false prophets," he meant just what he said. He knew that they
would do us harm if we did not beware; that, if they did not
destroy our faith, they would at least mar its purity or diminish
its intensity if we did not take care to avoid them and their
teachings in every way. And the church has always acted on the
principle which her Divine Founder here laid down, in her
instructions to her children. She does not wish even her priests
to concern themselves with heretical or infidel doctrines, except
with the intention of confuting them as their office requires,
fortified though they be with the most thorough instruction in
and knowledge of the truth.
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We are none of us perfectly wise and above the reach of even the
most absurd errors, especially when our nature, corrupted by sin,
is enlisted on the side of those errors; and, if not in danger of
actually falling into any of them in particular, we may at least,
by acquainting ourselves with those into which great men have
been led, be likely to fall into the most dangerous of all
errors, that of believing that truth is so hard to find that it
cannot be expected that all should find it, and that it makes no
difference what a man believes, as long as he does what seems to
the world in general to be right.
The true course for us is, then, to beware of false guides in
religion by keeping out of their way altogether; and, on the
other hand, to study as far as we can the truth, which, if we
learn it and grasp it as we should, conveys in itself the answer
to them all. Listen to the true prophets, and leave the false
ones alone; that is the highest wisdom from the mouth of our
Divine Lord himself.
-------------------
Sermon CI.
The Last Sin.
_For the wages of sin is death;
but the grace of God,
life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord._
--From this Sunday's Epistle.
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This is not the only place in Holy Writ, my brethren, where
eternal life and death are set before us as the wages we shall
some day be paid. The word of God frequently admonishes us of the
choice we are compelled to make between eternal sorrow and
eternal joy, and for this most evident reason: we are always
actually engaged in making the choice. The very essence of our
merit hereafter will be that we shall have freely and
deliberately chosen Almighty God and his friendship, in
preference to any and everything besides. And the reason, and the
only reason, why a man will lose his soul will be because he
committed mortal sin and died unrepentant--that is to say,
choosing to love what God bids him hate. What we call the choice
between virtue and vice St. Paul calls the choice between life
and death. And with that choice we are constantly confronted. Not
that we always realize it, nor do I mean to say that the first
time one grievously offends God he settles his fate eternally;
but that each mortal sin really earns the wages of eternal death,
and only the blessed mercy of God saves us from our deserved
punishment. And furthermore, it is some mortal sin or other that
at last breaks down God's patience. If at any particular occasion
he does not see fit to take us at our word, so to speak, and
leave us for ever in that state of enmity that we have chosen, it
is not because we do not deserve it; it is because he is a loving
Father to us, and is often willing to stand a great deal of
wickedness on our part; or because we have some dear friends who
are servants of God and who pray for us; or because the Blessed
Virgin has acquired some special attachment to us and intervenes
for us; or because God reserves us for a later day, when he will
make such an example of us as will save other sinners; or
because, again, he saves us for a later day to make us models of
true penance.
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But just look around you, brethren; just call to mind what you
have heard or perhaps seen of God's judgments, and the Apostle's
lesson becomes object-teaching. Have you not heard of a sudden
and unprovided death and then remembered how years ago that man
started a disreputable business? It was thus that he made his
decision for all eternity. On the other hand, a man now
temperate, once a drunkard, will tell you that long ago he took
the pledge and broke it, and broke it again, but still
persevered, and finally, by the grace of God, has managed to keep
it. He was fighting the battle of fate and he won the victory.
That dreadful appetite overcome, the practice of religion became
easy to him.
In another case a man is led away little by little from the rules
of honest dealing; at last he refuses to pay a certain just debt,
one that he can easily pay if he wishes. After that avarice eats
into the core of his heart and he is lost for ever.
And, brethren, what a relief to hear after a sudden death that
the poor soul was a monthly communicant!
Many are tested by Almighty God demanding that they shall
withdraw from the proximate occasions of mortal sin. The voice of
conscience, a sermon heard in the church, the private advice of
some good friend--for all these are the voice of
God--admonish[ing] them against what leads them to mortal sin;
against very bad company, or the saloon, or the Sunday excursion,
or dangerous reading, or lonely company-keeping. Perhaps one's
conduct about such dangers has more to do with his choice in
eternity than any thing else.
I do not mean to say that this fateful decision is a mere
lottery, but it is a moment at the end of years of rebellion
against God when an effort is made by the grace of God to save
the sinner; and for weal or for woe it is the last chance. Some
time or other the last sin will be committed, the last grace will
be granted.
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O my brethren! how very reasonable is the holy fear of God. Oh!
how wise are they who have joined fear and love of God together
so that the fire of love has burned the dross of slavishness out
of fear, and fear has mingled reverence and humility with love.
