, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: Where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and we are come to adore him. And Herod the King hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him: and assembling together all the chief priests and Scribes of the people, he enquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him, In Bethlehem of Juda; for so it is written by the prophet: "And thou Bethlehem, the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come forth the ruler who shall rule my people Israel." Then Herod, privately calling the wise men, enquired diligently of them the time of the star's appearing to them; and sending them into Bethlehem, said: Go and search diligently after the child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him. And when they had heard the king, they went their way; and behold, the star which they had seen in the East went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And going into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down, they adored him; and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their own country.
Sermon XVL.
Rise, and take the Child and his mother,
and go into the land of Israel.
—St. Matthew ii. 20.
At this season of Christmas and Epiphany, in these days when the church brings us to the manger in which the infant Son of God was laid, it is impossible for any Christian to come to Jesus without coming to Mary also. He cannot see the one without seeing the other; and surely he will not adore the one without honoring the other also.
It is plain enough to us all at this time how inseparable Our Lady is from her Divine Son, and how we must go to her if we would gain admission to his presence. But we are apt enough to forget it at other seasons, even at times like the month of May, specially commemorated to her love and service.
We are apt to imagine devotion to her as a sort of thing apart by itself, beautiful and reasonable, it is true, but still having no necessary connection with the worship of God. We do not understand that it is impossible for us to love and adore him as he wishes unless we also honor his Blessed Mother—as impossible as it would be to have a true devotion to her and forget him. The two devotions must go hand-in-hand not only now but through all the year.
The forgetting of this is one great reason why there is so much sin in the world. One who has a true love for Mary can hardly fall into mortal sin; and that not only because she will specially pray for him and defend him, but also because he will love her Son too much to do so. And even if he should fall into mortal sin he will not stay in it long; not only because she will obtain his conversion, but also because love of God cannot be far away while that of his Blessed Mother remains.
This is also true, in its measure, of venial as well as of mortal sin, and of those imperfections which keep people from being saints. You will hear many complaining that they do not make any progress in the spiritual life; that they are always committing the same faults, and even just as often; and that they have no more piety now than they had years ago—perhaps not even so much.
Well, of course there may be many reasons for this; but one of them, perhaps, is that they do not cultivate a real, solid devotion to Our Blessed Lady. They say, no doubt, some prayers to her, and they believe fully and firmly everything about her which the church teaches; but they do not realize that they cannot acquire the love of her Divine Son unless they make his Mother theirs also; that they give themselves entirely to her as her loving children, with all their mind and strength, all their heart and soul.
What a pity it is to neglect so easy and so safe a way not only of salvation but of perfection! It will lead to everything else, and nothing else will lead anywhere without it.
Let us, then, my dear brethren, at the beginning of this new year make a good resolution—that is, to have more devotion to Our Lady than we have ever had before. Let us take, as St. Joseph did, the Child and his Mother, and set out with them from this place of our exile to the land of Israel, the true promised land above. Let us take them both, not only at Christmas but always, through our whole journey here below; not to guard and guide them, as he did—for we have not such a privilege—but that they may guard us, and guide us to the country which is waiting, not for one people only, but for the redeemed of all nations, for all the Israel of God.
Sermon XVII.
And opening their treasures,
they offered him gifts;
gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
—St. Matthew ii. 11.
To-day, my brethren, is a great day for us. It is, in one way, a greater day than Christmas itself; a day, that is, in which we have more cause for rejoicing than we had even then. For what was it which we celebrated then, and what is it which we are celebrating now? Then it was the birth of our Lord into this world, and it was indeed a thing which we had cause to rejoice over; but to-day it is something even more joyous for us than that. It is not only that he was born into this world, but that he was born for us, for us Gentiles—to save us as well as his own chosen people, the Jews. The three wise men whom that wonderful star led to his crib were not of that people, but Gentiles like ourselves; and the star which appeared to them signified the appearance to them and to us of the true Light which was hereafter to enlighten in a more wonderful way than before not only a single nation, but every man coming into this world. Appearance or manifestation is what the Greek word "epiphany" means.
It was natural, then, that they should offer gifts to their newly-born Saviour, for they could not but do so in acknowledgment of the great gift which he had given to them. But let us see what was the meaning of the gifts which they did offer—of these gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
They may be, and have been, interpreted in a great many different ways, all of which may well be true. It is commonly said that the wise men offered gold to our Lord because he is the King of heaven and earth; frankincense, because he is Almighty God; and myrrh, because he is also man, and was to suffer death for the sins of the world—myrrh being used to embalm the dead, and hence being a symbol of death. But there is another signification of these gifts which is, perhaps, more practical for us, because it suggests more directly the three gifts which each one of us must offer to him who is our Saviour as well as theirs, if we would partake of the salvation which he came to bring to us.
These three gifts are, then, understood by some to represent the three duties of almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, by which we are redeemed from the tyranny of the world, the devil, and the flesh. These last three are the great enemies of our salvation, and they must be overcome if we are to be saved. The love of the world, and of the treasures which it offers us, can only be destroyed by sacrificing those treasures for the sake of God, of his church, and of his poor; the power of the devil, who sets himself up as the god whom we are to serve and obey, can only be resisted by constant prayer, by which we draw near to the true God, and devote ourselves over and over again to his service; and the control of the flesh, with its base and degrading appetites, over our immortal souls can only be shaken off by fasting—that is, by mortification of various kinds, by persistently refusing to our bodies all dangerous and sinful indulgences, and by sometimes depriving them of pleasures which are innocent in themselves.
These three duties are practised in their perfection by those whom God calls to the religious life by the three vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. By the vow of poverty the religious sacrifices at once the goods of this world; by that of obedience he frees himself from the tyranny of the devil, subjecting himself entirely to God, whom his superiors represent; by that of chastity he renounces sensual pleasure.
But it is not religious alone who are called on to make these three gifts. The same obligation, in its due measure, rests upon each of you. Almsgiving, prayer, and mortification are duties for all Christians. It is hard to see how any one can be saved who gives no more to God and the poor than what is extorted from him, as it were, by force; who merely says prayers now and then because he is afraid to give up the practice, but who seldom or never really prays; and who indulges without scruple in everything which his flesh desires, intending to stop short of nothing but mortal sin.
Let such things, then, my brethren, not be said of us. As we kneel with the wise men this morning before the manger of our infant God, let us make with them these three gifts. Let us offer to him, as they did, with a full and willing heart, our possessions, our bodies, and our souls. This is the time for making presents, and these are the presents which he expects. Be generous, then, with him, and he will be generous with you. "Give to the Most High according to what he hath given to thee."
First Sunday after Epiphany.
Epistle.
Romans xii. 1-5.
Brethren:
I beseech you, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but to be wise unto sobriety, and according as God hath divided to every one the measure of faith. For as in one body we have many members, but all the members have not the same office: so we being many are one body in Christ, and each one members one of another in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Gospel.
St. Luke ii. 42-52.
When Jesus was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem according to the custom of the feast, and after they had fulfilled the days, when they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem; and his parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day's journey and sought him among their kinsfolks and acquaintance. And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know that I must be about the things that are my Father's? And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth: and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and age, and grace with God and men.
Sermon XVIII.
And he went down with them,
and came to Nazareth,
and was subject to them.
—St. Luke ii. 51.
Such, my dear friends, is the brief record of our Lord's boyhood and youth. When we next hear of him he has begun his mission to the world. But brief as the record is, it teaches a great lesson—the lesson of obedience. First it proclaims this lesson to children and the young generally. They ought to be subject to their parents. Is this the case? Often, we know, it is not. There are proud, rebellious, and disobedient children in many families—girls and boys who will not do what they are told; who go to places forbidden by their parents; who speak of their parents as the "old man" and the "old woman"; children who do their best to make father and mother subject to them; who think they know better than their parents, and who despise those set over them by God. So glaring has this disrespect for parents become that a witty man has said that soon the sign and title of a firm will be "Jones and Father" instead of "Jones and Son." Disobedient, proud children, I point you this morning to the little home of Nazareth. Look in, conceited, self-sufficient boys and girls. What do you see? God obedient to his creatures; Jesus with Joseph and his Mother; Jesus, "very God of very God," subject to them. There is your example. Woe to you if you do not follow it! Disobedience made hell for the devil and his angels, and disobedience, if persisted in, will make hell for you. Hell is the headquarters of disobedience, and will be the home of the disobedient and rebellious for evermore. So, then, you that are young, cut down your pride, bend the neck a little easier to the yoke. Be more like Jesus, who went home with his parents, stayed home with them, and was subject to them.
