conversion, putting off your return to God, to what a risk are
you exposing your salvation! You say you will go to your
confession at some other time. You are young; you imagine it will
be easier in coming years; you think your passions will be
weaker, your temptations less. But you are deceiving yourselves.
You are counting on that which you do not know will ever be
yours. You cannot promise yourself another year. How many who
were here a year ago are now numbered with the dead! some of them
as young as you are, and who a year ago felt as you do now. You
count on special graces, and you have no right to count on them.
You are deceiving yourselves, my brethren, you are deceiving
yourselves. The freeness and abundance of grace, the
_cheapness_ of grace, if I may so express myself, deceives
you. God invites, and seems to plead and to beseech you to be
saved, and you think it will always be so. You think a time is
coming when God will save you in spite of yourselves. You know
that you are not now on the road to heaven, you know that you are
living in sin, but you think somehow God will interfere and make
it right. We are told in the gospel that there was at Jerusalem a
pool, around which usually lay a great multitude of sick and
afflicted people, waiting for the moving of the water; for an
angel came down at certain times and troubled the water, and
whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was
healed.
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So it is with slothful, negligent, procrastinating Christians.
They lie in their sins, waiting for some aid which will raise
them to their feet, and make them whole without any effort of
their own. Vain hope! They will die in their sins. "_You shall
seek me_," said Christ, "_and you shall die in your
sins_." [Footnote 90]
[Footnote 90: St. John viii. 21.]
These fearful words are addressed to you, O despiser of God's
grace; to you, O young man, who deferrest conversion; to you,
lover of pleasure, who will not break with your idols; to you, O
drunkard, who will not throw away the intoxicating glass; to you,
O avaricious man, who are getting rich by fraud or by the blood
of souls. "_You shall die in your sins_." That is the end to
which you are tending. As you have despised God, so He will
despise you. You shall seek Him, but you shall not find Him. You
shall call upon Him, but He will not hearken. At your dying hour,
every thing will fail you. Prayer will die on your lips, unused
to pray. Your mind, so long accustomed to love sin, will find it
hard to turn from it with true contrition. The priest, ah! the
priest cannot save you. He can only help you, can only give you
the consolations of religion if you are rightly disposed. And how
can you dispose yourself at that dreadful hour, when your mind is
filled with a fearful looking for of judgment, when all your
sins, and all the graces you have rejected, rise up before your
guilty conscience? Oh! meet this danger. Do not run this risk.
Resist no longer the grace of God. Behold, now once more God
calls you to His fear. Behold, the days have come "to do penance,
and to redeem your sins." God by His Holy Church makes you
another offer. "_Turn unto me, and I will turn unto you_,"
saith the Lord. "_Let the wicked forsake his way, and the
unjust man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he
will have mercy on him_." [Footnote 91] "_To-day, then, if
you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts_." Resolve to
prepare for your Easter confession. If you came last Easter and
have persevered, bless God, and come now. If you have fallen
away, see where the error was, and learn a deeper humility, and
make a stronger purpose, and come again.
[Footnote 91: Isai. lv. 7.]
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And, oh if you have stayed away in former years, and are
purposing to stay away this Easter, too--or if you are too
negligent to have formed any purpose; if you are just floating
on, heedless and careless, then know, that for all these things
God will bring you into judgment, that the severest part of your
account will be for graces resisted and rejected; and that you
are preparing for yourselves the retribution threatened in those
dreadful words: "_Because I called and you refused: I stretched
out My Hand; and there was none that regarded. You have despised
all my counsel, and have neglected my reproofs. I also will laugh
in your destruction: and will mock, when that shall come upon you
which you feared. When sudden calamity shall fall upon you, and
destruction as a tempest shall be at hand: when tribulation and
distress shall come upon you: Then they shall call upon Me, and I
will not hear: they shall rise in the morning, and shall not find
Me: Because they hated instruction, and received not the fear of
the Lord, nor consented to My counsel, but despised all My
reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and
shall be filled with their own devices_." [Footnote 92]
[Footnote 92: Prov. i. 24-31.]
----------------------------------
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Sermon XIV.
The Tomb Of Christ,
The School Of Comfort.
(Easter Sunday.)
"Jesus saith to her:
Woman why weepest thou?
Whom seekest thou?"
St. John xx. 15.
