about truth is the result only of the Catholic principle of
faith, and say: "You do not mean to assert that Protestants have
no faith at all?" A Protestant may say to me: "I acknowledge that
we have among us a great deal of disunion, and a great deal of
doubt, but after all there are some things that are believed by
some of us, that are believed without doubt, and you will not
deny it." No, I will not deny it. I am glad to think that it is
true. But how did you come by that belief? You did not come by it
on the principle of Protestantism. The truth is, that principle
never has been, and never can be carried out. Thank God, it is
so. Utter unbelief would be the consequence. You have a child--a
child that you love dearly. Will you wait, as your Protestantism
requires you to do, till he is grown up, for him to form his
religious convictions? No; if you love him, you will not. Your
heart will teach you a better wisdom. You will tell him about
God, you will tell him Who Christ is, and what He has done for
him. You will tell him these things not doubtingly, not as if he
was to suspend his judgment on them, but as true, and as to be
believed then and there. And as he looks up at you out of his
trusting eyes, he believes you. But how does he believe you? On
the principle of a Protestant, or a Catholic? On the principle of
private judgment, or on faith in an infallible authority? Surely
it is as a Catholic he believes? You represent to him the Great
Teacher, and his childish soul, in listening to you, hears the
voice of God, performs a great act of religion, and does his
first act of homage to Truth. His nature prompts him to believe
you. Perhaps he is baptized, and then there is a grace in his
heart which secretly inclines him the more to credit you, and he
believes without doubting. He is a Catholic.
{425}
Yes, my brethren, there is many a child of Protestant parents who
is a Catholic--a Catholic, that is, in all but the name, and the
fulness of instruction, and the richness of privilege. He may
grow up in this way, perhaps continue all his life in this
childish faith and trust. I will not say it may not be so. But
let his reason fully awaken. Let him honestly go down to the
foundation of his faith and see on what it rests, and then let
him remain a Protestant, and retain his undoubting assurance if
he can. He cannot--a crisis in his history has come. The sun has
arisen with its living heat. The flower begins to wither. It must
be transplanted or it will die. One of three things will happen:
either the man, finding that he has not learned all that the
Great Teacher has revealed, will go on to accept the rest and
will become a Catholic; or he will learn to doubt what he has
received already and become a sceptic; or he will stick to the
creed he has received from his fathers or picked up for himself,
and doggedly refuse to add to it, thus rendering himself at the
same moment amenable in the Court of Reason for unreasonableness
in what he holds, and in the Court of Faith for unbelief in what
he rejects. So true it is that all the faith there is in the
world is naturally allied to Catholicity. If men were perfectly
reasonable and consistent, there would be only two parties in the
religious world. Protestantism would disappear. On the one side
would be faith, certainty, Catholicity; on the other, doubt and
unbelief.
Nor is this all. The Catholic has not only a certain means of
arriving at the knowledge of God's Faith, but he has also the
sure means of knowing what he is bound to _do_ in order to
[obtain] salvation. Christianity is a supernatural religion, and
therefore it suggests many questions to which natural reason
cannot give the answer. By what means can I be united to Christ?
Suppose I am in mortal sin, how can I be forgiven?
{426}
What are the precise obligations binding on me as a Christian?
Now, how distinctly, how promptly were such questions answered in
the time of the Apostles! When St. Paul came to Ananias to know
what he was to do, the answer was given to him: "Arise, and be
baptized, and wash away thy sins." In the same way in the
Catholic Church of this day, when a convert asks the same
question, he gets the same answer: Seek in faith and repentance
the cleansing of baptism, and thou shalt be joined unto Christ.
