laws of the church. Oh! yes. And have we not also to obey the
special decrees of the Holy Father, of our bishop, and of our
pastor? What sort of a Christian is he who is his own shepherd,
or one who is always "standing up for his own rights," as they
say, submitting just within law and only when he cannot help
himself? And does _Christian humility_ mean nothing in act?
That is a narrow road of obedience and a long one, as you all
know; and blessed is he who joyfully walks therein.
{430}
Instead of wanting to shirk these counsels, and put all upon the
shoulders of religious, every one ought to be praying hard that
God will, of his divine bounty, give us, too, men and women
living in the world, more and more grace to practise all that our
worldly condition will allow us to do, convinced by faith that he
is most truly happy here, as he will certainly be hereafter, who
is filled with high Christian aspirations, striving to "walk
worthy of his vocation" and realize in himself the picture of a
perfect Christ-like life.
-------------------
Sermon CXXXI.
Erroneous Views Of Vocation.
_As a prisoner in the Lord,
I beseech you that you walk
worthy of the vocation in which you are called._
--Ephesians iv. 1.
Brethren, has it ever occurred to you that each one of us has a
vocation in this life? I refer not to our Christian vocation,
which we all have in common, but to the particular state of life
to which each one of us has been called. It is not an uncommon
error for people to think that priests and nuns are the only
privileged mortals who are called by God to some special work,
and that to their vocation alone God has attached peculiar and
extraordinary graces.
This is an error we must correct. We have all, thank God, the
vocation to be Christians and the call to be saints, but we have,
moreover, our own special calling, suitable to our character and
disposition; and our common Christian vocation, and in a great
measure our eternal salvation, depends on our fulfilling worthily
the particular vocation in which we are called.
{431}
Some of us God has called to be priests, to serve continually at
his altar. Some to be fathers of families, and others to remain
single all their life. Some he has called to the higher
professions, and others to the hard but manly toil of every-day
life. But to all these vocations, to all these different states
of life, he has attached certain duties, peculiar obligations,
which must be met and fulfilled.
The great danger, brethren, that we have to avoid is the common
and stupid error of those who hold that their every-day vocation
has nothing to do with this Sunday calling; that there is little,
if any, connection between their own special calling and their
general calling to be Christians; who maintain that as business
men they can and must act in their own business-like way,
banishing God from their hearts and his law from their lives, at
least during their hours of business.
This error, stupid as it is, is not so uncommon as one might at
first imagine. Take a few practical cases. How many are there
who, when they examine their conscience, ever think of
questioning themselves upon the duties of their position in life?
How many fathers of families, listening to these words to-day,
question themselves daily as to how they govern those whom God
has put under their charge; how they watch and provide for the
spiritual and temporal welfare of those whom they are called upon
to support? How many young men ever think of asking themselves
how they have fulfilled the obligations they are under to
parents, now perhaps unable to take care of themselves? How many
business-men question themselves as to the honesty or propriety
of this or that mode of action they have been following?
{432}
Alas! they are few indeed. And this is the practical outcome of
not recognizing the close connection there is between our
every-day calling and our Christian vocation. As every vocation,
brethren, has its duties and its difficulties, so every calling
has its special helps and graces. God saw each one of us from all
eternity--just as we are to-day, with all the weaknesses of our
character, with all the difficulties that surround us, and all
the temptations with which we have to contend. He foresaw all
these things and provided for them, regulating his helps and
graces according to our wants, and directing all things towards
our final destiny. His grace is always sufficient for us, and as
long as we remain in his friendship there is no vocation or
calling so difficult or trying but what can be cheerfully and
manfully borne and worked towards our soul's salvation. The lot
of some is certainly not an easy one, but God always fits the
back for the burden.
The practical question I would have you ask yourselves to-day,
brethren, is this: Granted that I have a vocation in this life;
granted that Providence has placed me in a position that involves
duties and obligations to God, my neighbor, or myself; how am I
fulfilling these obligations? How am I walking in the vocation in
which I am called? Worthily or unworthily--that is the
all-important question for me to answer to-day to the
satisfaction of my conscience, as I will have to answer it one
day to Almighty God.