Alas! that so many should live as if eternal life and death had
no meaning for the present hour.
Some are like that millionaire I heard of. Walking home one day,
a heavy shower of rain began, he stopped a hack and asked what
the driver would take him home for. Fifty cents, was the answer.
he began to beat him down, and finally, refusing more than
twenty-five cents, he walked home in the rain. But he caught
cold, went to bed, and died. He had played the miser many a time
before, but the last time had come. So many a one thinks his one
sin more, his one other rejection of grace, is but like the
multitude of other such offences gone before; and all the time he
is deciding an eternal fate.
-------------------
{338}
_Eighth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
_Romans viii._ 12-17.
Brethren:
We are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you shall die.
But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you
shall live. For whosoever are led by the spirit of God, they
are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of
bondage again in fear: but you have received the spirit of
adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father). For the Spirit
himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of
God. And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint
heirs with Christ.
Gospel.
_St. Luke xvi._ 1-9.
At that time:
Jesus spoke to his disciples this parable:
There was a certain rich man who had a steward: and the same
was accused unto him, that he had wasted his goods. And he
called him, and said to him: What is this I hear of thee? Give
an account of thy stewardship: for now thou canst not be
steward. And the steward said within himself: What shall I do,
because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I
am not able, to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that
when I shall be put out of the stewardship, they may receive me
into their houses. Therefore calling together every one of his
lord's debtors, he said to the first: How much dost thou owe my
lord? But he said: A hundred barrels of oil. And he said to
him: Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then
he said to another: And how much dost thou owe? Who said: A
hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill and
write eighty.
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And the lord commended the unjust steward, forasmuch as he had
done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their
generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make
to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you
shall fail they may receive you into everlasting dwellings.
-------------------
Sermon CII.
Spirit And Flesh.
_For if you live according to the flesh you shall die.
But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh
you shall live._
--Romans viii. 13.
What does the Apostle mean by this? This only, that the flesh
with its concupiscence and lusts must never get such power over
our will that it will carry us along with it and make us obey its
longings and desires when we know these are forbidden by Almighty
God. I say "this only" because to have the flesh is no sin;
neither is it a sin to feel the disorderly movements of the flesh
that lead to sin; but it is a sin to consent to these and to
follow them. For this reason we are told that if we mortify the
deeds of the flesh, to which these movements of the flesh lead
us, we shall live. But what does the word "mortify" mean? It
means to destroy that which makes the life of a thing. Notice
here the Apostle does not tell us to mortify the flesh itself but
the deeds of the flesh. To do this we need not then attempt to
kilt the flesh, but we must destroy all that gives life to its
deeds.
{340}
What are the deeds of the flesh? They are the seven capital
sins--pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, sloth.
Can we kill them? In the most important sense we can. We can get
them so under our control that, after awhile, they will move us
but slightly and cannot influence us to any great degree. We
shall feel from time to time that they are still present in us,
but that cannot disturb us much. We shall have taken their
strength away. We shall have made them so weak that we can check
them easily.
Ought not each one of us strive to get ourselves into that
blessed state? But how can we do it? Make up your mind to do it.
Form a good resolution, one that will not change but that will be
firm for life. Then live according to that resolution. When pride
is aroused, refuse to follow its promptings; when covetousness
moves the heart, stop the eager desire for gain; when lust would
lead you away, contend against the thought until it is driven
out; when anger disturbs, seal the lips with the sign of the holy
cross; when gluttony makes you long for feasting and drinking,
refuse to go where these things are going on; when envy racks the
soul, pray for the one who is the object of envy; when sloth
tempts you to self-indulgence and inactivity, stir up the fear of
God and holy shame within the soul, for sloth is a destroyer
indeed of all that is truly manly and heroic in us.
But all this is about as hard to do as anything a man can do,
some may say. Yes, it is hard to do, but the success is
_sure_. Shall a man do less for God than for himself? See
the time and labor spent to secure that which is necessary for
the body and success in the life of only a few years in this
world. Shall a man not do as much for the good of his soul and
for eternal life in the next world?
{341}
Is it really so hard as it seems? By no means. We make it harder
than it really is by putting it all together and by thinking we
are to do it all at once. This is not true. It must be done by
degrees, slowly, patiently, perseveringly, but surely.
The devil makes us think it harder by telling us, when we feel
the sharpness of the first struggle, "You can't bear it this way,
for life." You can if God wills it and gives you the grace. And
most people, almost all Christian souls, do not have it "this
way, for life." Those who keep up the struggle get stronger day
by day. In them the flesh and the movements of sin grow less day
by day. The devil, however, wishes us to believe the lie he
tells, to make us give up the struggle. Do not listen to the lie
and it cannot hurt you. Remember always, it is a lie, and the
mind will not take hold of it.
