THE HOLINESS OF THE CHURCH.
Holiness is also a mark of the true Church; for in the Creed we say, “I
believe in the _holy_ Catholic Church.”
Every society is founded for a special object. One society is formed with
the view of cultivating social intercourse among its members; a second is
organized to advance their temporal interests; and a third for the purpose
of promoting literary pursuits. The Catholic Church is a society founded
by our Lord Jesus Christ for the sanctification of its members; hence, St.
Peter calls the Christians of his time “a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, _a holy nation_, a purchased people.”(30)
The example of our Divine Founder, Jesus Christ, the sublime moral lessons
He has taught us, the Sacraments He has instituted—all tend to our
sanctification. They all concentre themselves in our soul, like so many
heavenly rays, to enlighten and inflame it with the fire of devotion.
When the Church speaks to us of the attributes of our Lord, of His justice
and mercy and sanctity and truth, her object is not merely to extol the
Divine perfections, but also to exhort us to imitate them, and to be like
Him, just and merciful, holy and truthful. Behold the sublime Model that
is placed before us! It is not man, nor angel, nor archangel, but Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, “who is the brightness of His glory, and the
figure of His substance.”(31) The Church places His image over our altars,
admonishing us to “look and do according to the pattern shown on the
Mount.”(32) And from that height He seems to say to us: “Be ye holy, for I
the Lord your God am holy.”(33) “Be ye perfect, even as your heavenly
Father is perfect.”(34) “Be ye followers of God as most dear
children.”(35)
We are invited to lead holy lives, not only because our Divine Founder,
Jesus Christ, was holy, but also because we bear His sweet and venerable
name. We are called _Christians_. That is a name we would not exchange for
all the high-sounding titles of Prince or Emperor. We are justly proud of
this appellation of _Christian_; but we are reminded that it has annexed
to it a corresponding obligation. It is not an idle name, but one full of
solemn significance; for a Christian, as the very name implies, is a
follower or disciple of Christ—one who walks in the footsteps of his
Master by observing His precepts; who reproduces in his own life the
character and virtues of his Divine Model. In a word, a Christian is
another Christ. It would, therefore, be a contradiction in terms, if a
Christian had nothing in common with his Lord except the name. The
disciple should imitate his Master, the soldier should imitate his
Commander, and the members should be like the Head.
The Church constantly allures her children to holiness by placing before
their minds the Incarnation, life and death of our Savior. What appeals
more forcibly to a life of piety than the contemplation of Jesus born in a
stable, living an humble life in Nazareth, dying on a cross, that His
blood might purify us? If He sent forth Apostles to preach the Gospel to
the whole world; if in His name temples are built in every nation, and
missionaries are sent to the extremities of the globe, all this is done
that we may be Saints. “God,” says St. Paul, “gave some Apostles, and some
Prophets, and others Evangelists, and others Pastors and Doctors, for the
perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building
up of the body of Christ, until we all meet unto the unity of faith and of
the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man.”(36)
The moral law which the Catholic Church inculcates on her children is the
highest and holiest standard of perfection ever presented to any people,
and furnishes the strongest incentives to virtue.
The same Divine precepts delivered through Moses to the Jews, on Mount
Sinai, the same salutary warnings which the Prophets uttered throughout
Judea, the same sublime and consoling lessons of morality which Jesus gave
on the Mount—these are the lessons which the Church teaches from January
till December. The Catholic preacher does not amuse his audience with
speculative topics or political harangues, or any other subjects of a
transitory nature. He preaches only “Christ, and Him crucified.”
This code of Divine precepts is enforced with as much zeal by the Church
as was the Decalogue of old by Moses, when he said: “These words, which I
command thee this day, shall be in thy heart; and thou shalt tell them to
thy children; and thou shalt meditate upon them, sitting in thy house, and
walking on thy journey, sleeping and rising.”(37)
The first lesson taught to children in our Sunday-schools is their duty to
know, love and serve God, and thus to be Saints; for if they know, love
and serve God aright they shall be Saints indeed. Their tender minds are
instructed in this great truth that though they had the riches of Dives,
and the glory and pleasures of Solomon, and yet fail to be righteous, they
have missed their vocation, and are “wretched, and miserable, and poor,
and blind, and naked.”(38) “For, what doth it profit a man, if he gain the
whole world and lose his own soul?”(39) On the contrary though they are as
poor as Lazarus, and as miserable as Job in the days of his adversity,
they are assured that their condition is a happy one in the sight of God,
if they live up to the maxims of the Gospel.
