I love to follow them in their writings; to see them rise up in the face of every national fact, every religious fact of that gross people—rise up to meet every evil deed with anathema, to consecrate in the Lord's name every moral or religious act tending toward true progress. I love to see them go down into the deep ravines, to the borders of the torrent of Cedron, where the Messiah was to drink before lifting up his head; climb the abrupt acclivity to the citadel, to the temple where Jesus was to teach; traverse the public squares where ever and anon the wind from the desert, as if to mock their hopes, caught up the dust beneath the burning sun and flung it in their faces.
Now, in the ravine, in the citadel, and in the temple of Sion, in the streets possessed by the whirlwind, everywhere in that city environed with their love and their devotion, they saw that Sion which was to grow up in its bosom and embrace the world. They loved the future; they loved humanity in God; they loved them in the house of Abraham and in the church of Jesus Christ.
In the presence of these great examples, let me say to you of the love of country all that I have said of domestic love. We no longer know, or rather we no longer rightly know, what it is to love country and people; to see and love, in them, the city of humanity, the city of Jesus Christ, the city of time and eternity.
III. Men of vision and of love, the prophets were also men of combat, and, when necessary, martyrs, soldiers, and victims. No man passes without effort that Red Sea which separates present and future. The prophets crossed it bearing with them on their vigorous shoulders the ark of God and the ark of mankind. But what combats and struggles!—struggles majestic as their visions and their love. They shrunk from them in their infirm human nature; they dreaded these struggles. They knew that the word of God ends by slaying those who hear it: "I have slain them, saith the Lord, in the word of my mouth." "Ah Lord God!" cried Jeremiah, "behold I cannot speak, for I am a child;" and the Lord answered, "Say not, I am a child; for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee: and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. Behold, I have given my words in thy mouth. Lo, I have set thee this day over the nations, and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, and to waste and to destroy, and to build and to plant. For, behold, I have made thee this day a fortified city, and a pillar of iron, and a wall of brass, over all the land, to the kings of Judea, to the princes thereof, and to the priests and to the people of the land. And they shall fight against thee and shall not prevail, for I am with thee to deliver thee."
And to Ezechiel, colleague and successor of Jeremiah, God ever spoke the language of struggle: "Fear not; I send thee to an apostate people that hath revolted from me, ad gentem apostatricem; but I have made thy face stronger than their faces, and thy forehead harder than their foreheads; I have made thy face like an adamant and like flint. I will set thee up like a wall of iron and like a city of brass, for I will be with thee."
Thus did the prophets struggle for that Sion which fought against them, repudiating them. They never forsook it, they always loved and always served it.
We are about to part for another year. Let me entreat you now to unite yourselves with me in a consecration to that kingdom of God, to that church whose courts we have traversed. Christianity is not of today nor of yesterday. It belongs not merely to the historical period of Jesus Christ and his apostles. It comes from David, from Abraham, it comes to us from Adam, our father, our king, our pontiff. In this unique religion, this church changeable in form, immovable in foundation, friends, brothers—let me use words which come from my heart—let us consecrate ourselves, following the example of the prophets, to the love and service of God's kingdom. The kingdom of God is for ever established in Christianity, in the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church. But, as I said just now, this church must ever pass from form to form—de forme en forme-from brightness to brightness—transformamur claritate in claritatem—until her pacific empire shall cover the whole earth, until with humanity she shall attain the age of the perfect man in Christ Jesus.
Do we not wish to work for this kingdom? What are we to do if not that? What are the works of our public and private life if they do not relate finally to the kingdom of truth, justice, charity, to all which constitutes Christianity, to the Catholic and Apostolic Roman Church? I do not ask you to love her as she does not wish to be loved—to love her as a sect is loved, as the gross Jews loved the synagogue, with a heart and mind restricted to the letter. I do not ask you to love our grand Catholic Church by glorifying the infirmities of her life, which are your infirmities and mine; or by condemning all the truths professed and all the virtues practised outside of her by men who are often her sons without knowing it. No; let us have no sectarian love! I ask you to love the church with the heart of the church herself; with a heart commensurate only with the heart of Jesus Christ, dilatamini et vos. "You are not straitened in us," said St. Paul to the Corinthians; "but in your own bowels you are straitened. But having the same recompense, (I speak as to my own children,) be you also enlarged." Dilatamini et vos.
Before leaving you, let me tell you the secret of my youth. Let me speak to you of the day of my priestly consecration, when in this nave, less crowded then than it is to-day, stretched upon that icy pavement, filled with burning palpitations, I was sustained, I was inebriated with one thought—the conviction that I had but one love and one service, the kingdom of God and humanity.
Yes, let us love the church in every man, and every man in the church! What matters condition? Rich or poor, ignorant or learned, omnibus debitor sum, I am every man's debtor, says St. Paul. What matters country? Whether Frenchman or foreigner, Greek or barbarian, omnibus debitor sum, I answer with St. Paul. I am the debtor of barbarism as of civilization. In a certain sense, what matters even religion, if we would love a man?