We can make it all the easier by trusting God, who will always
help us in the struggle. _Pray_ more. Go to confession
often. The confessor will then help us and remove much of the
burden by good advice. Go to Communion often, and God himself
will make it easier for us than we imagine by giving his own
strength to the soul at that time. Only begin earnestly to
control the flesh, continue perseveringly to use confession and
Communion. This, with daily morning and evening prayer, will take
away very many difficulties. Soon we shall find we have truly
mortified the deeds of the flesh, and then indeed we shall live,
for the flesh will then be dead or dying fast and too weak to
hurt the soul. Keep, then, in the mind the text from the Epistle
of to-day: "For if you live according to the flesh you shall die.
But if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh you shall
live."
-------------------
{342}
Sermon CIII.
The Business Of The Soul.
_The Lord commended the unjust steward,
forasmuch as he had done wisely._
--Words Taken From To-day's Gospel.
One of the things which strikes us most forcibly in reading the
instructions of our Blessed Lord as we have them in the holy
Gospels is the matter-of-fact, common-sense, business-like manner
in which he sets before us the way we must act in order to save
our souls. We find no sentimentalism, no rhetoric, no
fine-sounding flights of eloquence which delight the imagination
and please the fancy indeed, but which are too fleeting and
flimsy to serve as a basis of every-day action. No; with our Lord
this matter of the salvation of our souls is a matter of infinite
business, a question of eternal profit and loss. Let me recall a
few examples: "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking
good pearls, who, when he had found one of great price, went his
way and sold all he had and bought it." Here the way in which we
are to act in order to get the kingdom of heaven is compared to
the way in which the man of business acts who finds a good
article--something worth his money. What does he do? Why, if it
is really worth it--and the kingdom of heaven, the salvation of
our souls is worth it--he sells all that he has and buys it.
{343}
And yet again our Lord places before us the salvation of our
souls as based upon a calculation of what is the more profitable
course to take in those words the realization of which has called
forth the highest heroism of the greatest of the saints: "If thy
eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee." Why? Because
"it is better for thee with one eye to enter the kingdom of God
than, having two eyes, to be cast into the hell of fire." Here
again it is a calculation of loss and gain--the loss of an eye in
this world as against that of the whole body in the next. Shall
I, on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the
bush, keep my two eyes; or shall I, for the sake of saving the
whole body, pluck out the eye, cut off the foot or hand? But of
all the places where this way of looking at things and of acting
is inculcated and enforced, the most striking is in the parable
read in to-day's Gospel. Here our Lord, in order to lead us to
take a practical, hard-headed way of acting with reference to the
salvation of our souls, brings before us the conduct of the
unjust steward, and, strange to say, actually praises it. And how
did this unjust steward act? The unjust steward was a dishonest
man. He had been placed in a position of trust, but had wasted
his master's goods--perhaps speculated with his money, made false
entries in his books, or something else of that kind. Well, the
truth came out at last, as it generally does sooner or later, and
he was at his wits end what to do. No thought of repentance
enters into his head; he has got on a wrong road, and he found
it, as we all find it, very hard to get out of it.
{344}
And so, knowing the men with whom he has to deal, he sends for
some of his master's debtors, and, in order to make them his
friends and to establish a claim on them for help and assistance
when he gets into trouble, he alters their bills and makes them
less. "And the Lord commended the unjust steward because he had
done wisely." Our Lord does not commend, of course, the
dishonesty of his conduct; this we all understand. But he
commends his clearness of sight as to what was for his worldly
interest, and his promptitude in taking wise and suitable means
to further that interest. What our Lord wants to teach us is that
we must act for our highest interest in the same clear-sighted,
determined, wise, and prudent way in which this specimen of a
worldly man acted for the sordid and selfish and foolish ends of
men of this world. Well, my brethren, take these thoughts home
with you, and ask yourselves, each and every one of you, how you
are acting. Have you an intelligent view of the end you have to
attain, of its value and importance, and of the means by which it
is to be attained, and are you acting earnestly in order to
attain that end?
-------------------
Sermon CIV.
The Judgments Of God.
_Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity;
that when you shall fail
they may receive you into everlasting dwellings._
--Gospel of the Day.
{345}
My dear brethren, there will come to each one of us a day when
all those earthly goods we now enjoy shall fail us, when we shall
have to turn our backs on the world and all that it has to give
us, and prepare ourselves to stand before him to whom all things
that we had and enjoyed belong, and give an account to him of the
uses which we have made of them. We have, like the steward in
to-day's Gospel, a Lord and Master; and to him we must sooner or
later give an account of our stewardship.