Dost thou wish to know the life thou must practise? It is written
in the ten commandments and the precepts of the Church. Dost thou
wish to know where thou wilt gain strength to keep these laws? In
prayer and the sacraments. The Church tells you how many there
are, what is their efficacy, and the conditions of their saving
operation. Art thou in sin after baptism? Dost thou ask the way
back to God? The Church tells thee that sorrow for sin is the way
back, and that this sorrow, when it is completed by confession,
and accepted by the absolution of the priest, has a sacramental
efficacy. So precise are the answers of Catholicity to the
important practical questions of Christianity; and the authority
which, I have already said, attaches to her words, gives ease and
certainty to the conscience. But how different is all this in
Protestantism! How various the answers given to these questions
by the different sects! Nay, how contradictory sometimes the
answers given in the same sect! It would be odious to go into
particulars on this subject, but I say what I know when I affirm
that an intelligent Protestant cannot have faith in his Church,
if he would; he may adopt a set of opinions and associate with
those who hold them, but he cannot have faith in his Church as a
Church. It is not long since an intelligent member of one of the
most enlightened Protestant denominations told me that the
members of that Church did not seem to be satisfied with it, only
they did not know whether there was any other Church in the world
that would satisfy them.
{427}
I say what I know when I affirm that there are young children in
Protestant Churches who weep because they are told that God hates
them, and they do not know how to gain His love. That there are
numbers of young men, full of generous and noble thoughts and
impulses, who are utterly destitute of any fixed Christian
belief; who say they would like to believe, but they cannot. That
there are multitudes and multitudes who die in this land, who die
without one single Christian act, and many who submit at their
last hour to take part in such acts at the request of friends,
and on the chance that there may be some good in them. That there
are some who openly lament that they were not born Catholics,
that they might have had faith; some who rise in the night to cry
to God out of the hopeless darkness that surrounds them; some
who, in despair of seeing God with an intelligent faith, take up
a substitute, the best of all, it is true, but still very
insufficient--works of benevolence and philanthropy, and the
beauties of a merely moral life; some who would welcome death
itself if it would but remove their agony of doubt.
I do not say these things, my Protestant friends, if any such are
present, to mock your miseries. Far from it. I know you too well.
I love you too much. I say these things to lead you to truth and
peace. I call to you struggling with the waves, from the rock
whereon our feet have found a resting-place. I speak to you to
the same effect as Christ spoke to the woman at the well of
Jacob, who was a member of the schismatical Samaritan Church. You
worship you know not what. We know what we worship; for salvation
is of the Jews. You know not what you worship. Your religion is
at the best one of doubt and uncertainty. We know what we
worship. We are certain we are right, for salvation is of us. We
are the Israelites. To us belongeth the adoption of children, and
the glory, and the covenant, and the giving of the law, and the
service of God, and the promises.
{428}
This is the mountain of the Lord established in the last days on
the top of the mountains, and exalted above the hills, into which
the nations flow. O you who know not this home of peace, God did
not make you to be as you are, to be tossed to and fro and
carried about with every wind of doctrine, to follow blind
guides, to give your money for that which is not bread, and your
labor for that which satisfieth not. No, come with us and be
happy. Come with us and be blessed. Come, let us go the mountain
of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will
teach us His ways, and we will walk in His paths, for the law
shall come forth from Sion, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem. Incline your ear unto me and you shall live--the life
of faith--the life of certainty and hope. You shall go out with
joy and be led forth with peace. Instead of the shrub shall come
up the fir tree: and instead of the nettle shall come up the
myrtle tree. All nature shall sympathise in your happiness. The
mountains and hills shall break forth into singing before you,
and all the trees of the country shall clap their hands.
And you, my dear Catholics, be not indifferent to the graces God
has given you, nor slothful in their use. You have it your power
to make sure your salvation. About the means there is no
uncertainty. They are infallible. It is of the Catholic Church
that the prophet spoke when he said: "_A path shall be there,
and a way, and it shall be called a holy way, and this shall be
unto you a straight way, so that even fools shall not err
therein_." [Footnote 172] And again: "_This saith the Lord
God: I will lay a stone in the foundation of Sion, a tried stone,
a corner-stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation_."
[Footnote 173]
[Footnote 172: Isai. xxxv. 8.]
[Footnote 173: Ibid. xxviii. 16.]
