supplies the want of the human soul for an adequate mode of
approaching God. As a creature before its Creator, you are
oppressed with your own inability to worship Him worthily. Do you
want a better worship than that which His Eternal Son offers? In
the Mass, the Son of God in His Human Nature worships the Father
for us. He prays for us; asks pardon for us; gives thanks for us;
adores for us. As He is perfect man, He expresses every human
feeling; as He is perfect God, His utterances have a complete
perfection, an infinite acceptableness. Thus, when we offer Mass,
we worship the Father with Christ's worship. It seems to me that
the Catholic can have a certain kind of pride in this.
{487}
He may say, "I know I am weak and as nothing before God, yet I
possess a treasure that is worthy to offer Him, I have a prayer
to present to Him all-perfect and all-powerful, the prayer of His
Only-Begotten Son in whom He is well pleased."
Nor is this all. Christ worships the Father for us in the Mass,
not to excuse us from worshipping, but to help us to worship. You
remember how, the night before our Saviour died, He took with Him
Peter and James and John, and going into the garden of
Gethsemane, He said to them, "Tarry ye here, while I go and pray
yonder." And how, being removed from them about a stone's cast,
He began to pray very earnestly, so that He was in an agony, and
the drops of blood fell from His body to the ground; and how He
went to them from time to time to urge them to watch and pray
along with Him. The weight of all human sorrows was then upon His
soul. He was presenting the necessities of the whole human race
to His Father, but He would have the apostles, weary as they
were, borne down by suffering and fatigue, to join their feeble
prayers with His. So, in the Holy Mass, He is withdrawn from us a
little distance, making intercessions for us with groanings which
cannot be uttered, and He would have us kneel about the temple
aisles, adding our poor prayers to His. Our prayers, by being
united to His, obtain not only a higher acceptance, but a higher
significance. Our obscure aspirations He interprets. What we know
not how to ask for, or even to think of, He supplies. What we ask
for in broken accents, He puts into glowing words. What we ask
for in error and ignorance, He deciphers in wisdom and love. And
thus our prayers, as they pass through His Heart, become
transfigured and divine.
Oh, what a gift is the Holy Mass! How full an utterance has
Humanity found therein for all its woes, its aspirations, its
hopes, its affections! How completely is the distance bridged
over that separated the creature and the Creator!
{488}
It was to the Mass that our Lord alluded in His conversation with
the woman of Samaria. You remember the incident. The Samaritans
were a schismatical sect. They had separated from the Jews, had
built a temple on Mount Gerazin, in opposition to the temple of
the Jews at Jerusalem, and there they offered sacrifices. Now,
this Samaritan woman, when our Lord had entered into conversation
with her, put to Him the question which was then in controversy.
Which was the right temple? Which was the acceptable sacrifice?
Which was the place where men ought to worship--Mount Gerazin; or
Mount Sion? And how does our Lord answer her? "_Woman, believe
Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain nor
yet in Jerusalem adore the Father. The hour cometh and now is,
when the true worshipper shall worship the Father in Spirit and
in Truth_." [Footnote 235]
[Footnote 235: St. John iv. 22, 23.]
The time is coming when a new Sacrifice, a new worship, shall be
established, a worship of Spirit and Truth, a worship that shall
put to rest the controversy between Samaria and Jerusalem, for it
shall be offered in every place. What is that sacrifice? What is
that worship? The prophet had foretold it long before: "_From
the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof, My Name is
great among the Gentiles, and IN EVERY PLACE THERE IS SACRIFICE,
and there is offered to My Name A CLEAN OBLATION_." [Footnote 236]
[Footnote 236: Mal. ii. 11.]
And the whole tradition of the Christian Church, from the very
first, tells us that this _clean oblation_ is no other than
the Eucharistic Sacrifice, a worship of "Truth," if the presence
of Christ can make it true; and of "Spirit," if the Heart of
Christ can make it spiritual; a worship that meets all man's
wants and befits all God's attributes.
