Sermon LXXVI.
After A Mission.
There is nothing, my dear brethren, which can give more joy and consolation both to pastor and people than a mission such as that which was closed last Sunday.
Thank God, there were many who had been living previously in sin, but who really turned from it then with their whole hearts, and who now have a happiness in those hearts to which they had long before been strangers. This happiness ought to last all their lives. God means that it should; they can make it do so if they will.
But how will it be in fact; how is it too often, after such times of grace and fervor? We have had missions before, which really seemed as if they marked a new era in the history of our parish; but we look for their fruits now and find them only few and far between. Too many of those who made them went back a month or so afterward to the old ways of sin.
What was the reason that they did not persevere? Why was it that they had the same sad story to tell when they came back this time that they had a few years ago?
Was it that they never expected it to be otherwise? Perhaps so. Some Christians—shame to say it—seem to think that mortal sin cannot be avoided. Such do not really try to avoid it; how can they? How can any one seriously attempt what he believes to be impossible? No wonder that such as these fell; the question is if indeed they ever arose. For how could they have made the purpose of amendment which a good confession requires? Let them understand, at least now, that it is possible to abandon mortal sin at once and for ever.
But was it, perhaps, that they thought they could keep the grace they had got by their own unaided strength; that they could fight the devil single-handed, or even that he would never trouble them much again? Ah! my brethren, if any of you thought that he made a terrible mistake. Satan does not give up the souls which he has once possessed so easily. He knows the advantage which all habits of sin give him, and he is going to make the most of them. He will surely attack you, and you are weak, while he is strong. If you undertake to fight him alone, you will go to the wall. You cannot conquer him unless God helps you.
But, after all, there are not many Catholics who do not know that it needs God's help to persevere. Oh! yes; almost every one will say, when asked after confession if he is going to avoid sin for the future, that he will, "with the help of God."
Well, then, what is the matter? If we know that we are in danger, and that we can escape from it, but only by God's help, why does not that help come and save us?