But not only to children and the young does this lesson come home; it strikes all of us. In one sense we are all children—children of holy church whose chief pastor is called the Holy Father, and whose priests are called by all "fathers." Now, then, you "children of an older growth," how have you shown your obedience? Are you very particular to keep the laws of mother church? How about fasting and abstinence? What of hearing Mass on a Sunday and of abstaining from servile work? Was your last Easter duty made? Again, how about the advice of your father confessor? Have you followed it? How do you keep the minor laws and regulations which the pastor of each particular church sees fit to make for the better ordering of his services, etc., etc.? When the priest has to rebuke you, to reprove you, how do you take it? O my friends! these are the days of disobedience and false independence, and therefore these questions are of vital importance. You must obey, if you want to be good Catholics. You must turn a deaf ear to the suggestions of worldly pride; you must be submissive to holy mother church, to our Holy Father the Pope, to the pastors and fathers set over you in God's providence. Obedience! obedience!—that must be your watchword. You must not be scaling the mountains of pride hand-in-hand with infidel and heretic, and the devil's staff for a support. You must obey the church and follow her teachings, and submit to lawful authority. As St. Paul says: "Be not wise in your own conceits. For I say, by the grace that is given me, to all that are among you, not to be more wise than it behooveth to be wise, but be wise unto sobriety. Let every soul be subject to higher powers: they that resist purchase to themselves damnation." Finally, brethren, show yourselves law-loving, obedient citizens of the country in which you live. Let the Catholic always be found on the side of order and regularity. In a word, show to your pastors and superiors, show even to our worst enemies, that you have learnt well the lesson contained in these few words: "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XIX.
Behold the Lamb of God:
behold, he who taketh away the sins of the world.
—St. John i. 29.
There are no words of the Gospel, my dear brethren, more frequently used in the church of God than these. You often hear them from the lips of the priest, but perhaps you do not remember when. They are more familiar to you in Latin than in English. The moment when they are said is that when the greatest of all gifts is about to be given to you. It is just before the giving of Holy Communion. The priest, turning to you with the ciborium in his hand, raises one of the sacred particles from it, and shows it to you, saying, Ecce Agnus Dei—which means, "Behold the Lamb of God"—ecce qui tollis peccata mundi, "Behold, he who taketh away the sins of the world."
The church has put the words in the mouth of the priest at this time, when he distributes Holy Communion, because he is then showing Christ to the faithful. And she puts them in the Gospel of today, because on this day, the octave of the great feast which we celebrated last Sunday, she commemorates what we may call our Lord's second Epiphany after his hidden life of thirty years, when St. John the Baptist, his great precursor, taking the place of the star which showed him to the wise men, showed him to those who were to become his disciples, and who were to accompany him in that ministry of three years upon which he was about to enter.
As St. John took the place of the star, so the Catholic priest now takes the place of St. John. He has now to show Christ to the world, and especially to the faithful. And St. John, in his humility and self-concealment, has set an example to him which he should try to copy, and which a good priest does try to copy. That is, he tries to show our Lord to the people and to keep himself in the background; he tries to bring the faithful to his Master and theirs, not to himself. He desires that they should see in all that he does not his own power or gifts, but the grace of God, by which alone he can do them any good; that they should not be drawn to him, but to the Lamb of God, who alone can take away their sins.
And what the good priest does you also, my brethren, should do. You should not think of the priest, but of Him whom the priest represents, and in whose power he acts. And especially should you take care to do this in those sacramental acts which the priest does more particularly in the name of God; that is, when he celebrates Holy Mass, baptizes, hears confessions, or gives Holy Communion. For, in truth, it is not he who does these things, but our Lord Jesus Christ. He, the Lamb of God, is the true priest. He who instituted the sacraments also is the one who confers them.
Remember this when you receive them. When you go to the altar-rail for Holy Communion, and when the priest holds up the sacred Host before you, saying, Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi, think not of the priest, of his virtues or his faults, but of the immaculate Lamb of God, who is coming to you, a poor sinner.
And when the priest is baptizing think not of him, but of the Holy One who, by his own baptism in the Jordan, gave water the power to wash away sin. Look at him standing by the side of the priest with infinite love and compassion, and purifying the soul which he came from heaven to save.
When you bow your head to receive absolution in the Sacrament of Penance think not of the minister of the sacrament before whom you kneel, and who is, at the best, but a sinful man, but of Him against whom you have sinned, and who is now about to forgive you once more. Think only of that loving Saviour who is both your God and your Judge—your judge now not in justice but in mercy.
And, above all, at holy Mass remember who it is that is saying Mass; who it is that is there at that altar, offering himself in sacrifice for you. Do not be criticising the priest, and thinking whether he is devout or not; his dispositions do not concern you much more than those of your neighbor who is kneeling by your side. Say to yourself, as you look at the altar, Ecce Agnus Dei ecce qui tollit peccata mundi. Behold in the midst of that throne the Lamb standing as it were slain, and fall down with the angels in adoration before him.
Yes, my brethren, Christus apparuit nobis: venite, adoremus—"Christ has appeared to us; come, let us worship him." Such are the words of the church in the Divine Office at this time. Let us, them, seek him, find him, and adore him in this holy Catholic Church, and in all that is done in it by his power and in his name.
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Feast Of The Holy Name Of Jesus.
Epistle.
Romans xii. 6-16.
Having gifts different, according to the grace that is given us, whether prophecy, according to the proportion of faith, or ministry in ministering; or he that teacheth, in teaching: he that exhorter in exhorting; he that giveth with simplicity; he that ruleth with solicitude; he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. Love without dissimulation. Hating that which is evil, adhering to that which is good; loving one another with brotherly love; in honor preventing one another; in solicitude not slothful; in spirit fervent; serving the Lord: rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; instant in prayer; communicating to the necessities of the saints; pursuing hospitality. Bless them that persecute you; bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that rejoice, weep with them that weep; being of one mind one to another; not high-minded but condescending to the humble.
Epistle of the Feast.
Acts iv. 8-12.
Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said to them: Ye rulers of the people and ancients, hear: If we this day are examined concerning the good deed done to the infirm man, by what means he hath been made whole; be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God hath raised from the dead, even by him, doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was rejected by you builders; which is become the head of the corner; nor is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved.
Gospel.
St. John ii. 1-11.
At that time:
There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage. And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine. And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come. His mother said to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye. Now, there were set there six water-pots of stone, according to the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three measures apiece. Jesus saith to them: Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And Jesus saith to them: Draw out now and carry to the chief steward of the feast. And they carried it. And when the chief steward had tasted the water made wine, and knew not whence it was, but the waiters knew who had drawn the water, the chief steward calleth the bridegroom, and saith to him: Every man at first setteth forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and he manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
Gospel of the Feast.
St. Luke ii. 21.
At that time:
After eight days were accomplished that the child should be circumcised, his name was called Jesus, which was called by the Angel, before he was conceived in the womb.
Sermon XX.
His name was called Jesus.
—St. Luke ii. 21.
To-day, dear friends, we keep the Feast of the Holy Name. Our dear Lord is known to us by many names—he is called the Word, the Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the Prince of Peace, and the like—but to-day we are met together to honor his real name; the name by which he was called when on this earth; the name which belonged to him just as our names belong to us; the name by which we are to be saved—the holy name of Jesus! Brethren, this name is a holy name, because it is the name of a God made man. It is a precious name: Jesus shed his Blood for us for the first time as he received it. It is a great and noble name, for it belongs to the mightiest Warrior the world ever saw—to Him who fought with sin and death, and conquered in the fight. It is a terrible name, for when we invoke it hell trembles, earth fears, and even heaven bows the knee. Oh! then, dear brethren, if this name is holy—if precious, if great and noble, if terrible—how much it ought to be revered and respected. We are told by our dear patron, St. Paul, that our Lord "humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth." And yet, in spite of all this, although it is so plain that this name is holy, precious, mighty, and terrible, although it is clear that when it is uttered the faithful on earth, the white-winged angels in heaven, ay, and even the lost spirits in hell bow to do homage to it, nevertheless there is a creature who will not worship; there is a created being worse than the very demons; there is found one who will not reverence that name, holy and good and true—and that creature is the blasphemer. Yes, brethren, in our streets, in our factories, in our very homes that holy name is taken in vain. Jesus—that sweet name is mixed up with everything that is foul and disrespectful. Jesus' name, the name of our King, our Saviour, and our Judge, is used as an oath; and not only by men coarse and hardened, but by boys and girls, by women, and, unheard of impiety! even by little children. Passing through the streets the other day, I heard a volley of curses in which the holy Name was mingled, and the curser was a boy who could not, I am sure, have been more than eight or nine years of age; and, alas! it is not the first time that I have heard such things. O brethren! I beseech you, by the wounds and cross of Jesus Christ, look to this great sin. When I hear these little baby blasphemers, who scarce, perhaps, know what they say, I know they have learned these oaths from the father, the elder brothers, and perhaps even from the mother, and I tremble to think how deep the evil has sunk into the hearts of men. Oh! then let us never again misuse the holy Name; let us cast out cursing and swearing from our midst, lest it drive us and our children into hell.