{429}
A way to heaven in this dark, uncertain world! a straight, a
sure, a certain way! A rock under our feet under this swelling
sea! O my brethren, what blessings are these! Let them not be in
vain. Be not found at the last day with your lights gone out! The
just shall live by faith. Live by yours. Do you wish to advance
in a good life? Your faith tells you how. Does sin wage a war
against you? Your faith tells you how to meet the combat. Are you
in sin? Your faith tells you how to be forgiven. Correspond,
then, honestly with this faith, and you may enjoy a firm hope of
heaven, a hope not based on excited feelings, not claiming to be
a direct inspiration from on high, but a reasonable hope, that
will stay by you in adversity, and support you at the hour of
death. Claim, then, your privilege. Assert the freedom wherewith
Christ has made you free. Be not troubled or anxious all your
days. Do your part, act up to your Catholic conscience, then lift
up your heads, eat your bread with joy, and let your garments be
always white, for God now accepteth your works. In this is the
love of God perfected in us, that we may have confidence in the
day of judgment. "_Wherefore, be ye steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know
that your labor is not in vain in the Lord_." [Footnote 174]
[Footnote 174: I. Cor. xv. 58.]
----------------------------------
Sermon XXII.
The Presence Of God.
(Fifth Sunday After Pentecost.)
"Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.
How terrible is this place;
this is no other than the house of God and the gate of heaven."
--Gen XVIII. 16,17.
These words were spoken by the Patriarch Jacob when he was
journeying to Syria to visit his uncle. He had stopped for the
night at a place which was afterward called Bethel, and as he lay
on the ground with a stone for his pillow, the Lord appeared to
him in a vision, and blessed him, and foretold his future
greatness and increase.
{430}
Then, penetrated with a sense of the nearness and greatness of
God, with whom he had been conversing, he rose up and exclaimed:
"Indeed the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And
trembling, he said: "How terrible is this place; this is no other
than the house of God, and the gate of heaven." Now, my brethren,
we may make every morning and every night a similar declaration.
Wherever we are, we may say: "Indeed the Lord is in this place."
Every spot on earth, on which a man tarries for a moment, becomes
the house of God, and the gate of heaven. You understand what I
mean. I am speaking of the omnipresence of God. Reason and faith
both proclaim to us this great truth of the universal presence of
God. He is present by His immensity to all creatures in the
universe, whether living or inanimate. When God created the
world, He did not leave it to itself. He sustains it by His
presence and power, and it is in Him that we live and move and
have our being. He is present to our intellectual and moral being
as the light of reason and the object of the will, for without
Him there would be no rational or moral life. He is present with
us also as the source of that supernatural life which begins in
baptism and ends in the uncreated vision of the Blessed Trinity
in heaven. "He that loveth Me, shall be loved by My Father; and I
will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. * * * And My
Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make an
abode with him." [Footnote 175]
[Footnote 175: St. John xiv. 21, 23.]
O my brethren, what a piercing thought is this of the presence of
God, if we did but realize it! Think for a moment of the doctrine
of the real presence of our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. We
believe that Jesus Christ, true God and true man, with His deity,
His soul, His flesh and blood, is present in the holy sacrament
of the altar. What consequences this doctrine has!
{431}
The whole Catholic ritual, the ceremonies of worship, the respect
paid to churches, the bowing of the knees, the incense, the
lights, the music--all flow from this. In the early ages, during
the times of persecution, it was customary for Christians to take
home with them the Blessed Sacrament, that they might communicate
themselves in case of necessity. Imagine that such were the
custom now. Imagine you were to take away with you, this day, as
you left the church, and carry to your homes, the sacred host
which is kept in the tabernacle. How silently would you go along
the streets! With what care would you seek out a place for our
Saviour's body to repose in! With what care would you go about
your home as long as He remained your guest! How would your heart
thrill as you reflected, on a awaking in the morning, that indeed
the Lamb of God, once crucified for you, was now a dweller in
your own home! Yet, if such were the case, if the Blessed
Sacrament were actually kept in your houses and in your rooms,
God would not be any more present to you than He is now. He is
indeed present in a different manner in the Blessed Eucharist.
That sacramental presence, that sweet, precious, consoling
presence of the body once broken, and the blood once shed for us,
is confined to the sacramental species. But the presence of the
deity, the real presence of God, is just as much outside as it is
inside the church; just as much with us when we are at home as
when we are at Mass. Not if His footstep shook the heavens and
the earth, as it will on the Last Day when He comes to judgment,
would God be one whit closer to us or more present to us than He
is now to everyone of us, every day, and everywhere. Even sin
cannot separate us from God. We sometimes say that mortal sin
separates a man from God. As a figure of speech, implying the
loss of God's grace and friendship which sin occasions, this
language may pass, but taken literally it is untrue. A man can
never be separated from God. That would be annihilation. Even
when we are in sin, even when we are committing sin, God is with
us and in us, the soul of our soul, the life of our life.