How full of tenderness are these words! They were spoken on the
first Easter Day. This weeping woman was Mary Magdalene, she that
had been a great sinner, and was converted, and loved our Lord so
much. She had been at His Cross: she is now at His Tomb, with her
spices and ointments to anoint His body. But our Lord's body was
not in the grave. The stone is rolled away. The tomb is open, and
He is not there. And yet He is not far away. Risen from the dead
to a new and mysterious life, He hovers about the garden, and
draws near to her as she approaches the sepulchre. At the
outburst of her grief on finding the sepulchre empty, He breaks
silence. "_Woman why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?_"
These are the first words our Lord spoke after His Resurrection.
They are the same words that were used by the angel a little
before. They seem to be the antiphon, the key-note which Heaven
has given us to guide our Easter thoughts. No tears on Easter
Day. Nay, no tears any more of the bitter, hopeless kind, for
Christ is Risen. St. Mary Magdalene at the tomb of Christ
represents Humanity sitting in the region and shadow of death.
Now to-day Christ comes forward, and speaks comfortable words to
the human race. "_Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?_" He
challenges us. "I, thy risen Saviour," He seems to say, "am thy
consoler. What grief is there that I have not removed?" And is it
so? Are all our real sorrows removed or alleviated by the
resurrection of Christ? Yes; heavenly messengers have appeared
bringing good tidings. Christ is risen.
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"The stroke of our wound is healed. "_To them that sat in the
region of the shadow of death, light is sprung up." "The
Day-Spring from on high hath visited us._" The earth feels
herself to be lightened of her darkness, and in every church in
Christendom the cry is again and again repeated: "_Alleluia:
Praise the Lord_."
It would be too long to attempt to show how every human sorrow
can gather consolation from the Resurrection of Christ. All I can
hope to do this morning is to show how the three heaviest
troubles of our race--doubt, guilt, and bereavement--find their
relief in that event.
I call doubt, guilt, and bereavement the heaviest woes of man. In
regard to the first, religious doubt, many of you have had no
experience. Brought up in the Catholic Church, with her teaching
always sounding in your ears, you have never known what it was to
have real doubts about religious truth. But there are others who
have known that anguish by experience. The soul of man thirsts
for truth. Deep in every man's soul is a desire for God. It may
be stifled, it may be silenced for a time by passion, but there
it is, that stretching forth to the Fountain of Goodness and
Beauty, that longing to know Him and His will. In generous souls,
in souls that are conscious of their dignity, the finding of
truth is an indispensable necessity. The search for truth is an
occupation that must be pursued with whatever pain and trouble,
and until it be found life is really insupportable. O my
brethren, I do believe that there are souls around us who hunger
for truth as a famishing man hungers for food. They labor and
toil harder than any day-laborer. They are like men exploring a
dark and many-chambered mine. They go with stooping head, and the
sweat rolls off their foreheads, and their feet stumble, and with
their dim light they can see but a little way before them, and
they are in danger of losing their way.
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No doubt they learn something; for God is everywhere; God is in
our hearts, and in Nature, and in men, and in books, and in the
past, and we cannot look for Him anywhere without finding His
footprints; but we want more than this. We want God to speak to
us. We sigh for the lost happiness of Eden, where God walked with
our first parents in "the cool of the day." This is what men
need. They need God to _reveal_ Himself to them, to give
them certainty in religious truth, at least on the most important
points. Everywhere men have been seeking this. "_Oh that God
would rend the heavens and come down!_" [Footnote 93]
[Footnote 93: Isaias lxiv. 1.]
This is the cry of humanity, that God would speak to us and make
us hear His voice. And they have sought for this voice. They have
strained their ears to listen to it. They have sought it of the
moon and stars as they moved through the heavens by night; they
have sought it in the whispers of the grove; they have sought it
at the lips of men of science and pretended religious teachers.
But they have met in such sources only with disappointment or
deceit. And yet that voice has always been in the world. It spoke
at first feebly and low, but louder and louder as time went on,
until Jesus Christ came and "spake as never man spake." He
claimed to be the Son of God, taught us clearly about God and our
destiny, promised His unfailing protection to His Church in
transmitting His doctrine to all generations, and confirmed the
truth, both of His Teaching and Promises, by rising from the dead
according to His Word. To Him, therefore, belongs the glorious
title: "_The Faithful and True Witness, the First-Begotten of
the Dead._" [Footnote 94]
[Footnote 94: Apoc. i. 5.]