It belongs to us to be devout to the holy name of Jesus, for we are taught by holy church to ask for every blessing through it. Are we tempted? Let us call upon it, and He who bears it will come to our aid. Are we in sorrow? Let us whisper to ourselves, Jesus! Jesus! and he who knelt in the dark garden and sweat blood for us, he who faced the horrors of death, forsaken and heart-broken, will send us comfort and heal our wounds. Do our sins terrify us? Let us look up to the Cross of Calvary. There on the topmost beam is written the sweet name of Jesus; there beneath hangs the Saviour and the Comforter. Do we need strength for the battle of life, and courage in the struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil? Jesus! Jesus! the Mighty One, the Conqueror, the Lion of Juda, he who is called "Faithful and true, and with justice doth he judge and fight"—he will arm us for the battle and nerve our heart for the combat. Oh! let us reverence the dear, holy name of our sweet Saviour while we live; and when at last our death-cold lips can part no more to utter it, may the great God give us each a friend to whisper it in our ears, so that Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! may be the last name that we shall hear on earth, and the first which our enraptured spirits will hear in heaven.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XXI.
His name was called Jesus.
—St. Luke ii. 21,
To-day we celebrate the Feast of the most Holy Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The church sets apart a special Sunday for the celebration of this feast, to bring before our minds the sacredness of this name—its preciousness, and the reverence due to it.
This name is the name of the God-Man who came into the world to save us from hell. It is the greatest of all names, because it is the name of the greatest of all beings. It was given to our Lord by the archangel when he announced to the Blessed Virgin that she was to be the mother of God. An angel first pronounced it; the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph were the first to call the new-born Babe of Bethlehem by that name; and all holy men and women, from the time of the adoration of the poor shepherds and wise men down to this hour, have had the greatest veneration for that name.
The angel St. Gabriel said to the Blessed Virgin: "He shall be called Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins." You see, then, how precious this name is: it is the name by which we are to be freed from our sins delivered from hell, and admitted among the blessed, the redeemed of all nations. It is the name by which we are the receivers of the supernatural graces of all the holy sacraments. And St. Paul says: God gave to his only-begotten Son "a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those that are in heaven, on earth, and in hell, and that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father." It is the name not only of the Infant of Bethlehem, but it is the name of that One whom you see in the Stations and nailed to the cross, bleeding, and dying, and dead for you.
And yet how our blood runs cold, how we tremble with horror, when we see how little reverence is shown for this name! You need not go far or stay out very long before you hear that name used most irreverently by the child who has hardly learned his prayers, as well as by thieves, drunkards, and murderers, and the lowest rabble that tread the streets of this city; not only by bad men and women, but by people who profess to be respectable Catholics. How often we are made to wonder why Almighty God does not send a thunderbolt and strike dead the blasphemer, or cause the earth to open under those who so treat this holy name, and swallow them up quickly in punishment for their crime! A man who steals, or gets drunk, or gives way to lust sees a sensual temporary good in these sins; but what good, what use is there in blasphemy, in cursing, in swearing? None. It is a direct blow at Almighty God himself. If a man were to insult your mother your vengeance would be roused, and you would think no punishment too great for the offender. Shall God not be jealous of his name? Shall he not punish? Yes, he will. He says: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who taketh his name in vain."
If, then, you have not controlled your gift of speech, which was given you to edify your neighbor, to speak and sing the praises of God, but have given way to a habit of using God's holy name and that of his Son in vain, ask him to give you the grace to overcome the habit. If you hear people on the street or in company blaspheming, cursing, or swearing, lift up your heart to God and make reparation for the injury by saying the prayer, "Blessed be the name of the Lord." Never give scandal to others, and especially the little ones around your family hearth, by blaspheming, or even by carelessly using the name of God or his saints without due reverence. Many men and women have grown up with this old habit clinging to them—a habit that they contracted at home, and that they learned when young from their father and mother. Cursing and swearing are the language of hell. Blessing, prayer, and praise are the language of heaven. Do all in your power to learn the language of the saints—that is, the language of love and reverence for the holy name of Jesus. For "his name is holy and terrible." Repeat the prayer which is sung and said in the holy Mass on this feast:
"O God, who hast made thy only-begotten Son to be the Saviour of mankind, and hast commanded that he should be called Jesus, mercifully grant that we may so venerate his holy name on earth that we may be favored with beholding his face for ever in heaven."
Sermon XXII.
There was a marriage in Cana, of Galilee;
and the Mother of Jesus was there.
And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples,
to the marriage.
—St. John ii. 1, 2.
As we read the story of this marriage, my dear brethren, it must certainly occur to all of us how singularly favored it was, above all that have ever been celebrated since the beginning of the world, in being honored with the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, of his Blessed Mother, and of his apostles, and in the fact that it witnessed the first of the miracles which he performed in his three years' ministry—the change of water into wine. But when we come to look at the matter more closely we shall see that, great as was the honor which this marriage received, every Christian marriage has the same. For every Christian marriage is honored really and truly, though not visibly, with the presence of our Lord, his Blessed Mother, and the apostles; and at every Christian marriage a miracle of grace is performed of which we may well believe the change of water into wine to have been only a shadow or type.
For what is marriage now in the church of Christ? It is one of the sacraments. And what does that mean? It means that whenever a marriage is contracted by those who are baptized there is a grace given with it by our Lord's infallible promise. This grace, moreover, is one which, like those given in the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, is to remain permanently in the soul, and to be a source or fountain from which new graces are continually to flow. So I am right in saying that our Lord is present at a Christian marriage; for it is only from him that this grace can come. And I am right in saying that Our Lady is present at it; because this grace, while it comes from him, comes through her. For she is the channel through which his grace comes to us; which is shown in this marriage at Cana, of which the Gospel tells us, by his working the miracle of the change of the water into wine at her intercession. And, lastly, I am right in saying the apostles are present at a Christian marriage; for such a marriage can only lawfully be celebrated in the presence of the priest, who represents them.
I said, furthermore, that at every Christian marriage a miracle is worked which was represented by our Lord's miracle at Cana. This miracle is the giving of this wonderful sacramental grace; and it is well represented by the conversion of water into wine. It is a miracle—that is to say, an extraordinary and supernatural work of God—because it is not naturally connected with marriage itself. Marriage, in itself, is nothing but a contract or agreement between two parties, having no special blessing or grace, except that which comes from its honorable nature and the good dispositions of the parties themselves. Such is marriage among the unbaptized. But among Christians it is, as I have said, elevated to the dignity of a great sacrament—the contract remaining, but the sacrament being added to it; and it cannot exist among Christians without both. Now, I think you will agree with me that this is well represented by the change of water into wine, in which water, indeed, remains, but is blended with the spirit in such a way that neither can be taken away without destroying the very substance of the wine.
Such, then, my brethren, is the dignity of Christian marriage, represented to us in this marriage at Cana, in Galilee. But is it honored among Christians according to its dignity?
How many are there who reverence this sacrament as they should? It is one of the sacraments of the living, as they are called; that is, one of those which require the soul, when receiving it, to be in the state of grace. The Catholic who comes to it in the state of mortal sin commits a horrible sacrilege as surely as he would if he should go to the altar-rail and receive Holy Communion without repentance for his sins. Do not forget this. Do not dare to come to receive the sacrament of matrimony without preparing your soul by a good confession; not only on account of the dreadful sacrilege of which you will be guilty in receiving it unprepared, but also for fear of losing the grace which it is meant to give you throughout life, and which grace may never return; for, like that offered to the soul in Holy Communion, if once despised and rejected, it may be lost for ever.
And, for the sake of Him who instituted this great sacrament, do not make it, as too many do, an occasion of mortal sin by making it a privileged time for drunkenness and immodesty. A wedding ought to be a time of joy, but for a joy of purity and sobriety. If you make it a time for opening the door to sin for yourselves and for others, tremble lest you bring down on yourselves for the rest of your lives the curse of God instead of his blessing.
Invite, then, like the couple at Cana, our Lord to be present at your marriage, and behave as you would if you were to see him there. So shall you receive his benediction, both for time and eternity.
Third Sunday after Epiphany.
Epistle.
Romans xii. 16-21.
Brethren:
Be not wise in your own conceits. Render to no man evil for evil. Provide things good not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as is in you, have peace with all men. Revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved; but give place to wrath, for it is written: "Revenge is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." But if thy enemy be hungry, give him to eat; if he thirst, give him drink; for doing this thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good.
Gospel.