{432}
Yes, here is a bond that can never be broken. Never can we escape
that awful presence--never for a moment, here or hereafter. We
shall not be more in God's presence in heaven or less in hell
than we are now at this moment. God is not a God afar off up in
heaven. He is here. This whole universe is only God's shadow.
Every thing that is attests, not only God's creating power, but
His living presence. He is in the flames and in the light, and in
the pastures, in the air, in the ground, in the body, and in the
soul, in the head, in the eye, in the ear, and in the heart. He
is in us, and we are in Him, bathed in His presence as in an
ocean, breathing in it as in an atmosphere. This is what the
Psalmist expresses so beautifully: "_Whither shall I go from
Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend
into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art
present; if I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in
the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall Thy hand
lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. And I said: Perhaps
darkness shall cover me; and night shall be light in my
pleasures. But darkness shall not be dark to thee; and night
shall be light as the day; the darkness thereof, and the light
thereof, are alike to Thee_." [Footnote 176]
[Footnote 176: Ps. cxxviii. 7-12.]
If we thought more frequently of this, how many sins should we
avoid! When a man is going to commit a crime, he takes
precautions against discovery. He seeks out a secret place. He
chooses a fitting hour. Vain precautions! There is no secret
place on earth, no lonely spot, no time of darkness. There is a
proverb among men that "walls have ears," and the counsel of the
wise man is, "_Detract not the king, no, not in thy thought;
and speak not evil of the rich man in thy private chamber;
because even the birds of the air will carry the voice; and he
that hath wings will tell what thou hast said_." [Footnote 177]
[Footnote 177: Eccles. x. 20.]
{433}
What is it that has impressed on men this universal fear of
detection? Is it not an unconscious acknowledgment of the
presence of God? Yes, we cannot shut the door against Him. We
cannot leave Him out. We cannot draw the blind before His eye.
"_The eyes of the Lord in every place behold the good and the
evil." [Footnote 178] "Before that Philip called thee, when thou
wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee,_" [Footnote 179] said our
Lord to Nathanael.
[Footnote 178: Prov. xv. 3.]
[Footnote 179: St. John i. 48.]
I wish you thought more of this; I am sure it would save you from
many a sin. I have read of a holy man who, on hearing a person
say that circumstances were favorable to the commission of a
shameful sin, because no one was present, exclaimed: "What! are
you not ashamed to do that before the living God which you would
be ashamed to do before a man like yourself?" Even the eye of a
dog has restrained men from the commission of crime--how much
more ought the eye of God! Listen to the language you hear as you
pass through the streets. The sacred names of God and Jesus
Christ, how they are bandied about! Would men speak so, if they
realized that God and Christ were then and there present? Would
they insult God to His face? Suppose our Saviour were to appear
to one of these men as he was pouring out his oaths and
blasphemies, in the guise in which He was as He journeyed to
Calvary to die for man, with sorrow in His eye, and sweat and
blood on His forehead, with weak and faltering steps, and lips
mute, but full of appealing love and agony; would he still go on
with his dreadful oaths? No! The knee would be bent, the head
would be bowed, and the very ground on which He walked would be
regarded with reverent awe. Why so? Merely because he saw Him
with his bodily eyes? Would it not be the same, if he were to
close His eyes, and yet be aware of His presence? And is He not
present to you as truly as if you saw Him, hearing each
imprecation and blasphemy which you utter?
{434}
Oh, spare Him! spare those sacred ears; spare His majesty and His
goodness, and cease to profane His holy name. Tertullian,
speaking of the early Christians, says they talked as those who
believed that God was listening. Let the thought of God's
presence be deeply graven on your soul, and it will teach you to
use the language of a Christian--at least it will cure you of
blasphemy.