Eighteen hundred years have passed away, but His Word has lost
none of its authority, and now this morning we can say, as to
every point of the Catholic creed, with as much certainty as on
the morning of the Resurrection the Apostles felt in regard to
all the words of Christ--"_I believe_." O glorious privilege
of a Catholic! "_Rejoice_," says the prophet, "_and be
glad in the Lord, O children of Sion, because He hath given to
you a Teacher of Justice_." [Footnote 95]
[Footnote 95: Joel ii. 23.]
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Obedient to this inspired injunction, the Church requires the
Creed to be sung at her great solemnities. It is not enough to
recite it. No; it must be sung, sung in full chorus, accompanied
with instruments of music. And fitting it is and right. Worship
would be incomplete without it. Litanies and hymns are the means
by which the heart does homage to God; but CREDO, "_I
believe_," that is the intellect's cry of joy at its
emancipation from the bondage of doubt. Oh, how mistaken are
those who imagine that the articles of the Creed are like fetters
on the mind. On the contrary, they are to us the evidences of
that liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. We reject
temptations against faith, as attacks on our happiness. We feel
that to doubt the doctrine of faith would be to doubt the Son of
God, and to doubt Him would be to discredit our own soul. Be
firm, then, my brethren in faith. Remember that faith is part of
your birthright and privilege as Christians. The Sepulchre of
Christ is the gate to the Palace of Truth. See, the door is open.
The stone is rolled away. Oh, enter and be blest. With Thomas
look at His wounded side and say, "_My Lord and my God!_"
With Magdalene fall at His feet and call Him "_Master_."
Listen to His words and doubt no more. "_Being no more
children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of
doctrine, but holding the truth in charity, in all things grow up
in Him who is the Head, Christ_." [Footnote 96]
[Footnote 96: Eph. iv. 14.]
Again, as doubt is the bondage of the intellect, so guilt is the
burden of the conscience. Who can give peace to a soul that has
sinned? The prophet Micheas well describes the anxiety of such a
soul. "_What shall I offer to the Lord that is worthy?
Wherewith shall I kneel before the High God? Shall I offer
holocausts unto Him, and calves of a year old? Will He be
appeased with thousands of rams? Shall I give my first-born for
my wickedness, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?_"
[Footnote 97]
[Footnote 97: Mich. vi. 6.]
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Now, must we for ever go on in this uncertainty? Shall we never,
after we have sinned, have again the assurance that we are
pardoned? Must we go trembling all our days, and be
terror-stricken at the hour of death? Are we left to our own
fancyings and feelings to decide whether we are pardoned or not?
Shall we never _hear_ that sweet consoling word: "_Go in
peace, thy sins are forgiven thee?_" Yes, Christ is risen. He
is come from the grave "with healing in His wings." He is come as
a conqueror, with the trophies of victory. Hear what He says of
Himself: "_I am He that liveth and was dead, and behold I live
forever, and have the keys of Hell and Death_." [Footnote 98]
[Footnote 98: Apoc. i. 18.]
He has come back from the grave with the keys of Hell in His
hand. While He was yet among men He had promised to give those
keys to St. Peter and the Apostles, but it was only after His
death, by which He had merited our pardon, and after His
Resurrection, by which His Father had attested His acceptance of
the Ransom, that He proceeded solemnly to deliver them. "_Now
when it was late_," says St. John, "_that same day_"
(Easter day) "_Jesus came and stood in the midst and said to
them: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent Me, I also send
you. When He had said this, He breathed on them: and He said to
them, Receive the Holy Ghost: Whose sins you shall forgive, they
are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are
retained_." [Footnote 99]
[Footnote 99: St. John xx. 19.]
Do you hear this, O sinner? He offers you pardon, and He assures
you of it. All He asks of you is a true sorrow; all He asks is a
fervent and true purpose to offend Him no more. Come, confessing
your sins; come, forsaking them, and He has promised that His
priest shall declare to you, in His name: "I absolve thee from
thy sins."
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He has promised to ratify the sentence in heaven. Can you doubt
His power? Can you doubt His truth? No: He has risen for our
justification. "_What shall we say then to these things? If God
be for us, who shall be against us? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of the elect of God? It is God that justifieth. Who is he
that shall condemn? It is Christ that died, yea also Who is risen
again_." [Footnote 100]
[Footnote 100: Rom. viii. 33.]