Am I the father or mother of a family? If so, do I discharge the
duties of my calling? Do I make my home pleasant and agreeable
for my children? Do I supply them with suitable home amusements?
Do I furnish them proper reading matter, or do I allow them to
waste their time and ruin their souls with the vile penny
literature of the day?
{433}
Do I oblige them to come to Mass and approach the sacraments,
while I neglect these duties myself? Or am I a business-man who
deals squarely and honestly with my neighbors, never on the alert
to take advantage of the ignorant and weak? Am I in the
employment of others, and, if so, do I fulfil my calling worthily
by doing all that strict justice or Christian charity requires of
me? Or am I just to men who work for me? These are some of the
questions regarding your vocations that I would have you ask
yourselves to-day.
Brethren, when we come to render our account to God, be sure of
this: he will not trouble us with the question as to whether we
have been experts in our respective professions, whether we have
been successful business-men or skilled mechanics; no, but
whether we have been just and honorable, whether we have walked
_worthily_ in the vocations to which we have been called.
Walk then, brethren, worthy of your vocation, worthy of the
church which has reared you, worthy of the hope that is in you,
worthy of the name you bear, that of Christ, who has redeemed
you. Imitate him, live as he lived, and suffer in your calling
the things he suffered. Then the prayer of our patron St. Paul
will not be in vain, and we will walk worthy of the vocation in
which we are called.
-------------------
{434}
_Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
I _Corinthians i._ 4-8.
Brethren:
I give thanks to my God always for you, for the grace of God
that is given you in Christ Jesus, that in all things you are
made rich in him, in every word, and in all knowledge: as the
testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: so that nothing is
wanting to you in any grace, waiting for the manifestation of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who also will confirm you unto the end
without crime, in the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Gospel.
_St. Matthew ix._ 1-8.
At that time:
Jesus entering into a boat, passed over the water and came into
his own city. And behold they brought to him a man sick, of the
palsy lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their faith, said to
the man sick of the palsy: Son, be of good heart, thy sins are
forgiven thee. And behold some of the Scribes said within
themselves: This man blasphemeth. And Jesus seeing their
thoughts, said: Why do you think evil in your hearts? Which is
easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up
and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man hath power
on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the man sick of the
palsy), Rise up: take thy bed and go into thy house. And he
rose up, and went into his house. And the multitude seeing it,
feared, and glorified God who had given such power to men.
-------------------
{435}
Sermon CXXXII.
Presumption Of God's Mercy.
_Unless you have believed in vain._
1 Corinthians xv. 2.
Dear Brethren: The Apostle appears to be of a different mind from
some of us, who seem to think that there is no such thing as
believing in vain. Do not sinners rest quite secure in their
wickedness just because they believe in the true religion? Do
they not feel sure of salvation because they know how to be
saved? Is not the blessed privilege of the holy faith the secret
reason of many a person's delay of repentance? It is against all
such that St. Paul stands when he speaks of a vain faith; and our
Blessed Lord himself when he says that pagan Tyre and Sidon shall
rise up in witness against those who had the true religion and
used it only to puff them selves up with spiritual pride.
To be guilty of an unused faith is the high-road to eternal loss
among Catholics. Some poor souls will be lost because, though
born in error, they have refused to follow the light of reason
into the church. But we shall be lost, if at all, because we have
believed in vain. Some outside of the church shall be lost
because they have sinned even against the simplest precepts of
nature's law. But we shall be condemned for believing all that
our Lord revealed and making it vain by our wicked deeds. A vain
faith is like the background of a picture: the eye catches and
dwells on the objects in the foreground, but these could not be
seen clearly but for the tints in the background against which
they are drawn. So what we do will one day be contrasted with
what we know; the strong light of faith will only cause the
black, filthy sins of our life to be more fully revealed to the
Judge.