It will cure you also of another sin of the tongue: that is of
falsehood. Lying implies a virtual denial of God's presence, as
well as blasphemy. When you lie, you forget the there is One who
know's the truth--who is Himself the Eternal Truth; and you act
as if He knew not, or would be a party to your fraud. Every lie
is, in this respect, like the lie of Ananias and Sapphira--a lie
to God.
Oh! how much must God be displeased by all the sins He witnesses.
It is said of righteous Lot, that from day to day he vexed his
righteous soul at all the sins which he witnessed in Sodom, where
he dwelt. How must the Holy God be vexed every day at all the
dark deeds, the injustices, the impurities, the falsehoods, the
deceits, the treacheries, the cruelties, to which men compel Him
to be a witness! Is it not a necessity that Christ should come
with ten thousand of His saints to take vengeance on the ungodly!
Would it not seem, otherwise, that God made Himself a party to
our sins by keeping silence? "_These things hast thou
done_," says the Almighty, "_and I was silent. Thou
thoughtest unjustly that I shall be like to thee: but I will
reprove thee, and set before thy face_." [Footnote 180]
[Footnote 180: Ps. xlix. 21.]
David committed adultery in secret; but God declared to him that
He would punish him before all Israel, and in the sight of the
sun. So the Judgment Day will bring to light every secret thing,
and manifest, in the sight of all, those hidden sins which have
been committed in the presence and with the full knowledge of
God.
{435}
They have never been hidden from God, and the disclosures of the
Last Day are only the Presence and the Knowledge of God asserting
and manifesting themselves to men. The thought of God, and of His
Omnipresence, is thus the greatest preservative against sin.
But this is not all. The thought of God's perpetual and universal
presence is our greatest strength and consolation. What a comfort
it would be to have a friend, who loved us truly, who was most
sincerely desirous of our welfare and happiness, who was very
wise and able to help us in difficulties, never variable or
capricious, but always true and faithful and trustworthy! The
possession of such a friend will go as far as any thing earthly
can go to make one perfectly happy. Now, each one of us really
has such a friend. Such a friend? Ah! far better, far wiser, far
more loving--even the good God! God, in the Holy Scriptures,
represents the soul of man as a garden, in which it is His
delight to walk about. What an idea this gives us of the
familiarity a man may have with God. Why do not men take
advantage of this loving condescension? Why do they not converse
with God? Why do they not think of Him? The face of Moses shone
after he had been talking to God on Mount Sinai, and our
countenance would be light and joyous if we dwelt more in God's
presence. Oh, to think of it! When we walk in the streets, when
we sit down and rise up, there is one ever at our side--no, not
at our side; but in us--our very life and being; God, the
Beautiful and Good. God, Who made the heavens and the earth; the
God of our fathers. God, Who has been the comfort and stay of the
just in all ages, Who talked with Abraham, and went before the
children of Israel in a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by
night. God, Who gave manna from heaven, Who spoke by the
prophets, and in the still, small voice on Mount Horeb; Who awoke
Samuel, as he lay sleeping in his little crib in the priest's
chamber, and chose David, the youth, fair and of a ruddy
countenance, to be the prince of His people; and who, in these
last days, hath revealed Himself in His Only Begotten Son, full
of grace and truth.
{436}
He it is Who is with you and me, even from our youth unto this
day. O thou who art afflicted, tossed with tempests and not
comforted, what dost thou want?--what wouldst thou have? The
Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath thee are the
everlasting arms. Thou hast but to open thy soul, and floods of
comfort and strength will pour into thee. Art thou weak? He is
thy Strength. Art thou sad and lonely? He is thy Consoler. Art
thou guilty? He is thy Redeemer--the God ready to pardon. Does
the world allure thee? His Beauty will make its attractions pale.
Is thy heart weary and inconstant? He is unfailing and
unchanging. O source of strength, too much slighted! O happiness,
too often blindly rejected! In the presence of God there is
pleasure and life. "_They that hope in the Lord shall renew
their strength; they shall take wings as eagles; they shall run
and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." "For He is a
covert from the wind, a hiding-place from the storm, as rivers of
waters in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land_." [Footnote 181]
[Footnote 181: Isai. xl. 31; xxxii. 2.]