When a Catholic talks that way he is fair game for the first false teacher that comes along.
Then one wanders outside the fold and is caught by the wolves when he ventures into forbidden secret societies. These wolves have got the sheep's clothing of charity and brotherly love on. It is a wonder that there can be found Catholics silly enough not to feel the wolf's claw the first time they are taught the secret-society grip. "Charity and brotherly love" forsooth! They had better say, "We swear to love ourselves, and to look out for number one," for this is what all the twaddle of these secret brotherhoods amounts to. Avoid them. Their leaders are false teachers, their principles are false, and their association is dangerous to both faith and morals.
Beware of the false newspaper prophet. Everybody reads the newspapers, and too many, alas! think they have the right to read any newspaper that is printed. That is what the false newspaper prophet says when he offers for sale his filthy, licentious, and lying sheet. Beware of him! His talk is corrupting and demoralizing.
Do you wish, dear brethren, to make sure of not being deceived by these wolves in sheep's clothing? Then obey with humility and docility the shepherd of the flock. When he cries, "Wolf! wolf!" then be sure that there is a wolf. Defer to his judgment. His preaching, you know, is true. Follow that, and not even the devil himself can deceive you.
Sermon XCIX.
Every tree is known by its fruit.
—St. Luke vi. 44.
The great lesson taught us to-day by the offices of the church is that the Christian life of faith must show itself in good works. Faith is the foundation, but a building must not stop with the foundation; more stones must be added continually until it rises complete in all its parts, according to the plan of the architect. So we must not be content with the foundation of faith, but, by co-operating with the graces God is always giving us, must be always striving after the model set before us by the Divine Architect, our Lord Jesus Christ, always adding virtue to virtue, until at last we shall appear before the God of gods in Sion to receive the reward of our good deeds. Faith is the root, but the root must grow into a tree, and put forth not only leaves and blossoms, not only pious thoughts and fine words, but the fruit of good deeds, the fruit of a life spent in conformity to the maxims of our holy faith.
Our Lord tells us that a tree is known by its fruit. For there is no good tree that bringeth forth evil fruit, nor an evil tree that bringeth forth good fruit. So the earnestness of our faith will be known by our lives. If we find that our lives correspond to what our faith teaches us, we may be sure that our faith is living and not dead. "By their fruits ye shall know them," Alas! how many who call themselves Catholics make their lives an argument against the faith in the hands of its enemies, who point at us the finger of scorn, and loudly proclaim that, by our Lord's own test, we fail. And then we have the careless and the lukewarm, who, while they are not an open scandal, yet fall far short of the test our Lord proposes. In them we see plenty of leaves, and even blossoms, but the fruit is sadly wanting, or, at best, is but worm-eaten and rotten through a lack of earnestness and a pure intention. They, perhaps, will talk about their faith as though they were the most zealous Catholics in the world; but if we look into their practice we find it very different from what their language would lead us to expect. How many, for instance, are ready enough to defend in argument the doctrine of the Real Presence who never think of making a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, nay, who rarely approach the Holy Communion, and perhaps have not made their Easter-duty!