{436}
Have you never seen a blind man whose eyes seemed perfectly good,
clear, and bright, and yet utterly blind? There is such a kind of
blindness; some men really have eyes and see not, because the
nerve is dead, and the nerve is like the soul of the eye. So with
our faith: God gave it to us to see by and walk by and live by;
to know his law and live up to it, to know our sins and to
confess them with true sorrow--in a word, to practise what we
know that we ought to practise. But some become like the idols of
the nations you read of in one of the Vesper psalms: "They have
eyes, and see not; they have ears, and hear not." Wicked
Catholics perceive the right way; they hear of the dangers of the
wrong way, and go right along with this knowledge, and neglect
prayer and Mass, blaspheme and fight, get drunk and debauch, and
steal, yet having all the time full assurance that somehow or
other their faith will save them. Brethren, their faith is vain;
their hope of eternal life is not reasonable or well founded; the
beauty of the truth they possess is like the cold beauty of a
corpse, which makes one shudder only the more from its
incongruity with the putrid decay so surely approaching.
Yet how rich a treasure is the true faith! What a comfort to know
the truths of religion! What a privilege to know our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, and to be in communion with him, his
Blessed Mother, his glorious saints, his holy church! What a
perversity, then, to use all this as a burglar uses his
rope-ladder: a means of making a criminal life more secure.
{437}
But it cannot be. It is a delusion. There is no means of making a
criminal life secure, except by turning quickly away from it,
detesting it, confessing it, and, by the light of faith and the
strength of charity, leading a good life.
-------------------
Sermon CXXXIII.
Drunkenness.
_Take heed to yourselves,
lest perhaps your hearts be over charged
with surfeiting and drunkenness,
and the cares of this life._
--Luke xxi. 34.
These words of our Lord recorded by St. Luke contain a very
direct admonition against intemperance and its associate vices.
Gluttony and drunkenness are closely allied, inasmuch as the
former is generally associated with excessive eating, and the
latter is used to denote excess in intoxicating drink. Not only
from a religious standpoint, but from medical science, St. Luke
knew and could teach the injurious effects on the human system
produced by the unrestrained gratification of the appetites. His
knowledge in these matters was evidently recognized by those
associated with him in preaching the Gospel, for St. Paul speaks
of him as "the beloved physician" (Colossians iv. 14).
There are many passages of Holy Scripture that show forth the
dangers of drunkenness. In the Old Testament we read that Noe and
Lot were both taught by sad experience the shame and degradation
arising from the loss of self-control through the excessive use
of intoxicating drinks.
{438}
No sanction can, be found in the Bible for the opinion that
intemperance is a pardonable weakness. It is a very long time
ago, indeed, since this vice of drunkenness was first condemned
by the authorized teachers of religion. Among the vices it is
properly classified with gluttony, which is one of the seven
deadly sins.
The Apostles sent forth by our Lord to teach all nations
strenuously inculcated the duty of _sobriety_ and
_watchfulness_ on each individual Christian. St. Peter and
St. Paul especially insist on this personal vigilance as being of
the utmost importance. _"Being sober_, hope perfectly for
that grace which is offered you at the revelation of Jesus
Christ. _Be sober and watch_, because your adversary, the
devil, as a roaring lion goeth about, seeking whom he may devour"
(First Epistle of St. Peter v. 8-13).
St. Paul teaches the same lesson of _personal vigilance_ in
these words: "Let us _watch and be sober_, having on the
breastplate of faith and charity, and for a helmet the hope of
salvation" (1 Thessalonians v. 6-8). "For the grace of God our
Saviour hath appeared to all men, instructing us that, renouncing
impiety and worldly desires, we should _live soberly_, and
justly, and piously in this world" (Titus ii. 3).
A great doctor of the church, St. Augustine, in the fourth
century declared that there were at that time drunkards, plenty
of them, and that people had grown accustomed to speak of
drunkenness, not only without horror, but even with levity. This
condition of things was brought about by the vicious teaching of
the pagans, who sanctioned every form of sensual gratification.