And it is only too likely, we may say it is indeed certain, that
when that dread moment comes at which this world must be left
behind, the charge will also be made against us, as against the
steward in this parable, that we have wasted our Master's goods.
Our consciences will rise up and condemn us, and anticipate the
accusation which shall be brought against us when we shall
actually come face to face with God. Then all the security we
have had in the thought that we are not murderers, robbers, or
adulterers shall vanish; we shall not be able to console
ourselves with the idea that we have done no great harm to any
one. We shall see how selfish and how sensual our lives have
been; that we have wasted for the pleasure of a passing moment
the greater part of those gifts which God gave us for his
service. Wasted our time, our strength, our knowledge, and our
abilities in getting for ourselves the means of gratification or
amusement, or in raising ourselves for our own sake to a position
of honor or of wealth. We shall see what we might have been, what
God meant that we should be, and compare it with what we are.
Fain would we then be able to say with St. Paul, "I have fought a
good fight, I have finished my course." Our faith indeed we
shall, it is to be hoped, have kept; but we shall feel that our
fight has been but a poor and cowardly one, and that we, instead
of finishing the course which our Lord laid out for us, have gone
over only a very small part of it, and that its goal is far, far
away.
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What, then, shall be our hope? For hope we must have if we would
not offend God even more then than through life. He commands us
to hope; but in what shall our hope be placed?
Where or in what but his mercy? He will take us, grievously
deficient as we are, and make the little, miserable offerings
which we have to present to him, the remnant of what he gave us,
into some kind of a crown of eternal life, if only we will turn
to him with our whole hearts; if we will at least, at that last
moment, really believe in him, hope in him, and love him. He that
perseveres to the end, he that will not die in mortal sin, shall
be saved.
But what shall obtain for us at that last moment the faith, hope,
and charity which we need? Who will help us to persevere when the
enemies of our salvation are making the most of their last chance
to snatch it from us? Will those with whom we have enjoyed life
then stand by to help us? It is to be feared that they and all
that they have done for us will not avail us much then. No, the
friends who will then be most valuable to us will be those, if
indeed we have such, whom we have not sought for our own sake,
but whom we loved for God's sake. And it is not the riches which
we amassed that will then be precious to us, but such as we have
given away to those who needed it more than we.
{347}
These are the friends which our Lord, in to-day's Gospel, tells
us to make, that they may help us at the hour when our eternal
destiny hangs trembling in the balance. These are the friends
which may be made by that mammon of iniquity, those worldly
riches which are too often the occasion of sin, and whose prayers
and blessings may indeed be the means of our being received, in
spite of our unprofitableness, into everlasting habitations.
Happy is the man who, when he comes to die, knows that God's poor
have prayed for him, and have blessed his name.
-------------------
{348}
_Ninth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
1 _Corinthians x._ 6-13.
Brethren:
We should not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither
become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written: "The
people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Neither
let us commit fornication, as some of them committed
fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty
thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted,
and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of
them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all
these things happened to them in figure; and they are written
for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that thinketh himself to stand, take heed
lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as
is human. And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with
temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.
Gospel.
_St. Luke xix._ 41-47.
At that time:
When Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the city, he wept over
it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day,
the things that are for thy peace; but now they are hidden from
thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee: and thy enemies
shall cast a trench about thee: and compass thee round, and
straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground,
and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in
thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time
of thy visitation. And entering into the temple, he began to
cast out them that sold therein, and them that bought, saying
to them: "It is written: My house is the house of prayer"; but
you have made it a den of thieves. And he was teaching daily in
the temple.
-------------------
{349}
Sermon CV.
Justice And Mercy.
_And when he drew near, seeing the city,
he wept over it._
--From the Gospel of the Sunday.
Which one of the children is best loved by the father and mother?
Is there any poor little cripple in the family? That is the
favorite child. It makes the parent's heart bleed to see the
limping walk or the hunched back, to see the sallow, pain-marked
face of the little one. That is the one who receives the warmest
caress; for that one the kindest tones and cheeriest words and
nicest presents are reserved. Well, brethren, it is the same in
the spiritual order. God has his best favors for his most
unfortunate children: for men and women in the state of mortal
sin. That is one reason why our Lord lavished such affection on
the Jews; they had most need of it. Their hearts were the hardest
hearts in the world. Jerusalem was the most accursed city in the
world. It and its people were on the point of committing the most
awful crime possible to our race. Hence our Lord wept over it
those bitter tears of rejected love, and breathed those deadly
sighs of a heart wearied and disappointed in fruitless efforts
for their salvation.