St. Matthew viii. 1-13.
At that time:
When Jesus was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him; and behold a leper coming, adored him, saying: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, stretching forth his hand, touched him, saying: I will; be thou made clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him: See thou tell no man; but go show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony to them. And when he had entered into Capharnaum, there came to him a centurion, beseeching him and saying: Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, and is grievously tormented. And Jesus said to him: I will come and heal him. And the centurion, making answer, said: Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. And Jesus, hearing this, wondered, and said to those that followed him: Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion: Go, and as thou hast believed, so be it done to thee. And the servant was healed at the same hour.
Sermon XXIII.
Only say the word,
and my servant shall be healed.
—St. Matthew viii. 8.
The centurion in to-day's Gospel, dear friends, is certainly a shining example to us of many virtues, Particularly is he an example to those among us who are rich and well off, or who have any servants or others employed under our authority. When any one is taken sick, what is the first cry? Go for the priest. Run for the doctor. And instantly a messenger is sought out. Now, this man's servant was sick. What did he do? Centurion, and high in station as he was, he went himself for One who was both doctor and priest. His servant, doubtless, had served him faithfully, had been obedient and trustworthy; and now that this servant is sick, remembering the sublime virtue of charity, the master runs off to our Lord and begs of him to speak the word that would heal the servant. Now, many of you, dear brethren, have in your houses hired help, and the poor are around you who serve you in many useful ways; who do work which, did they not exist, would have to be left undone. How do you treat those fellow-Christians? Ah! I am afraid, often in a very different spirit to that displayed by the centurion. They are sick. You grumble at the inconvenience to which you are put, but what do you do to help them? Do you get the doctor? Do you offer them such nourishment as a sick person needs? Do you visit your servant's sick-bed, or the beds of the poor, to whom we are all indebted for so much service? I wish it were always so, but it is not. Often a servant is made to work when bed would be a more fitting place to be in than the kitchen. Often the poor suffer dreadfully because those whom they serve in health will not help them in sickness. Oh! then let us all follow the example of the good centurion, and if our servants in our house, or our servants out of the house, are sick, let us, moved by a divine charity, hasten at once to their relief.
And then in spiritual things how do we act? Catholic heads of families, employers, masters and mistresses, keepers of stores and workshops, how do you look after those that work for you? Do you see that they go to Mass? Do you give them time to get to confession? Do you look after the moral conduct of those you employ? When they are sick and suffering are you solicitous that they should have the comfort and help which the holy sacraments afford? Are you sensible of the responsibility which lies upon you to see that the priest is sent for, especially when they are in danger of death? Oh! I am much afraid that many are very neglectful in this respect. So long as their work is done they care very little for those they employ. Catholic employers often don't bestow a thought upon these things. But don't deceive yourselves: God will require all these souls at your hands. No Catholic man or woman ought to keep in their houses a servant who is negligent of his or her religious duties. You should give your help and your employees plenty of time to go to Mass and confession; and, more than that, it is your duty to see that they go. You should not employ by the side of innocent young men and women all sorts of roughs and blackguards. By so doing you put immortal souls in peril. You should remember that you are head of the family, and that the help and the employees are part of that family, and therefore you are bound in conscience to care for them. Imitate, then, the centurion. Love those you employ. Have a great charity for them. Cherish them, tend them in all their wants. Correct their faults, reward their fidelity; and by so doing you will advance Christ's kingdom on earth and people his kingdom in heaven.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XXIV.
If it be possible, as much as is in you,
have peace with all men;
revenge not yourselves, my dearly beloved.
—Romans xii. 18-19.
There are a good many people who seem to find it very difficult to have peace with all men, or at any rate with all women; for, strange to say, it is, for some reason or other, what is known as the gentler sex that gives and has the most trouble in this respect.
Of course it is all the fault of some other party that they cannot live in peace; not their own at all. They themselves are perfectly innocent—lambs, in fact, among wolves. Other people are always persecuting and tormenting them, or at any rate belying them; this last is one of the favorite complaints of these poor, harmless, and much-abused creatures. They try to have peace as far as possible, but other people will not let them.
And of course they never revenge themselves on their cruel enemies. Oh! no. They never injure or belie them; they would not do such a thing for the world. They may, indeed, meekly complain of their troubles to the few friends they have got left; they tell how wicked these people are who give them so much annoyance. They try to lower other people's esteem of them; but, of course, that is not meant for injury—that is only that others may be duly warned of such dangerous characters. In their zeal they may draw on their imagination a little; but of course that is not belying. They, perhaps on some rare occasions will try to take it out of their persecutors in one way or another; but then that is not revenge—that is only standing up for their rights. They would like to have peace, and so they try to have it by making reconciliation as hard as possible.
It is plain what good Christians they are from their enjoyment of the words which follow those which I have quoted from the Epistle of to-day. These words are: "Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."' These are, indeed, a great consolation to them.
"Yes," they say to themselves, "I leave them to God. I cannot revenge myself on my enemies as I would like; I don't dare to, or my conscience won't let me; but I hope God will punish them as they deserve. Revenge belongs to him, I know, and I am glad to think that in his own good time he will lay it on to them well. I shall do all my duty if I wish patiently for the time when he will begin to do it; and meanwhile I will console myself by praying that he may convert them and make every one of them as good a Christian as I am."
The delusion under which these good Christians are laboring would be amusing, if it were not so dangerous. The danger is that the revenge of God, about which they like to think, is hanging as much over their own heads as over those of the ones with whom they are at variance. They are not really trying to have peace; their own revenge is what they want, though they are willing that Almighty God should be the instrument of it.
They do not care either to preserve peace or to regain it in the only way in which it can be preserved or regained—that is, by charity and humility. Their charity is all for themselves. They may tread on other people's corns, but nobody else must tread on theirs. Other people must be humble, and, if they give offence, even carelessly, must make an abject apology; but they themselves are too good to be obliged to do that.
Perhaps, however, my friends, some of you really do want to live in peace with all. If so, you can do it by following a very simple rule. It is this: Be careful what you say or do to others; they are sensitive as well as yourself—perhaps more so. You must not expect other people to be saints, even if you are one yourself. Do not flatter what is bad in them, but acknowledge what is good; stroke them the right way. If they really do you an injury see if you have not provoked it; examine your own actions. If you are sure you have not, put it down to ignorance or misapprehension; try to find out what the matter is, and set it right by an explanation, if you can. But if you have committed a fault do not be too proud to acknowledge it. If you cannot procure a reconciliation speak well of the other party, and believe him or her to be, on the whole, better than yourself. For one who has true humility this will not be very hard to do.
This is the real meaning of the counsel of St. Paul; if you follow it you will, indeed, live in peace as far as it is possible in this world.
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany.
Epistle.
Romans xiii. 8-10.
Brethren:
Owe no man anything, but that you love one another. For he that loveth his neighbor, hath fulfilled the law. For "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet." And if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The love of the neighbor worketh no evil. Love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the law.
Gospel.
St. Matthew viii. 23-27.
At that time:
When Jesus entered into the ship, his disciples followed him; and behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the ship was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and waked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: Who is this, for even the winds and the sea obey him?
Sermon XXV.
And Jesus saith to them:
Why are you fearful, ye of little faith?
—St. Matt. viii. 26.
Some people are always worrying. It would seem that they must enjoy it, for they always find something to worry about. If one good matter for worrying is settled they will be sure to rake up another to take its place. Some of them worry about temporal matters, some about spiritual; but whatever their taste may be in this respect, they are so fond of the amusement that, if they cannot get their favorite matter to worry about, they will take something else rather than not have any at all.
You would think that this taste for worrying would be a very uncommon one; but, strange to say, it is not so. In fact, the number of worriers is almost as great as the number of people in the world, and they are worrying about every conceivable thing, though generally only about one thing at a time; it may be about their sins or about somebody else's sins—their children's, for instance—or it may be, and is more likely to be, about some temporal matter, such as their health or the state of their worldly affairs.
Now, what do I mean by worrying? I do not mean thinking seriously about things either spiritual or temporal—for a great many, though not all, of the things people worry about are worthy of serious consideration, whereas nothing is worth a moment's worry—but I do mean thinking about them in a way that can do no good, and that only serves to turn the mind in on itself and away from God.