The Church quickens the zeal of her children for holiness of life by
impressing on their minds the rigor of God’s judgments, who “will bring to
light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the
hearts,” by reminding them of the terrors of Hell and of the sweet joys of
Heaven.
Not only are Catholics instructed in church on Sundays but they are
exhorted to peruse the Word of God, and manuals of devotion, at home. The
saints whose lives are there recorded serve like bright stars to guide
them over the stormy ocean of life to the shores of eternity; while the
history of those who have fallen from grace stands like a beacon light,
warning them to shun the rocks against which a Solomon and a Judas made
shipwreck of their souls.
Our books of piety are adapted to every want of the human soul, and are a
fruitful source of sanctification. Who can read without spiritual profit
such works as the almost inspired _Following of Christ_ by Thomas à
Kempis; the _Christian Perfection_ of Rodriguez; the _Spiritual Combat_ of
Scupoli; the writings of St. Francis de Sales, and a countless host of
other ascetical authors?
You will search in vain outside the Catholic Church for writers comparable
in unction and healthy piety to such as I have mentioned. Compare, for
instance, _Kempis_ with _Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress_, or _Butler’s Lives
of the Saints_ with _Foxe’s Book of Martyrs_. You lay down _Butler_ with a
sweet and tranquil devotion, and with a profound admiration for the
Christian heroes whose lives he records; while you put aside _Foxe_ with a
troubled mind and a sense of vindictive bitterness. I do not speak of the
_Book of Common Prayer_, because the best part of it is a translation from
our Missal. Protestants also publish _Kempis_, though sometimes in a
mutilated form; every passage in the original being carefully omitted
which alludes to Catholic doctrines and practices.
A distinguished Episcopal clergyman of Baltimore once avowed to me that
his favorite books of devotion were our standard works of piety. In saying
this, he paid a merited and graceful tribute to the superiority of
Catholic spiritual literature.
The Church gives us not only the most pressing motives, but also the most
potent means for our sanctification. These means are furnished by prayer
and the Sacraments. She exhorts us to frequent communion with God by
prayer and meditation, and so imperative is this obligation in our eyes
that we would justly hold ourselves guilty of grave dereliction of duty if
we neglected for a considerable time the practice of morning and evening
prayer.
The most abundant source of graces is also found in the seven Sacraments
of the Church. Our soul is bathed in the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ at
the font of Baptism, from which we come forth “new creatures.” We are then
and there incorporated with Christ, becoming “bone of His bone and flesh
of His flesh;” “for as many of you,” says the Apostle, “as have been
baptized in Christ have put on Christ.”(40) And as the Holy Ghost is
inseparable from Christ, our bodies are made the temples of the Spirit of
God and our souls His Sanctuary. “Christ loved the Church and delivered
Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of
water, in the word of life; that He might present it to Himself a glorious
Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should
be holy and without blemish.”(41)
In Confirmation we receive new graces and new strength to battle against
the temptations of life.
In the Eucharist we are fed with the living Bread which cometh down from
Heaven.
In Penance are washed away the stains we have contracted after Baptism.
Are we called to the Sacred Ministry, or to the married state, we find in
the Sacraments of Orders and Matrimony ample graces corresponding with the
condition of life which we have embraced.
And our last illness is consoled by Extreme Unction, wherein we receive
the Divine succor necessary to fortify and purify us before departing from
this world.
In a word, the Church, like a watchful mother, accompanies us from the
cradle to the grave, supplying us at each step with the medicine of life
and immortality.
As the Church offers to her children the strongest motives and the most
powerful means for attaining to sanctity of life, so does she reap among
them the most abundant fruits of holiness. In every age and country she is
the fruitful mother of saints. Our Ecclesiastical calendar is not confined
to the names of the twelve Apostles. It is emblazoned with the lists of
heroic Martyrs who “were stoned, and cut asunder, and put to death by the
sword;”(42) of innumerable Confessors and Hermits who left all things and
followed Christ; of spotless virgins who preserved their chastity for the
Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. Every day in the year is consecrated in our
Martyrology to a large number of Saints.
And in our own times, in every quarter of the globe and in every
department of life, the Church continues to raise up Saints worthy of the
primitive days of Christianity.