{489}
With this conception of the Mass in your minds, you see at once
the explanation of some of the ceremonies attending its
celebration which seem to Protestants strange and senseless. A
Protestant enters a Catholic Church during the time of Mass. The
Priest is at the Altar. You cannot hear what he says, he speaks
so low and rapidly; and perhaps it would do you no good if you
could, for he speaks in Latin; and you say: "What mummery!" "What
superstition!" "What an unmeaning service!" But stop awhile. Take
our view of the Mass, and see if our custom is so strange. We
believe that there is an invisible Priest at the Mass, Christ,
the Son of the Living God, Who offers Himself to His Father for
us. You know it is related in the Old Testament, that on one day
in the year the Jewish High-Priest used to enter into the Holy of
Holies, which was separated from the temple by a veil, and there
in secrecy perform the rites of expiation, while the people
prayed in silence without. So it is at the Mass. You see the
Priest lift up the Host before the people. Well, that is the
white veil that hides the Holy of Holies from our eyes. Within,
our Lord and Saviour mediates with the Father in our behalf. Oh,
be still! Speak low! Let not the priest at the altar raise his
voice, lest he drown the whispers from that inner shrine. What
need for me to know the very words the priest is using? I know
what he is doing. I know that this is the hour of grace. Earth
has disappeared from me. Heaven is open before me. I am in the
presence of God, and I am praying to Him in my own words, and
after my own fashion. I am pouring out my joys before Him, or
opening to Him the plague of my own heart.
Yes, the Catholic Church has solved the problem of worship. She
has a service which unites all the necessary conditions for the
public worship of God--a common service, in which all can join;
an external service, which takes place before our eyes, which is
celebrated with offerings which we ourselves supply, and by a
Priest taken from among ourselves; an attractive service; and yet
a service perfectly spiritual.
{490}
The Catholic does not come to church to hear a man pour forth an
_extempore_ prayer, and be forced to follow him through all
the moods and feelings of his own mind; nor to join in a set form
of prayer, which, however beautiful and well arranged, must, from
the very nature of the case, fail to express the varying wants
and feelings of the different members of the congregation; but he
comes to join, after his own fashion, in Christ's own prayer. At
the Catholic Altar there is the most complete liberty, the
greatest variety, combined with the most perfect unity.
Come, then, children, come to Mass, and bring your merry hearts
with you. Come, you that are young and happy, and rejoice before
the Lord. Come, you that are old and weary, and tell your
loneliness to God. Come, you that are sorely tempted, and ask the
help of Heaven. Come, you that have sinned, and weep between the
porch and the altar. Come, you that are bereaved, and pour out
here your tears. Come, you that are sick, or anxious, or unhappy,
and complain to God. Come, you that are prosperous and
successful, and give thanks. Christ will sympathize with you. He
will rejoice with you, and He will mourn with you. He will gather
up your prayers. He will join to them His own Almighty
supplications, and that concert of prayer shall enter heaven,
louder than the music of angelic choirs, sweeter than the voice
of those who sing the song of Moses and the Lamb, more piercing
than the cry of the living creatures who rest not day or night,
and more powerful and prevailing than the intercession of the
Blessed Virgin and all the saints of Paradise together. The Mass
a formalism! The Mass an unmeaning service! Why, it is the most
beautiful, the most spiritual, the most sublime, the most
satisfying worship which the heart of man can even conceive.
{491}
And here, too, in this idea of the Mass, we have the answer to
another perplexity of Protestants. They cannot understand why we
make such a point of attending Mass. They see us go to Mass in
all weathers. They see us so particular not to be late at Mass.
They see us on Sunday, not sauntering leisurely, as if we were
going to a lecture-room, but pressing on with a certain
eagerness, as if we had some great business in hand; and they ask
what it all means. Is it not superstition? Do we not, like the
Pharisees, give an undue value to outward observances? May we not
worship God at home just as well? Ah! if it were really only an
outward observance. But there is just the difference. There
stands one among us whom you know not. We believe that the
Saviour is with us, and you do not. We believe this with a
certain, simple faith. Come to our churches, and look at our
people, the poorest and most ignorant, and see if we do not. It
is written on their faces. They may not know how to express
themselves, but this is in their hearts. You think we come to
Mass because the Church is so strict in requiring us to do so;
but the true state of the case is that the law of the Church is
so strict because Christ is present in the Mass. You think it is
the pomp and glitter of our altars that draws the crowd. Little
you know of human nature if you think it can long be held by such
things alone. No, we adorn our altars because we believe Christ
is present. This is our faith. It is no new thing with us. It is
as old as Christianity. It was the comfort of the Christians in
the catacombs. It was the glory of St. Basil and St. Ambrose and
St. Augustine. It was the meaning of all the glory and
magnificence of the Middle Ages. And it is our stay and support
in this nineteenth century of knowledge, labor, and disquiet.