Here, for instance, is a case of worrying, to which I have just alluded: A good father and mother have children who are growing up, as so many children are growing up, especially in this city, in neglect of their duties and are acquiring various bad habits. Of course this is very painful to their parents, and there is very good reason that it should be. They would be unnatural or wicked parents if it were not so. They ought to be distressed about it; and I did not say that people should never be distressed, but only that they should not worry. But these parents probably do worry. They occupy their minds with all sorts of useless questions and imaginations. They say: "What have I done that these children of mine are so bad?" And perhaps, though they ask this question, they never really stop to examine themselves and find out if they have neglected their own duty in any way, so as to make an act of contrition for it, and make good resolutions, if it be not too late, for the future. What they mean rather by it is: "How can God allow this when I have done my duty?" And then they say: "Suppose these children get worse and disgrace my name, and even, lose their souls—what shall I do then?" Or perhaps they say: "What shall I do now?" But that does not really mean anything, for either they do not set their wits to work to find out what they can do, or they have concluded with good reason that they cannot do anything except pray; and that they do not do, for their time of prayer is taken up with this same useless worrying.
Now, what does all this come from? It comes from a distrust in God's love and providence. It comes from a feeling like what the apostles had, as we read in to-day's Gospel, as if He who ought to take care of them were asleep; but they ought to have known, as their own psalms could have taught them, that "He shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel." Even though they knew him not to be God, they should have known that God, who had sent him into the world, and on whom their faith in him rested, would not allow them to come to any harm; and they should have been willing, when they had done their own duty, to trust in his providence for the rest. They might, indeed, well have waked him to get his help and advice as to what to do; but he, who read their hearts, knew that their anxiety had its source, not in prudence, but in distrust, and so he deservedly rebuked them, saying: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?"
That is the reason why we, like the apostles, are worrying. It is because we have little faith. We distrust God's providence and mercy, and spend our time in this distrust and complaining, instead of quietly finding out and doing our own duty, and then simply and confidently leaving the result to him. But we have less excuse for it than they, for we know more of him than they did then. Let us, then, be ashamed of our want of faith, and try to do better in this respect for the future.
Sermon XXVI.
And behold, a great tempest arose in the sea.
—St. Matthew viii. 24.
Almost all of us, my dear brethren, have at some time of life been in a position like that of the apostles in their little boat on the Sea of Galilee. We have been out at sea in a storm, with the waves beating against our frail craft and threatening to swamp it every moment. So we do not need to draw on our imagination to realize what their feelings must have been.
Perhaps you may think I am exaggerating when I say this; most of you, I suppose, cannot remember ever having been in a storm at sea. But it is quite true, nevertheless. Only the sea and the storm were far more dangerous ones than those to which the apostles were exposed that night. For the sea over which you were, and still are, sailing is the sea of this mortal life; and the storm was the storm of temptation; and the danger was that of death, not to the body, but to the soul.
But perhaps you do not remember ever having met with any very violent storm, even of this kind. Well, it may be that God has singularly favored you, and given you a very quiet and smooth sea to sail over so far. If so, you are an exception to the common rule. It may be, however, that you escaped the storm in another way; that is, by going to the bottom at once. You know the most furious tempests do not reach very far below the surface of the ocean, so that one can always escape them by sinking. So you, perhaps, have escaped temptation by yielding to it at once; as soon as you were tempted to commit mortal sin you committed it, and sank into its horrible and fathomless abyss, continually deeper and deeper, till you were brought up again to the light and air of God's pardon and peace by some mission which he sent you, or by some other extraordinary grace from him.
But that was not what you were made for, any more than a ship is made to be continually sinking and being pulled up to the surface again. Ships are made to sail, not to sink. Their builders expect that they will battle with the elements, not be overcome by them; nay, more, they expect that the very winds which seem to threaten their safety shall be the means of sending them to the port which they are intended to reach. And what the builder expects of his ship is what God, who has made us, expects of us; especially of us Christians, with whom he has taken such great pains. He expects, and he has a right to expect, that we shall stay on the surface—that is, that we shall keep in the state of grace; that we shall battle with the winds and waves—that is, that we shall resist temptation; and, furthermore, he expects that the winds, even if they be ahead, shall help us on our course—that is, that they shall be the means, and even the principal means, of bringing us into the safe harbor of our eternal home.
Let us not, then, be surprised, nay, let us even rejoice, if we fall into temptation, so long as we do not seek it. "My brethren," says St. James, "count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations." And why? First, because the fact that you are harassed by temptations is a sign that you have not given way to them. It shows that you are on the surface, that you have not foundered yet when you feel the winds and the waves.
And, secondly, because it is a sign that our Lord puts confidence in you. The builder of a ship, if he could do it, would proportion the wind to the size and strength of his vessel; and that is what our Maker actually does. He has let his saints have temptations compared with which yours are as nothing at all. Such as he allows you to have are meant for your salvation and perfection; the more he thinks you worthy of, the better.
But do not seek them. A prudent captain keeps out of the track of storms. Be content with those which you cannot avoid, for those are the only ones which God means you to have.
When you cannot avoid them meet them courageously. Do not get frightened, as the apostles did, for God is with you as he was with them, though he may seem to be asleep. He has not forgotten you, and with his help you will conquer them, every one.
But you must ask him to do so. You must go to him as the apostles did, saying: "Lord, save us, we perish." He did not blame them for that, but for their terror and want of trust in his providence. You must work when you are in the storm of temptation as if the result all depended on yourself; you must pray as if it all depended on him. If you do this you will not sink in the tempest; nay, when it is over you will find that it has driven you nearer to the harbor where storms never come.
Sermon XXVII.
Candlemas-Day.
A light to the revelation of the Gentiles,
and the glory of thy people of Israel.
—St. Luke ii. 32.
The blessing of candles, and the esteem which Catholics have for candles when they are blessed, is one of the things which Protestants find it very hard to understand. They have no idea of a candle, except that it is a very old-fashioned article, useful enough, perhaps, if you want to grope in some dark corner of the house, but, on the whole, a very poor affair in these days of gas and the electric light. They cannot see why any one who can get a good kerosene lamp should use a candle instead; unless, perhaps, it might be because the candle will not explode.
The reason for their perplexity is pretty plain. It is because they do not, or it may be will not, understand that we honor and prize candles, as we do the images of the saints and many other things, not for what they are, but for what they represent; and also on account of the sanctification and real use, not to our bodies so much as to our souls, that the blessing of the church is able to give to anything to which it is attached.
Protestants, I say, do not or will not understand these things; but Catholics do. It is not superstition which makes a Catholic prize a blessed candle. He knows, first, that it has been selected by the church to represent our Blessed Lord himself; that its feeble light is a sign of the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world; and he honors and esteems it for God's sake. And secondly, he knows that it has a power and use greater and higher than that of the most brilliant lamps that the hand of man can make; that, though it be but a material thing, it has a spiritual value, like holy-water and other things which the church has blessed and sanctified; and specially that it is a defence against our spiritual enemies, Satan and the other fallen angels, and all the more so because these proud spirits cannot bear to be put to flight, as they are, by such a common and simple thing as a candle or a few drops of water.
You know these things, my friends; the spirit of faith teaches them to you. But you do not bear them so constantly in mind as you should. How often does the priest go to a house on a sick call, and find that there is no candle to be had! The law of the church requires it when the sacraments are to be administered; but one would think it would not need a law to make any one who had the faith see that at least this honor should be given to them. Strange to say, however, the people of the house never thought of the matter at all. They keep our Lord waiting while they run out to borrow, if possible, a candle from some pious neighbor. Perhaps they buy one at the grocery-store; I do not know what blessing they think that has received. When they get the candle, such as it may be, there is probably nothing to put it in; it is likely enough that a bottle is all that can be found.
It would look much better, in some houses which we have to visit, if there were fewer bottles and more blessed candles. It would look as if the people who lived there thought at least as much of their souls as of their bodies. It is very unpleasant for all parties—and our Lord is one of them—to have such things happen as I have described.
Get rid of the bottle and have a candlestick in its place. I know that candlesticks, as well as candles, are rather out of fashion; but the supply will always follow the demand. For the honor and for the fear of God, do not remain any longer without a blessed candle in your house and something worthy of it to hold it. There will be no harm in burning it, even though no one be sick and the priest not there, if it be at a proper place and time.
And, if it be possible, offer a candle to be burned in the place and at the time most pleasing to God of all—that is, on his holy altar while Mass is being offered, or his blessing being given to you in the Sacrament of his love. Honor and glorify him everywhere, but specially in the place where his glory dwelleth, and where he is daily offered up for you.
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Epistle.
Colossians iii. 12-17.
Brethren:
Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy, and beloved, the bowels ol mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another: even as the Lord hath forgiven you, so do you also. But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection: and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom: teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Jesus Christ our Lord.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xiii. 24-30.
At that time:
Jesus spoke this parable to the multitude, saying: The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But while men were asleep, his enemy came and oversowed cockle among the wheat, and went his way. And when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared also the cockle. Then the servants of the master of the house came and said to him: Master, didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? whence then hath it cockle? And he said to them: An enemy hath done this. And the servants said to him: Wilt thou that we go and gather it up? And he said: No, lest while you gather up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it. Let both to grow until the harvest, and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers: Gather up first the cockle, and bind it into bundles to burn; but gather the wheat into my barn.