If we seek for _Apostles_, we find them conspicuously among the Bishops of
Germany, who are now displaying in prison and in exile a serene heroism
worthy of Peter and Paul.
Every year records the tortures of Catholic missioners who die _Martyrs_
to the Faith in China, Corea, and other Pagan countries.
Among her _confessors_ are numbered those devoted priests who, abandoning
home and family ties, annually go forth to preach the Gospel in foreign
lands. Their worldly possessions are often confined to a few books of
devotion and their modest apparel.
And who is a stranger to her consecrated _virgins_, those sisters of
various Orders who in every large city of Christendom are daily reclaiming
degraded women from a life of shame, and bringing them back to the sweet
influences of religion; who snatch the abandoned offspring of sin from
temporal and spiritual death, and make them pious and useful members of
society, becoming more than mothers to them; who rescue children from
ignorance, and instill into their minds the knowledge and love of God.
We can point to numberless saints also among the laity. I dare assert that
in almost every congregation in the Catholic world, men and women are to
be found who exhibit a fervent piety and a zeal for religion which render
them worthy of being named after the _Annas_, _the Aquilas_ and the
_Priscillas_ of the New Testament. They attract not indeed the admiration
of the public, because true piety is unostentatious and seeks a “life
hidden with Christ in God.”(43)
It must not be imagined that, in proclaiming the sanctity of the Church, I
am attempting to prove that all Catholics are holy. I am sorry to confess
that corruption of morals is too often found among professing Catholics.
We cannot close our eyes to the painful fact that too many of them, far
from living up to the teachings of their Church, are sources of melancholy
scandal. “It must be that scandals come, but woe to him by whom the
scandal cometh.” I also admit that the sin of Catholics is more heinous in
the sight of God than that of their separated brethren, because they abuse
more grace.
But it should be borne in mind that neither God nor His Church forces any
man’s conscience. To all He says by the mouth of His Prophet: “Behold I
set before you the way of life and the way of death.” (Jer. xxi. 8.) The
choice rests with yourselves.
It is easy to explain why so many disedifying members are always found
clinging to the robes of the Church, their spiritual Mother, and why she
never shakes them off nor disowns them as her children. The Church is
animated by the spirit of her Founder, Jesus Christ. He “came into this
world to save sinners.”(44) He “came not to call the just but sinners to
repentance.” He was the Friend of Publicans and Sinners that He might make
them the friends of God. And they clung to Him, knowing His compassion for
them.
The Church, walking in the footsteps of her Divine Spouse, never
repudiates sinners nor cuts them off from her fold, no matter how grievous
or notorious may be their moral delinquencies; not because she connives at
their sin, but because she wishes to reclaim them. She bids them never to
despair, and tries, at least, to weaken their passions, if she cannot
altogether reform their lives.
Mindful also of the words of our Lord: “The poor have the Gospel preached
to them,”(45) the Church has a tender compassion for the victims of
poverty, which has its train of peculiar temptations and infirmities.
Hence, the poor and the sinners cling to the Church, as they clung to our
Lord during His mortal life.
We know, on the other hand, that sinners who are guilty of gross crimes
which shock public decency are virtually excommunicated from Protestant
Communions. And as for the poor, the public press often complains that
little or no provision is made for them in Protestant Churches. A
gentleman informed me that he never saw a poor person enter an Episcopal
Church which was contiguous to his residence.
These excluded sinners and victims of penury either abandon Christianity
altogether, or find refuge in the bosom of their true Mother, the Catholic
Church, who, like her Divine Spouse, claims the afflicted as her most
cherished inheritance. The parables descriptive of this Church which our
Lord employed also clearly teach us that the good and bad shall be joined
together in the Church as long as her earthly mission lasts. The kingdom
of God is like a field in which the cockle is allowed to grow up with the
good seed until the harvest-time;(46) it is like a net which encloses good
fish and bad until the hour of separation comes.(47) So, too, the Church
is that great house(48) in which there are not only vessels of gold and
silver, but also of wood and clay.