Yes, strip our altars, leave us only the Corn and the Vine, and a
Rock for our altar, and we will worship with posture as lowly and
hearts as loving as in the grandest cathedral. Let persecution
rise; let us be driven from our churches; we will say Mass in the
woods and caverns, as the early Christians did. We know that God
is everywhere. We know that Nature is His Temple, wherein pure
hearts can find Him and adore Him; but we know that it is in the
Holy Mass alone that He offers Himself to His Father as "the Lamb
that was slain."
{492}
How can we forego that sweet and solemn action? How can we
deprive ourselves of that heavenly consolation! _The sparrow
hath found her an house and the turtle a nest where she may lay
her young, even thy altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my
God!_ Man's heart has found a home and resting-place in this
vale of tears. To us the altar is the vestibule of heaven, and
the Host its open door.
Yes, and to us the words of the prophet, when he calls the reign
of Antichrist "_the abomination of desolation_," because the
Daily Sacrifice shall then be taken away, has a peculiar fitness.
It is our delight now to think that, as the sun in its course
brings daylight to each successive spot on earth, it ever finds
some priest girding himself to go up to the Holy Altar; that thus
the earth is belted, from the rising of the sun unto the going
down of the same, with a chain of Masses; that as the din of the
world commences each day, the groan of the oppressed, the cry of
the fearful and troubled, the boast of sin and pride, the wail of
sorrow--the voice of Christ ascends at the same time to heaven,
supplicating for pardon and peace. But oh! when there shall be no
Mass any more, when the sun shall rise only to show that the
altar has been torn down, the priests banished, the lights put
out; that will be a day of calamity, of darkness and sorrow. Then
the beasts will groan, and the cattle low. Then will men's hearts
wither for fear. Then will the heavens overhead be brass, and the
earth under foot iron, because the corn has languished, the vine
no longer yields its fruit. The tie between earth and heaven is
broken; _sacrifice and libation are cut off from the House of
God_.
Such be our thoughts, my dear brethren, about the Holy Mass. I
have alluded to the efforts which mankind have made to offer a
worthy offering to God, sometimes to the extent, even, of
sacrificing their own lives and their children.
{493}
While we abhor these excesses, let us not forget the earnestness
which inspired their misguided devotion. And we, to whom God has
given a perfect worship, a worship not cruel, but beautiful,
inviting, consoling, satisfying, shall we be less devout in
offering it? No! come to Mass, and come to pray. When the Lord
drew near to Elias on the mount, the prophet wrapped his face in
his mantle; so when we come to Mass, let us wrap our souls in a
holy recollection of spirit. Remember what is going on. Now pray;
now praise; now ask forgiveness; now rest before God in quiet
love. So will the Mass be a marvellous comfort and refreshment to
you. You know the smell of the incense lingers about the sacred
vestments worn at the altar long after the service is over; so
your souls shall carry away with them as you leave the church a
celestial fragrance, a breath of the odors of Paradise, the token
that you have received a blessing from Him whose "fingers drop
with sweet-smelling myrrh."
-----------------------------
Sermon XXIX.
The Lessons Of Autumn.
(Last Sunday After Pentecost.)
"All flesh is grass,
and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field.
The grass is withered and the flower is fallen."
--Isaias XL. 6, 7.
It is but a few weeks since you were told that the natural world
has lessons of deep spiritual importance to teach us. Our Lord,
as we see in the Gospel, sometimes drew the text of His discourse
from the flowers of the field, sometimes from the birds of the
air; and it must be evident to any reflecting mind that this was
not done as a mere exercise of fancy on His part, but was the
Divine Interpretation of these messages of love which from the
beginning He had commissioned Nature to tell us. Nature, then, is
really _intended_ by God to be our Teacher. It is my purpose
this morning, to direct your thoughts to one part of its
teaching--that is, the spiritual instruction suggested to us by
the season of Autumn.