Sermon XXVIII.
Gather up first the cockle,
and bind it into bundles to burn;
but gather the wheat into my barn.
—St. Matthew xiii. 30.
The parable which is the subject of the Gospel of to-day is explained by our Lord himself a little further on. The disciples asked him to expound it to them; and he told them that the good seed were the children of the kingdom—that is, all good and faithful Christians; and that the cockle were the children of the wicked one—that is, all those who refuse to believe in the faith which God has revealed, or who will not obey his law. These two kinds of people, said he, live together in this world, but at the end of the world they shall all be for ever separated, the wicked to be cast into the furnace of fire, and the just to shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
Our Lord calls the sinful the children of the wicked one—that is, of the devil. But he does not mean that the devil created them, for he can create no one; no, God created us all, and has, furthermore, redeemed us all with his precious Blood. There is something about them, though, which the devil may be said to have created, and that it is which makes them his children. It is sin, which he first brought into God's creation, to which he tempted our first parents, and to which he is all the while tempting us now. Sin is the devil's work; and sinners are his children, because they do his work.
But few people, at least few Christians, are all the time sinners and children of the devil. Sometimes they repent and become, at least for a time, children of God. Good and evil are mixed up in them, as they are in the world. So our Lord's parable is true of each one of them as it is of the world at large. Each of our hearts is a little field in which God is sowing the good seed of his holy inspirations, and the devil the bad seed of his wicked temptations; and sometimes consent is given to one, sometimes to the other.
Perhaps we may have asked ourselves the question (for it is a very natural one to ask): "Why has God allowed the devil to sow his bad seed in the world and in the hearts of men? And why, if he lets it be sown, does he not root out this bad seed, and not let it grow and choke what is good?" I should not wonder at your asking this question, and you should not wonder if we cannot give all of God's reasons for it, for it is one of the mysteries of his providence. But he has himself given one reason for it in his explanation of this parable. The servants, you will remember, wanted to go and root out the cockle; but the master said: "No, lest while ye gather up the cockle, you root up the wheat also together with it." Would it not be so with us, too, if God should take away all the bad seed of temptation out of our hearts? A great deal of our virtue would be rooted up, too, and what was left would not be very strong and solid. You can see that often. A person seems very good, but what is the reason? It is because he is not much tempted. Let a strong temptation come, and perhaps such a person will sin more easily than one who has seemed much worse, but has really been acquiring solid virtue by faithfully combating with difficulties the other has not had. And not only would our virtue not be solid, but our merits would not be very abundant, without temptation; for most of our merit is gained by resisting sin.
Our Lord, then, does not mean to pull up the cockle out of the way of the wheat, but wants the wheat to live and outgrow the cockle. It is for us to see that it does so; for if there is any cockle left when we come to die there will be something to do before the wheat goes to the barn—that is, to cast the cockle into the furnace of fire; and that furnace of fire, for those who die in the grace of God, is the fire of purgatory. We shall have to wait there till the cockle of sin is all burned before we can go to heaven with our wheat of virtue and of merit.
Let us not think, then, in this month of November, only of praying for those who are in those purging flames, but also of avoiding them ourselves. Our Lord does not want us to go to purgatory. He would infinitely rather take us to heaven from our death-bed than let us remain in that state of suffering. What he wants is to have the wheat grow over the whole field and choke the cockle instead of being choked by it—in a word, he wants us to be saints. That is what St. Paul says: "This is the will of God, your sanctification." Let this, then, be our devotion in the month of November and all the year round: to imitate those (and there are many of them) who have died and gone before their Lord with plenty of wheat and no cockle on their hands.
Sermon XXIX.
Bearing with one another,
and forgiving one another,
if any have a complaint against another:
even as the Lord hath forgiven you,
so do you also.
—Colossians iii. 13.
These words, my dear brethren, are taken from the Epistle of to-day. They certainly contain a most important lesson for us, and one which we are too apt never even to begin to learn. You will find plenty of people who are near the end of a long life—who have, as the saying is, one foot in the grave—who do not seem to know how to overlook and to pardon injuries any better than when they first began to be exposed to them.
There are two very good reasons, my brethren, why you should learn this lesson. The first is that, unless you do, you can never be happy in this life; the second, that, unless you have learned it, there is great reason to fear for your happiness in the life which is to come.
You can never be happy, I say, in this life, unless you know how to pardon and overlook the injuries you receive from others. And the reason of this is very plain. It is, in the first place, because it is very uncomfortable to be brooding over injuries received—that is plain enough; and, in the second place, you will always be exposed to them. There is a way to avoid them, it is true: it is to go out into the desert and live there in some cave or hut all alone. But I think there are very few nowadays who have any vocation to that; and if you should undertake to live the life of a hermit without any vocation for it, the chances are that you would be ten times as miserable as you would be with the very worst neighbors in the world. This is the only way to avoid them; for, however good the people are among whom you live, they will always be somewhat selfish; they will want to have their own way sometimes, at least, and it will often happen that they cannot have their way and at the same time let you have yours. And they will always be somewhat thoughtless. They will not be so very careful not to offend you; and you cannot expect it of them, for you are not so careful yourself. You would be surprised if you should know how often you have given offence to others.
The fact is, there is not room enough in this world for us all to get along without sometimes treading on each other's toes. There are a great many of us sailing together down the stream of life, and it will take the most careful steering to prevent our now and then running foul of each other. And such careful steering cannot be expected of every one, or of any except one or two here and there. If you really should try it yourselves you would find how difficult it is. The saints do try it, and that is one reason why it is a work of sanctity to be indulgent to the faults of others.
Well, I said the second reason why you should learn the lesson of forgiveness to others is that, unless you do, there is great reason to fear for your happiness in the life to come. If you can have any doubt of that, those words of our Lord in another place will settle your doubt. "If you will not forgive men," he says, "neither will your Father forgive you your offences." You may confess all your sins, and receive the sacraments over and over again, but so long as you have a hatred against your neighbor your confessions and communions will be bad; you will not be in the friendship of God; and if you go out of the world with that malice in your heart you will be shut out from his presence.
You will say to me, perhaps, "Father, I will forgive, but I cannot forget" If you say this to me I say to you: Take care. As long as you do not at least try to forget, as long as you keep in your mind that sore feeling which the injury you have received, or think you have received, has caused, it will always be an occasion of sin to you. It will always prompt you to withhold from the persons whom you blame that charity which you are bound to show to all. You will always be inclined to speak evil of them, to try to prevent others from praising them, to throw out some hint in which the venom which lies lurking in your heart comes up to the surface. And do not be too sure that you have really done all that God requires because the priest has given you absolution. He cannot read your heart, and often he is obliged to forgive uncharitable people like yourself, with great doubt in his mind whether his sentence is approved by the great Judge who cannot be deceived.
Now, that you may forgive more easily, remember what I suggested a little while ago: that is, that those who have offended you have generally done so either through selfishness or carelessness, not through malice. Believe me, real malice is quite a rare thing. If you could see the real dispositions of others you would see that on the whole they are about as good as your own; and I do not suppose you think you are malicious, and I do not believe you are. Put, then, those unworthy suspicions out of your minds, and forgive others freely and generously as you yourself wish to be forgiven.
Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Epistle.
1 Thessalonians i. 2-10.
Brethren:
We give thanks to God always for you all: making a remembrance of you in our prayers without ceasing, being mindful of the work of your faith, and labor, and charity, and of the enduring of the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ before God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election: for our gospel hath not been to you in word only, but in power also, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much fulness, as you know what manner of men we have been among you for your sakes. And you became followers of us, and of the Lord: receiving the word in much tribulation, with joy of the Holy Ghost: so that you were made a pattern to all who believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you was spread abroad the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, your faith which is towards God, is gone forth, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves relate of us, what manner of entrance we had unto you; and how you were converted to God from idols, to serve the living and true God. And to wait for his Son from Heaven (whom he raised from the dead), Jesus who hath delivered us from the wrath to come.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xiii. 31-35.
At that time:
Jesus spoke to the multitude this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard-seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which indeed is the least of all seeds; but when it is grown up it is greater than any herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof.
Another parable he spoke to them. The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened. All these things Jesus spoke in parables to the multitudes: and without parables he did not speak to them. That the word might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: "I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things hidden from the foundation of the world."
Sermon XXX.
The kingdom of heaven
is like to a grain of mustard-seed.
—St. Matthew xiii. 31.