The Fathers repeat the teaching of Scripture. St. Jerome says: “The ark of
Noah was a type of the Church. As every kind of animal was in that, so in
this there are men of every race and character. As in that were the
leopard and the kids, the wolf and the lambs, so in this there are to be
found the just and the sinful—that is, vessels of gold and silver along
with those of wood and clay.”(49)
St. Gregory the Great writes: “Because in it (the Church) the good are
mingled with the bad, the reprobate with the elect, it is rightly declared
to be similar to the wise and the foolish virgins.”(50)
Listen to St. Augustine: “Let the mind recall the threshing-floor
containing straw and wheat; the nets in which are inclosed good and bad
fish; the ark of Noah in which were clean and unclean animals, and you
will see that the Church from now until the judgment day _contains not
only sheep and oxen_—that is, saintly laymen and holy ministers—_but also
the beasts of the field_.... For the beasts of the field are men who take
delight in carnal pleasures, _the field being that broad way which leads
to perdition_.”(51)
The occasional scandals existing among members of the Church do not
invalidate or impair her claim to the title of sanctity. The spots on the
sun do not mar his brightness. Neither do the moral stains of some members
sully the brilliancy of her “who cometh forth as the morning star, fair as
the moon, bright as the sun.”(52) The cockle that grows amidst the wheat
does not destroy the beauty of the ripened harvest. The sanctity of Jesus
was not sullied by the presence of Judas in the Apostolic College. Neither
can the moral corruption of a few disciples tarnish the holiness of the
Church. St. Paul calls the Church of Corinth a congregation of Saints,(53)
though he reproves some scandalous members among them.(54)
It cannot be denied that corruption of morals prevailed in the sixteenth
century to such an extent as to call for a sweeping reformation, and that
laxity of discipline invaded even the sanctuary.
But how was this reformation of morals to be effected? Was it to be
accomplished by a force operating inside the Church, or outside? I answer
that the proper way of carrying out this reformation was by battling
against iniquity within the Church; for there was not a single weapon
which men could use in waging war with vice outside the Church, which they
could not wield with more effective power when fighting under the
authority of the Church. The true weapons of an Apostle, at all times,
have been personal virtue, prayer, preaching, and the Sacraments. Every
genuine reformer had those weapons at his disposal within the Church.
She possesses, at all times, not only the principle of undying vitality,
but, besides, all the elements of reformation, and all the means of
sanctification. With the weapons I have named she purified morals in the
first century, and with the same weapons she went to work with a right
good will, and effected a moral reformation in the sixteenth century. She
was the only effectual spiritual reformer of that age.
What was the Council of Trent but a great reforming tribunal? Most of its
decrees are directed to the reformation of abuses among the clergy and the
laity, and the salutary fruits of its legislation are reaped even to this
day.
St. Charles Borromeo, the nephew of a reigning Pope, was the greatest
reformer of his time. His whole Episcopal career was spent in elevating
the morals of his clergy and people. Bartholomew, Archbishop of Braga, in
Portugal, preached an incessant crusade against iniquity in high and low
places. St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Alphonsus, with their companions,
were conspicuous and successful reformers throughout Europe. St. Philip
Neri was called the modern Apostle of Rome because of his happy efforts in
dethroning vice in that city. All these Catholic Apostles preach by
example as well as by word.
How do Luther and Calvin, and Zuinglius and Knox, and Henry VIII. compare
with these genuine and saintly reformers, both as to their moral character
and the fruit or their labors? The private lives of these pseudo-reformers
were stained by cruelty, rapine, and licentiousness; and as the result of
their propagandism, history records civil wars, and bloodshed, and bitter
religious strife, and the dismemberment of Christianity into a thousand
sects.
Instead of co-operating with the lawful authorities in extinguishing the
flames which the passions of men had enkindled in the city of God, these
faithless citizens fly from the citadel which they had vowed to defend;
then joining the enemy, they hasten back to fan the conflagration, and to
increase the commotion. And they overturn the very altars before which
they previously sacrificed as consecrated priests.(55) They sanctioned
rebellion by undermining the principle of authority.
What a noble opportunity they lost of earning for themselves immortal
honors from God and man! If, instead of raising the standard of revolt,
they had waged war upon their own passions, and fought with the Catholic
reformers against impiety, they would be hailed as true soldiers of the
cross. They would be welcomed by the Pope, the Bishops and clergy, and by
all good men. They might be honored today on our altars, and might have a
niche in our temples, side by side with those of Charles Borromeo and
Ignatius Loyola; and instead of a divided army of Christians, we should
behold today a united Christendom, spreading itself irresistibly from
nation to nation, and bringing all kingdoms to the knowledge of Jesus
Christ.