{494}
Here, in the Church, where we have always the same doctrines, and
the same worship, we might forget how all things without are full
of change and decay, were it not that the Church uses Nature as a
handmaid, and calls her within the sanctuary to adorn the Altar
with her gifts. We miss today the flowers that have been so
plentiful all summer, and this tells us what is going on without.
The crown of flowers which the Spring brought forth to grace our
Easter festival, and which were the truest type of the
Resurrection, which made that feast so joyful, have all perished.
The rose of Whitsuntide, the floral wealth of Corpus Christi, the
white lily of midsummer, have all gone their way. "The glory of
Lebanon is departed; the beauty of Carmel and Sharon." In the
garden and the field, where so lately there was every kind of
fruit and flower that is pleasant to the eye and sweet to the
smell or taste--there are now but a few dried leaves, and the
skeletons of trees and shrubs shaking and rattling in the wind.
Nothing green is left except "the fir-tree and the box-tree and
the pine-tree together," patiently enduring cold and snow so as
to be on hand when the Holy Night comes round, and the Heavenly
Babe is born, to make his humble home glad and beautiful with
their green wreaths and branches. The birds that peopled the
woods and made them merry with their music have gone south,
leaving their summer home silent and desolate. The days are
short. Clouds flit across the sky. The air is strong and keen,
and men shut it out and make all warm and snug within. Yes, the
little time that has elapsed, since we began to number our
Sundays from Easter, has been a full cycle of being in the
vegetable world. Spring has given place to summer, and summer to
autumn. Seed-time and harvest have followed each other, and now
the dreary winter has commenced. "The grass is withered and the
flower is fallen.
{495}
And what does all this mean to us? I am sure all of you
understand it well. This season speaks to us in tones that reach
every human heart. It tells us that we are dying. It is strange
how slow we are to realize this. I look around this church, and I
see many dressed in the dark garments that tell they are mourning
for the dead. In what house, indeed, is the family unbroken?
Where is there not a vacant seat at the table? Who of us has not
lost a friend? And yet we rarely think that we too are soon to
follow them. Now, God wishes us to think of this. He tells us of
it by our reason, He tells us of it by our vacant hearths and
homes; He tells us of it by sermons, and by His word, but, not
content with this, He makes the natural world, heir with us of
the sentence of mortality, a monitor to us of this great truth.
"_Day unto day uttereth speech if it, and night unto night
sheweth knowledge of it_." [Footnote 237]
[Footnote 237: Ps xviii. 3.]
But at certain seasons He tells us of it more distinctly and in a
greater variety of ways. Would you know what the Autumn teaches?
Hear the Holy Ghost, Himself interpret it: "_The voice said,
cry; and I said, what shall I cry? All Flesh is grass and all the
glory thereof as the flower of the field: the grass is withered
and the flower is fallen_." [Footnote 238] "_In the morning
man shall grow up like the grass; in the evening he shall fall,
grow dry and wither_." [Footnote 239] "_Man born of a woman,
liveth for a short time, and is filled with many miseries. He
cometh forth as a flower and is destroyed; he fleeth as a shadow
and never continueth in the same state_." [Footnote 240]
[Footnote 238: Isaias xl. 6, 7.]
[Footnote 239: Ps. lxxxix. 6.]
[Footnote 240: Job xiv. 1, 2.]
Oh, do not require God always to speak to you in a voice of
thunder: listen to Him when He speaks gently. Open your eyes and
ears, and receive instruction from the sights and sounds of
Nature. We are dying: the sighing winds tell us so.
{496}
We are dying: the falling leaf tells us how Death will soon
_have power over us as a leaf carried away by the wind, and
pursue us as a dry straw_." [Footnote 241] We are dying: the
harvest-man is discharged, so "_our days are like the days of
an hireling, and the end of labor draweth nigh_." [Footnote 242]
We are dying: the short days tell us that to us "_the sun
and the light and the moon and the stars will soon be
darkened_."[Footnote 243]
[Footnote 241: Job xiii. 25.]
[Footnote 242: Job vii. 1.]
[Footnote 243: Eccles. xii. 2.]
We are dying: the earth hath already wrapped itself in its
winding-sheet of snow, to foretell to us the time when, stiff and
cold, we shall be dressed for the grave. We are _all_ dying.