A grain of mustard-seed is very little, as our Lord tells us, and also, as we know, very sharp and burning. So is God's church, which is the kingdom of Christ upon earth. First, it is little; not in numbers, but little because it is poor and lowly. The human spirit is proud above all things, disobedient, rebellious, loving to be exalted, wishing to be praised. That which lost paradise, which brought sin and death into the world, which closed heaven, which opened hell, that which robbed us, stripped us of our heavenly inheritance, was pride. So, then, the kingdom of God, the church, that which is to govern the heart of man, to rule its disorders, to bring us back to heaven, is poor, is lowly, in the world's eyes is little. The proud world likes to swell itself out and appear big, and makes a wide path to swagger in. Our Lord tells us, "Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven"; and again: "Narrow is the gate and strait the way that leadeth to life." Do not wonder, then, that our holy church, which is glorious and magnificent in the eyes of angels and saints, should be thought little, and lowly, and poor by the world, and the flesh, and the devil.
Now, it seems that this very poverty of the church ought to be a reason why we should love it. If you are poor, then remember "birds of a feather flock together." The church is poor, too. She has not (particularly in these days) much of this world's goods. Often she is much put about to build even a decent temple in which to worship God. The church sometimes can hardly "keep house" for God—can hardly buy those things which are of daily necessity for his service. Oh! then the poor ought to love the church. Are you rich? Then the poverty of the church ought to touch your heart and open your purse. "The poor you have always with you," says Jesus Christ, and the poorest of the poor is God's church. The priest is obliged to beg for church, for school, and all that is in them—for almost everything, indeed, that is needed for the service of our divine Master. So, then, it is from you who are rich that large alms ought to come, so that Jesus Christ may be able to say that we have you with us and him as well as the poor. Again, while I caution you against hankering after mere ease and comfort in church, and the worldly elegances to be seen in the soft-cushioned and carpeted churches of the sects, I must express my wonder that many wealthy Catholics appear to be quite content to see the churches where they go to Mass fitted up with furniture that would be too mean for use in their own houses. If our Lord finds only more straw and another manger for a cradle for his divine Majesty nowadays, it ought not to be because we furnish him no better.
Secondly, the church is like a grain of mustard-seed, because her laws are often sharp and burning to the human heart. Mustard-seed, when crushed, has, as you know, a very strong and pungent odor. If you stand over it when thus crushed it will cause tears to flow from your eyes. If applied to your flesh it will burn and smart. Yes; and sometimes the law of God will make tears start from your eyes. There is some habit you find convenient, some little pet plan you have made, some person to whom you are attached. These things are leading you from God; so his church says: "Change your ways." "Give it up." "It is not lawful for thee." "Cut it off." Ah! don't you feel the sharp mustard-seed getting into your eyes? Again, the flesh rebels. That drink you love so much, that sinful appetite you like to indulge, those places of evil amusement to which you want to go—what says the church about such things? "Take the pledge." "Throw away drink." "You must not gratify that sinful inclination." "You cannot go to that place of amusement." "Give up that bad company or Jesus Christ will give you up." Ah! don't you feel how the mustard-seed burns and stings? But have good courage—better be burnt here than burnt hereafter. That burning of the mustard seed will heal you, will cure you. Its warmth will bring you back to life. Lastly, one day the little seed will become a great tree, whose branches shall reach to the sky, whose boughs shall wave in heaven. Then we, like poor, homeless birds of the air, shall spread our weary wings and go and make our lodgings for ever beneath its sheltering leaves.
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XXXI.
The kingdom of heaven is like to leaven,
which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal,
until the whole was leavened.
—St. Matthew xiii. 33.
The kingdom of heaven, my dear friends, means, as you know, in this as well as in many other of our Lord's parables, not God's kingdom in the next world, but in this—that is, his holy Catholic Church. Understanding it in this way, it is easy to see why he compares it to a grain of mustard-seed or to leaven; for it was small in the beginning, but has grown, as the mustard-seed grows, so that it now has spread through the whole earth; and it was not noticed in the beginning, as the little leaven or yeast would not be in the dough into which it is put, but has now made its influence felt in all the world, as that of the yeast is in the bread which it makes.
This was our Lord's intention, that his church should be continually growing till every one should enter it, till every heart should be leavened by its faith. But there are some people—Catholics, too, but a very curious kind of Catholics—who seem to think that the church was only made for those nations or those families which now belong to it, and will even blame those who are converted to it for leaving the religion of their fathers. I do not know what excuse one can make for these persons, except to suppose that God has blessed them with a very small share of common sense.
I do not think that there are many people so stupid as to talk in this way; but there are a good many who act as if they thought as these people seem to think. I do not mean that there are many who give the cold shoulder to converts, for that would be an unjust reproach; but I do mean that there are many Catholics who do not seem to understand the world has got to be converted, and that they themselves have got to do their share towards it; that they are part of that leaven with which our Lord meant that the world should be leavened; that it was by means of them, according to their measure of ability and opportunity, that he meant the faith to be diffused through the world. Every Catholic ought to be a missionary in his way and place, and do something to bring others to that knowledge of the truth which he himself has received.
Not that every Catholic should go out and preach the faith on the corners of the streets, or to people who would laugh at him or do him more harm than he could do them good; but that every one should be on the lookout for those who are sincere and well disposed, and be ready to give them a helping hand, to explain any difficulties which they may have, or to persuade them to come to the priest, who can explain them more fully.
But, above all, that he should spread among those who do not believe the leaven of good example, and not scandalize them by a bad life. One can hardly be too careful to avoid scandalizing even the faithful; and much more care should be taken not to scandalize those who are seeking for the truth, and particularly about those things on which their ideas are very strict and their consciences very sensitive.
Take, for instance, the horrible vice of profane swearing, to which many of you, to your own shame you must confess, are so much addicted, and about which you are inexcusably careless. There is no doubt at all that there is many a Protestant who would not so much as think of enquiring about the faith of a person who was in the habit of blaspheming. And yet he may be really anxious to know the truth, and his soul is as dear to God as yours; and if you are the cause, by this abominable habit of yours, of his turning away in despair from the church, most assuredly you will have to give an account for it when your soul shall come to be judged. Many persons all around us are outside of the church to-day because of the prevalence of this sin of profanity among Catholics, because all the Catholics whom they know seem rather to be children of the devil than of the good God.
There are many other things, particularly drunkenness and falsehood, by which Catholics spread around them the leaven of bad example, and drive people away from the faith instead of drawing them to it; but I have not time to speak of all. It is for you, my brethren, to look to it that, when you come to die, you shall feel that you have indeed done something to diffuse through the world the leaven of faith and virtue, not of unbelief and vice and that our Lord will not require at your hands the blood of your brother, for whom he died as well as for you.
Septuagesima Sunday
Epistle.
1 Corinthians ix. 24; x. 5.
Brethren:
Know you not that they who run in the race, all run indeed, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain.
And every one that striveth for the mastery refraineth himself from all things; and they indeed that they may receive a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible one. I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty: I so fight, not as one beating the air: but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become reprobate. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud and in the sea; and they did all eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ). But with the most of them God was not well pleased.
Gospel.
St. Matthew xx. 1-16.
At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like to a master of a family, who went early in the morning to hire laborers into his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing in the market-place idle. And he said to them: Go you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just. And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing, and he saith to them: Why stand you here all the day idle? They say to him: Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them: Go you also into my vineyard. And when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith to his steward: Call the laborers and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first. When, therefore, they came, who had come about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny. But when the first also came, they thought that they should have received more, and they also received every man a penny. And when they received it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying: These last have worked but one hour, and thou hast made them equal to us, that have borne the burden of the day and the heats. But he answering one of them, said: Friend, I do thee no wrong; didst thou not agree with me for a penny? Take what is thine and go thy way: I will also give to this last even as to thee. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? is thy eye evil because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last, For many are called, but few chosen.
Sermon XXXII.
Why stand ye here all the day idle?
—St. Matthew xx. 6.
This life, my dear friends, is often spoken of in Scripture as a day, both on account of its shortness and because the night of death follows. Now, there are certainly many persons who do stand all their lives idle; that is to say, they do not try to "work out their own salvation"; they do not try to do anything in the Lord's vineyard, the church, by helping forward good works either by their means or by their active service. There are a great number of men and women who never think of caring for the great business of their salvation. Day after day goes by, week after week, and they have done no good works, corrected no faults, made absolutely no advancement or improvement. It is too much trouble for them to examine their consciences, too tiresome to stir themselves to go to Mass and the sacraments. They have sunk into a state of spiritual drowsiness by the world's fireside; in a word, they are all the day idle. Oh! if there are any such here, let them take warning. For the night will surely come, and then it will be too late. Perhaps this is the eleventh hour for you. God has called you often before; now, by the voice of his priest, he speaks once more and says: "Why stand ye here all the day idle?" To-day you see again the purple vestments and hangings; they tell you that Lent is fast approaching, that a time of grace is coming round once more. Oh! then, you that have yet a few hours of the day of life left, go into the vineyard of your own souls, root up the weeds, till the soil, plant good seed, that the Father of all may be able in the end to give you the wages of everlasting life.
