Now, just so it is with the preaching of the truth. As we recite the Creed, as we preach to you, Sunday after Sunday, the Creed itself is indeed unchangeable, but it is a different thing to each one of us who preach, and to each one of you who hear, according to your intelligence, your past history, and your present dispositions. How can it be otherwise? Does not the very word, God, mean something different to us from what it does to a saint? Do not the words Presence of God, mean something different to you and me from what they did to St. Teresa, to whom the soul of man appeared as a castle with seven chambers, each one more sacred than the others, as you advanced into the interior, until the innermost shrine was reached, where God and the soul were joined together in a manner which human language knows not how to utter? Do you not see that the doctrine of the Incarnation is something very different to us from what it was to St. Athanasius, who spent his whole life in conflict for it, who endured years of exile and calumny, the estrangement of friends, the suspicion even of good men, rather than falter the least in fidelity to that verity on which his soul had fed? Or the Real Presence—is that not a different thing to the crowd who come to church and kneel from custom, but hardly remember why, from what it was to St. Thomas, who composed in honor of it the wonderful hymns Pange Lingua and Lauda Sion, or to St. Francis Xavier, who spent nights in prayer, prostrate upon the platform of the altar? Why, St. Thomas, who has so written of the Christian faith that the Church has named him the angelical doctor, threw down his pen in hopelessness of being able to express the high knowledge of divine things which filled his soul. And St. Paul confesses, in writing to the Hebrews, that even in that primitive community, taught by apostles and living in a perpetual call to martyrdom, there were some points of Christian truth which he found himself unable to utter, "because you are become weak to hear." [Footnote 30]
[Footnote 30: Heb. v. 11.]
I know that you are Catholics, that you have the Apostles' Creed by heart, that you believe in one God in Three Persons, in the Incarnation and Death of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and in the two eternities before us; but neither you nor I know what all this implies. Our knowledge is very imperfect: we are but babes in Christ, lisping and stammering the Divine alphabet—children, wetting our feet in the waves which dash on the shore of the boundless ocean of truth.
It is good for us, as I have already said, to remember this, for it gives us at once the true method of forming an estimate of Christianity. A tree is known by its fruit, but it is by its best fruit. If you have a tree in your garden bearing only a small quantity of very delicious fruit, you prize it highly and take great care of it, though many of the blossoms fall off, and a great deal of the fruit never ripens. So you must judge of the Catholic Church, by its best and most perfect fruit, that is, by the men of great wisdom and great virtue whom it produces, and not by its imperfect members. Who is likely to be the best exponent and the truest specimen of his religion, a man of prayer and study, deeply versed in the Holy Scriptures and sacred learning, or one of small capacity, little learning, and little prayer? Evidently, the former; and yet how often do men take the contrary way of judging of the teaching and spirit of the Church. They visit some Catholic country, they see some instance of popular error, ignorance, or disorder, and they say: "This is Catholicity." Or, at home, they see or hear a Catholic do or say something which gives them offence, and they exclaim: "That is your doctrine!" "That is your religion!" Now, supposing the offence they take to be justly taken, which is not always the case, what does it prove? It may prove that the rulers of the Church have not done their duty; but it may prove just the contrary, that they have done their duty-that in spite of the obstacles of ignorance and rudeness, they have succeeded in imparting to some darkened souls enough knowledge to lead them to God, though it be the very least that is sufficient for that purpose. But it does not show what the doctrine of the Church really is as intelligently understood. To find out this, you must look at men who are in the most favorable circumstances for understanding it, and they are the saints of God: St. Basil, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Sales, St. Teresa. St. Vincent of Paul.
O my brethren! how can men turn away from Catholicity? I understand how they can turn away from it as you and I express it; how we can fail to remove their difficulties, or even put new perplexity in their way. But how can they turn away from Catholicity as it is expressed by the great saints of the Church? {268 } What a divine religion! What majesty, what sweetness, what wisdom, what power! How it commands the homage of the world! What a universal testimony it has in its favor, after all! Do you know, my brethren, I believe men are far more in favor of Catholicity than we suspect. I believe half the difficulties they find in our religion are not in our religion at all, but in us; in our ignorance, in our prejudices, in our short-sightedness and narrow-heartedness. What renders the world without excuse is the line of saints, the true witnesses to the genius and spirit of the Catholic religion. And yet, even the saints themselves are not the perfect exponents of the faith, for even the saints were not altogether free from ignorance and error. To understand fully the nobleness of the Christian faith, we should need the help of inspiration itself. Did it never occur to you, my brethren, that the expressions of the prophets and apostles in reference to the light and grace brought by Jesus Christ into the world, were extravagant? "Behold, I will lay thy stones in order, and will lay thy foundations with sapphires, and I will make thy bulwarks of jasper: and thy gates of graven stones, and all thy borders if desirable stones. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord: and great shall be the peace of thy children." "Thou shalt no more have the sun for thy light by day, neither shall the brightness of the moon enlighten thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee for an everlasting light, and thy God for thy glory." [Footnote 31]
[Footnote 31: Isaiah liv. 11-13; lx. 19.]
Does the Catholic Church, as you understand it, come up to these descriptions? Is Catholic truth, as you appropriate it, so high and glorious a thing as this? No! And the reason is, that you are straitened in yourselves. Your conceptions are so low, your knowledge of the truth is so partial and limited that you do not recognize the description when the Holy Ghost presents that truth as it is in itself, as it is seen and known by God.
This thought leads us naturally to another; namely, that it is the duty of each one of us to extend his knowledge of Christian truth as far as possible. There is a story told of a foreign gentleman visiting Rome, who went one day to St. Peter's Church, and, after entering the vestibule, admired its noble proportions, and returned home fully satisfied that he had seen the church itself, which he had not even entered. So it is with many persons who never pass beyond the vestibule of Christian knowledge. They never enter the inner temple, or catch even a glimpse of its vast heights and its dim distances, its receding aisles, its intricate archings, its glory, its richness, and its mystery. O misery of ignorance! which has ever been the heaviest curse of our race. O Morning Star, harbinger of eternal truth, and Sun of Justice, when wilt thou come to enlighten those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death! Alas! this is our grief, that the true Light is come into the world, but our eyes are holden that we cannot see it. Truths, the thought of which rapt the apostles into ecstasy, truths which the angels desire to look into, are published in our hearing, and awaken no aspiration, no stirring in our hearts. We go away, to eat and drink, and work, and play. O brethren! burst for yourselves these bonds of ignorance. Do not say, I am not learned, I am not acute or profound, I cannot hope to understand much. Remember that there were some servants to whom one talent was given, who were called to account as well as those who had ten. Do what you can. A pure heart, a blameless life, and prayer, are great enlighteners. Read, listen, meditate, obey. Ask of God to enlarge your knowledge, and to teach you what it means to say you believe in Him. Ask of Jesus Christ to teach you what it means to say that He was made man and died for us on the cross; what it is to receive His body and blood; what is the meaning of heaven and hell. Awake thou that sleepest, and Christ shall give thee light! He will make you understand more and more what it is to be a Christian. Often have I seen the fulfilment of this promise. I have been at the bedside of poor people, who would be called rude and illiterate, but to whose pure hearts and earnest prayers God had imparted so clear a knowledge of the faith, that I have felt in their humble rooms like Jacob when he awoke from sleep and said: "Indeed the Lord is in this place." [Footnote 32]
[Footnote 32: Gen. xxviii. 16.]