Are you young? Well, the young are dying. Life is but a lingering
death. _As soon as we are born, we began to draw to our
end_. Every path in life leads straight to the grave. Are you
old? are you sick? Ah! then, there is a voice within you which
repeats the warning from without. You are not as strong and well
as you once were. Time was you felt within you a fount of health
and strength that defied danger and despised precaution. What a
strange, fierce joy it was for you to struggle with the
buffetings of the wintry blast! But, somehow, you know not how,
either it was an accident or an imprudence, there came over you
now and then a pain, a cough, a strange weariness, and the raw
wind steals away from your cheek the bloom which once it
imparted, and sends a chill to your heart. What does it mean? I
will tell you. It is the shadow of mortality. You are dying. Men
do not realize this. They do not realize it of themselves, and
they do not realize it of others. Death is always a surprise and
an accident. It is one of the things in the world on which men do
not count.
It is something which has nothing to do with us until the doctor
stands over us, and says we have but a few days or a few hours to
live. We speak of the dead with pity, as if they were the victims
of some unlucky chance which we had escaped. This ought not to be
so. "_It is appointed for man once to die_." [Footnote 244]
[Footnote 244: Heb. ix. 27.]
{497}
Because we are living, therefore we must die. Adam in Paradise
might have escaped death if he would, but since Adam's sin and
our loss of integrity, the sentence of death has passed upon all.
There is no reflection which a man can make more certainly true
than this: I must die. The time is fixed. There shall come to me
a day that knows no setting, a night that knows no dawn. The
lights shall be lit in the church; the pall spread over the bier;
the priest singing Mass at the altar. My body shall lie under
that pall, and my name be mentioned in that Mass. From the church
my body shall be carried to the grave, and my soul be happy or
miserable according to the deeds it hath done on earth. I do not
know _when_ I shall die. Youth is no protection against
death. Health is no protection against death. I do not know
_where_ I shall die. No corner of the earth can hide me from
His summons. I do not know _how_ I shall die, whether at
home, among my friends, with the rites of the Church, with my
reason, with a quiet mind--or abroad, or suddenly, or without the
last sacraments, or with a heavy load of sin on my soul, or in a
state of insensibility. All these things are uncertain; this only
is certain, that I must die--that I must die, that _my_ turn
shall come; and others shall speak of me as I speak now of those
already dead.
But some of you may say, why tell us this? Life is short at the
best, why vex ourselves with thinking of that which we cannot
prevent. We have got many projects in hand, many pleasures in
prospect, and we do not want to paralyze our energies and sadden
our days by meditating always on death. No, my brethren, I do not
ask you to think of death in order to paralyze your energies, but
to direct them aright; not to sadden your days, but to make them
calm and tranquil. I know that a celebrated modern writer has
made it a matter of reproach against Christianity that it sends
men to learn the solemn lessons of the grave.
{498}
But surely this reproach is unreasonable. It cannot be denied
that men do die. The earth has already many times seen an entire
generation of her inhabitants pass away. There are many more
sleeping in the ground than live on its surface. Now, if this be
so, if death is an inevitable fact in our history, and a fact on
which much depends--if this life is not all, but after this life
there is an Eternity dependent on our conduct here, it is plain
that reason requires us to think of death, and he is foolish who
forgets it. Besides, the thought of death is enjoined upon us by
the Almighty, as a sure means of salvation: "_In all thy works
remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin_." [Footnote 245]
[Footnote 245: Eccles. vii. 36.]
And I will say more. The thought of death really contributes to
our comfort, because it is the only way of getting rid of the
fear of death. Suppose you do refuse to listen to the warnings
which Death suggests, are you therefore free from anxiety? Is
there no trouble in your conscience? Is there nothing frightful
to you in a sleepless night, or a sickbed? would you hear with
equanimity that you had a hopeless disease? No, it is the coward
that will not think of death, who "_all his life through fear
of death is subject to slavery_." Act like a man. Face this
King of Terrors, and you disarm him. His countenance is stern,
but his words are kind and friendly. Listen to him, and you will
find that he can relax his grim features and smile upon you; and
there is nothing can give you such comfort, as for death to come
to you with a smiling face. The sting of death is sin: be careful
to avoid sin, and then at his coming you can exclaim: "O death,
where is thy victory! O death, where is thy sting!" [Footnote 246]
[Footnote 246: I. Cor. xv. 55.]
{499}