Again, such among you as have means, or who are able to help your pastor by active service in the charge of the sick and the poor, who can teach the uninstructed, help along in sewing-schools and in forming sodalities and pious organizations of various kinds—to you also the cry comes, "Why stand ye all the day idle?" Why, when called upon to bear a little part of the priest's burden, are so many people like an old gun that hangs fire? Why is it often so difficult for the priest to get the active co-operation of the lay people? Why does he so often get the "cold shoulder" as people say, when he asks a little help? Is it not because people won't go into the vineyard, won't work, won't take trouble? Because they would rather not be bothered? How often they say: "I have no time"; "What are the priests for, anyhow?" "Let them look after these things." Thus they stand all the day idle, and the hard work falls on the priests and just a few self-sacrificing helpers. When you are called on, then, by your pastors to help in the parish, "don't be backward in coming forward"; make up your minds that you will not stand idle, but that it shall be "a long pull and a strong pull, and a pull all together."
Why should we be so afraid of idleness in spiritual things and in works of charity? Because, my dear friends, the time is short. Life is passing swiftly. The night of death is at hand. Soon the cry will be heard: "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye forth to meet him." Soon the Master of the vineyard will come and look at our work. Woe to us if he finds that we either never went into the vineyard at all, or, at best, the work there was so ill done that our part of the land is choked with docks and darnels and every kind of weed! You know, doubtless, that people sometimes give to each of their children a little garden to plant; ah! how these children try to make "my garden" the best one. How careful they are of it, how grieved if the frost or some noxious insect should destroy the flowers or fruits! We are all children; God has given us each a little garden, a little piece of his great vineyard, to care and tend. Let us, then, like the little ones, try to make our garden the finest, that when our Father, God, and our dear Mother, Mary, come to look at it they may find it full of beauty and fragrance, and say concerning us: "This one, at least, did not stand all the day idle."
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
Sermon XXXIII.
They murmured against the master of the house.
—St. Matthew xx. 11.
We can hardly fail, my dear brethren, to understand the meaning of this parable of our Lord, though he himself has given no explanation of it. He is the master of the house; we are the laborers whom he has hired to work in his vineyard, and hired, too, at a very great price; for the penny which the laborers all received represents the reward of eternal life which he has promised to all who die in his service, even though they come to that service at the eleventh hour—that is, at the end of their lives.
Now, I do not know that we are inclined to find fault with our Lord for forgiving one who has sinned during his whole life and sincerely repents, though it be on his death-bed. We are generous enough to be glad when one is really converted and saves his soul; and perhaps all the more if it be at the last moment. We do not find fault with God for his mercy, but rather we thank him for it.
But we are inclined to murmur against him for what seems to us to be an unjust and partial distribution of his mercies, as the laborers murmured against their master. They did not complain that the last received a penny, but that they themselves did not receive more. They thought that the master ought to have proportioned the wages to the service rendered; but we can see plainly enough that he was not so bound. All he was bound to was to give the penny to all those to whom he had promised it; as for the rest, he might have given any one of them his whole property, if he had taken a special fancy to him. You would not say that a man acted unjustly if he should single out any one of his servants and make him a special present over and above his regular wages. You would say, as the master of the house said, that he could do what he liked with what remained after his debts were paid.
Now, let us apply this, which is nothing but common sense, to our Lord's relations to us. He has a debt to pay to us to which he has bound himself. It is a real debt to us, because it rests on a real promise which he has made. And that debt is to forgive us when we really turn to him and repent of our sins, and to give us, through his own merits and the shedding of his own Blood, the eternal happiness which that precious Blood has purchased for us. But he is not bound to give us graces which will force us to repent; nor is he bound to give to each one of us the same graces inclining us to repent. He has promised forgiveness to those who repent, but not repentance to those who sin. Still less is he bound to give to all the same impulses to perfection, the same interior consolations, the same extraordinary supernatural gifts of any kind. He is no more bound to this than he is bound to give us all the same amount of natural strength, whether of mind or body, or the same amount of worldly goods. He has his reasons for the distribution of his gifts, it is true, and they are wise and holy ones, we may be sure; for he does not act from caprice, as we might do. But they are not reasons of justice to us, but mercy. If we were treated according to strict justice I do not know who among us would be saved.
Remember this, then, my brethren, when you are inclined to find fault with our Lord for his treatment of you or others. Remember that you have already received many times more than in strict justice was your due. Remember the countless favors, both temporal and spiritual, which you have already received at his hands, and be ashamed of complaining that others have received even more. Beware of envying them those things which God, in his great mercy, has freely bestowed on them; take care not to covet your neighbor's goods, for that is exactly what you are in danger of doing. And remember, specially, the great gift which he has given you all, and which many others who certainly seem, even in your own eyes, as good as yourselves have not received; that is, the light of the one true faith. Remember that you have not had to struggle in darkness and uncertainty; that you have always been able to know what to believe and what to do. Others, it is true, might have this, too, if they would do their own part; but that part God has done for you. Thank him, then, for this unspeakable mercy, and do not complain of other things which he has given or withheld.
Sermon XXXIV.
So run that you may obtain.
—1 Corinthians ix. 24.
There is a great rage just now, my brethren, as you are aware, for walking, running, or footing it in any way. He or she is the best man or woman who can go the greatest number of miles in a week, or the greatest number of quarter-miles in the same number of quarter-hours. The interesting question of the present day is who can plod along with the greatest number of big blisters on each foot, or best endure being stirred up every fifteen minutes from a few winks of much-needed sleep, and go to sleep again the soonest after accomplishing the required number of laps on a tan-bark track.
This is all very well in its way. Walking is not a bad thing for the health at any time; and just now it is a decidedly good thing for the pocket, if one is strong enough to excel in it. But for most people there are better ways of getting over the ground. Even the professional pedestrian will not refuse, now and then, to make use of the elevated railway.
There is one journey, however, which we all have to make on foot. That is the journey to heaven, where we all want to go. There is no elevated railway to take us there. If we are to get there it must be by our own exertions. We may, it is true, save part of the labor by availing ourselves of the very uncomfortable and slow transit provided in purgatory; but that is a thing which we must surely wish to avoid as far as possible.
Yes, my brethren, every sensible person will try to escape that means of conveyance, and make this journey on foot over the road prepared in this world. Furthermore, as he has this long walk to take—for heaven is not very near to most of us—he will try to fit himself for it; to go into training, and to keep in training, so that he may not break down on the way, or find himself with a short record when the end of his time arrives. He will bear in mind the warning of St. Paul in to-day's Epistle: "So run that you may obtain."
How does the pedestrian manage to run so as to obtain his fame, his thousand dollars, and his gate-money? In the first place he works hard and sticks to his work. He does not waste his time by sitting down on the benches and watching the other man. He keeps on the track as long as he is able. When he cannot keep on any longer he takes the rest and food that he needs—not a bit more—and goes at it again. Sometimes he feels ready to drop; but he keeps on, and the fatigue passes away.
Secondly, he not only keeps to his work, but he avoids everything else that can interfere with it. He does not live on plum-cake and mince pie, or fill up with bad whiskey and drugged beer. He adopts a good, plain, wholesome diet—something that will stick to his bones and go to muscle, not to fat.
Thirdly, he does not stagger round the ring with a Saratoga trunk on his back. Far from it. He lays aside every weight that he can. He even makes his clothes as light as possible. He does not care to carry anything more than himself over the five hundred miles that he has to go.
Lastly, he has a director. He does not call him by that name—he calls him a trainer; but it comes to the same thing. He does not trust his own judgment, but has some one else to feed him, to tend him, to check him, or to urge him on.
Now, in all things, my friends, the pedestrian sets us a good example: in the earnestness which inspires him, and the means he takes to ensure success.
Imitate him in them in the great journey before you, in which so much more than fame and gate-money is involved. In the first place, keep to your work; let every waking moment be a step toward heaven. Be not weary in well-doing. Secondly, do not indulge sensuality; use what the world has to give so that it may help you on your course, and not for its own sake. Eat and drink so that your body may be strong enough to serve your soul, but not strong enough to rule it. Thirdly, do not put a great load of riches on your back, unless you have got some good use to make of it. You will have to drop it at the end of your race, and it will only keep you back and prevent your winning. Lastly, do not trust yourself too much. Have some one to help you—a director who will guide you and tell you when you make mistakes, when you are going too fast or too slow.
This is nothing but common prudence; use it, and your transit to the kingdom of heaven shall be both rapid and sure.