Do not look on us, the ministers of His grace, weak and frail as
we are. Look at the Saviour. Look at Him dying on the cross, a
ransom for our sins. Look at Him, rising from the dead on the
third day, having accomplished a complete victory over our
spiritual enemies, and bringing to us life and pardon. See Him in
His divine power, instituting sacraments by which that life and
pardon might be communicated to us. Believe His word, trust His
merits, have recourse to His sacraments, and thus, "_being
justified by faith have once more peace with God, and rejoice
again in hope of the Glory of God_." [Footnote 101]
[Footnote 101: Rom. v. 1.]
Come, forgiven sinner, lift up your head, for God hath cleansed
you. Be happy: be a Christian: be a man once more, for you are
clothed again in the garments of innocence and sanctity. It is no
incomplete and grudging pardon He has given you. Though your sins
"were as scarlet," they are now as "white as snow;" though they
were "red like crimson," they are "as white as wool." "He hath
cast your sins into the bottom of the sea." They shall never be
mentioned to you again. He has even restored to you again the
merits you had acquired in days of innocence, and lost again by
sin. He has "_restored to you the years which the locust and
the caterpillar and the mildew and the palmer-worm hath
eaten_." [Footnote 102] Let, then, gratitude fill your heart,
let joy be written on your face, and let holy resolves for the
future correspond to the mercy you have received.
[Footnote 102: Joel ii. 25.]
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Yes, my brethren, Christ at His Sepulchre satisfies the intellect
and heals the conscience--and He also silences another cry of
human woe. It is that of which the prophet spoke when he said:
"_A voice was heard of lamentation, of mourning and weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children and refused to be comforted,
because they are not_." [Footnote 103]
[Footnote 103: Jer. xxxi. 15.]
Oh! it is hard to see one we love die, but is it not harder to
our sensitive nature to bury them? That makes us feel what we
have lost. Reason tells us that the soul is immortal, but we need
something more for our comfort. The heart asks, "What is to
become of the body that I loved so much?" Talk of the lifeless
and speechless corpse. It is not lifeless and speechless to me.
Those cold lips smile the old smile on me, and whisper in my ear
a thousand words of kindness. And oh, to part with that! To lose
even that sad comfort! To have the body of the dead taken away
from us, is not that a grief? Such was Mary Magdalene's sorrow.
"_They have taken away my Lord out of the Sepulchre, and I know
not where they have laid Him_." [Footnote 104]
[Footnote 104: St. John xx. 2.]
She could bear any thing but that. She had borne up at our Lord's
death. It was a bitter thing, but then she stood at the foot of
the cross on which He hung, and she could look up at Him and see
Him. She had borne up on Friday evening, for then she was busy
preparing her spices and ointments. She had borne up on Saturday,
for she was thinking all day of her visit to the grave next
morning. But on Sunday, to go and find His body gone--never
again to look upon those lips that had spoken peace to her soul;
never again to kiss with affection those sacred feet,--oh, this
was too much. And Mary stood at the Sepulchre weeping. But lo!
what voice is that which speaks: "_Woman, why weepest
thou?_" It is the voice of Jesus himself, of Jesus whom she
mourns. Himself, flesh and blood, the very Jesus whom she had
known and loved.
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So, my brethren, as you weep at the graves of your friends, those
very friends stand near you and say, "Why weepest thou?" Weep not
for me. Weep not for me, childless mother! Weep not for me, my
orphan child! Weep not for me, my sorrowing friend! Leave my body
awhile in the grave. It is not dead but sleeps. "_For I know
that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day I shall arise out of
the earth. And I shall be clothed again with my skin and in my
flesh I shall see my God: Whom I myself shall see, and my eyes
shall behold, and not another's_." [Footnote 105]
[Footnote 105: Job xix. 25.]
Touch me not yet: wait awhile, and you shall see my hands and
feet, that it is I myself. "_For as in Adam all die, so also in
Christ all shall be made alive. But every one in his own order;
the first fruits Christ, then they that are of Christ, who have
believed in His coming_." [Footnote 106]
[Footnote 106: I. Cor. xv. 22.]
Strange it is that our comfort and joy should come out of the
grave. But so it is. By the resurrection of Christ all our woes
are healed. Our new life springs from the sepulchre of Christ.
Christ is risen we believe. Christ is risen; we are pardoned.
Christ is risen; death loses its power to separate Christians.
Mourn then no longer, my brethren, it is Easter. Believe, and
rejoice. Forsake your sins, and rejoice. Bury your dead in
Christ, and rejoice in hope. The former things are passed away;
all things are become new. "_The winter is now passed; the rain
is over and gone. The flowers have appeared; the time of pruning
is come; the voice of the dove is heard in our land_."
[Footnote 107]
[Footnote 107: Cant. ii. 11, 12.]
It is Easter. This is that day "which the Lord hath made." This
is the Lord's Passover. The Red Sea is crossed: we are delivered
out of Egypt, and are marching to the promised land. It is
Easter. Mary has been at the sepulchre early this morning and has
seen the Saviour. Jesus has appeared in the midst of the
disciples, saying, "Peace be with you." Some have known Him in
breaking of bread. To some He has drawn near as they walked along
and discoursed together. Some that were sad He has comforted. How
has it been with each of you?
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Has this day been a day of joy to you? Has it awakened you to new
life, new hopes, new aspirations? or does it find you cold, dead
to spiritual things, perhaps not even in the grace of God, and in
love with your sins! Oh, at least now awake to the hopes and
desires of a Christian. "_The day is far spent; it draweth
toward evening_." Let not this glorious feast depart and leave
you as you are. While angels and the Son of God are abroad on the
earth, scattering grace and consolation, do not you alone remain
unblest. Claim your privileges as a Christian, and, risen with
Christ in baptism, seek those things that are above, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God.
And you, faithful souls who have done your duty, who have found
in this Feast a joy and comfort that passes understanding, know
that the gladness of Easter is but an earnest of another day, the
great day of eternity, which will open on the morning of
resurrection, and which knows no evening; which has no need of
the sun, for God is the light thereof; when God shall wipe away
all tears; and death shall be no more; and sorrow and sighing
shall flee away.
--------------------------
Sermon XV.
St. Mary Magdalene at the Sepulchre.
(Easter Sunday. [Footnote 108])
[Footnote 108: The substance of this sermon
is from St. Thomas of Villanova.]
"But He rising early the first day of the week,
appeared first to Mary Magdalene."
--St. Mark XVI. 9.
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St. Mary Magdalene may be called the Saint of the Resurrection.
She is intimately associated with that event in the pages of the
Scriptures, and in the minds of Christians. Indeed, the Gospel
account of the Resurrection embraces an almost continuous record
of the actions of this holy woman from the Crucifixion until
Easter day; and I have thought that in tracing that record this
morning, while I am presenting to you the great mystery of
to-day's celebration, I shall at the same time be pointing out to
you the means of obtaining those graces which our risen Lord has
come to impart. St. Mary Magdalene's history for these three days
is a history of love. Every thing she does, every thing she says,
is a proof of her love for our Lord. And the distinguishing
favors our Lord bestowed on her are a pledge of what we may look
for to-day, if we imitate her love.
First, then, we are told, that when our Lord was taken down from
the cross, and laid in the new tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, she
went "and saw how the body was laid." One might have thought it
would have satisfied her to stand by the cross, through those
fearful hours, till it was an over, and then to have returned
home. No; love will see the last. She will follow on to the
grave. It is true the dead bodies of our friends feel not our
kindness, but still we want them treated with tenderness and
care. So Mary follows the corpse to the burial, and, when it is
laid in the sepulchre, she looks in to see how it is laid. Not a
superficial look: no, an earnest scrutinizing gaze. She sees how
the drooping head lays on its stony pillow, and how the pierced
hands and feet are disposed. She makes a picture of it all in her
own mind, and "then returns to the city to prepare spices and
ointments." Now, there was no need at all of this. Nicodemus had
come, as soon as Pilate had given the disciples possession of our
Lord's body, and brought "a mixture of myrrh and aloes, a hundred
pounds weight." But Mary does not care for that. Others may do
what good works they choose, but she will not be cheated of hers.
And what she does she will do prodigally, too. It was her way.
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You remember how, at the house of Simon, she brought her
alabaster box of ointment, and broke it, and scattered it over
the feet of Jesus, so that the whole house was filled with the
perfume; and how Judas found fault with her, saying, "This
ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence,
and given to the poor." Our Lord attempted then to excuse her
extravagance, saying, "She hath done this against the day of MY
burial." No, she would do it then, and she would do it at His
burial, too. Nicodemus and "the holy women" may bring as much as
they like, but she will do her part. Precious and costly shall
her offering be as she can make it, not because He needs it, but
because her heart is straitened to express its love. It is her
pleasure to spend and be spent for Him whom she loved; and all
she can do is too little.