{439}
In one of his sermons St. Augustine uses these words: "The heart
of the drunkard has lost all feeling. When a member has no
feeling it may be considered dead and cut off from the body. Yet
we sometimes are lenient, and can only employ words. We are loath
to excommunicate and cast out of the church; for we fear lest he
who is chastised should be made worse by the chastisement. And
though such are already dead in soul, yet, since our Physician is
Almighty, we must not despair of them."
Again in a letter to a bishop, written in the year 393, St.
Augustine refers to the intemperance then prevalent in the city
of Carthage. "The pestilence," he says, "is of such a magnitude
that it seems to me it cannot be cured except by the authority of
a council. Or, at least, if one church must begin, it should be
that of Carthage. It would seem like audacity to try to change
what Carthage retains." Then he proceeds to urge that the
movement against intemperance be conducted in the spirit of
meekness, saying: "I think that these abuses must be removed, not
imperiously, nor harshly; by instruction rather than by command,
by persuasion rather than by threats. It is thus one must act in
a multitude: we may be severe towards the sins of a few."
From the words just quoted we see that St. Augustine was justly
opposed to the indiscriminate condemnation of a multitude for the
sins of a few. And it is very necessary to bear this in mind
while dealing with the vice of intemperance, which is so widely
prevalent at the present time. The crimes of drunkards are
frequently exposed to view in the columns of newspapers, yet the
unvarnished truth is seldom stated concerning those who
co-operate with them in the nine ways of being accessory to
another's sin; and this means especially those who, in cities
infected with intemperance, keep saloons, and those who invite
men to drink whom they have reason to fear will abuse it.
{440}
We know that there are leaders in the ways of vice as well as in
the ways of virtue. Special severity is needed with those who
deliberately persist in doing wrong with malice aforethought. Men
who strive to make laws to defend iniquity, who teach and foster
vice for their own personal profit, may properly be called blind
leaders of the blind, whose fate has already been predicted by
our Lord, the Supreme Judge of the world.
-------------------
Sermon CXXXIV.
The Dignity And Happiness Of Obedience.
_Children, obey your parents in all things;
for this is pleasing to the Lord._
--Colossians iii. 20.
Brethren, there are many new things found out nowadays; but there
are also some old ones and good ones being forgotten. Among other
things we are apt to forget the happiness of obedience. Of course
I do not mean obedience to the church; perhaps there never was an
age when Catholics rested so content in the gentle restraint of
our holy mother the Church. But I refer to the practice of
obedience one to another, done after the pattern of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The loveliness of this virtue is best seen in the
bosom of the Christian family. Affection, indeed, is the bond of
the family, but the fruit of affection is obedience. There is
nothing more pleasing to God than the son who is always at the
service of his father and mother.
{441}
Few families are without at least one such son. He is often the
one of whom at first the least was expected; of poor natural
talents, of delicate health, of irascible temper, or one whose
earlier years were wayward. But all the time he was observant,
though no one, not even himself, gave him credit for it. Year by
year the spectacle of father's and mother's affection and
sacrifice penetrated him, till he became deeply attached to them.
How much this reverent love for his parents had to do with his
religious state as a boy and a young man! It may be true that
scarcely any boy ever grows up to be a man and is never a liar to
his father and mother, or a pilferer of cake and fruit and
pennies about the house. But the good boy drops all this at First
Communion or when he goes to learn a trade, and he becomes honest
and truthful in little things as well as great. One of the
happiest days for him between the cradle and the grave is when he
runs and puts the first dollar he has earned into his mother's
hands. That good son lets all his brothers go away from home to
seek their fortunes; he stays with the old folks, comforts their
old age, closes their eyes in death, and with much love and many
tears follows them with his prayers beyond the grave. The others
were, perhaps, good children, but he is the hero of the family.
Then there is the good daughter, who in childhood is the sunshine
of the family, and in maturer years everybody's other self. How
many parents, too poor to hire a servant, have living riches in
an industrious daughter! How often do parents find one at least
of the girls who from very infancy is the joy of the whole
family; who seems to have received in baptism such a fulness of
the Holy Spirit that charity, joy, peace, patience, long
suffering, kindness, and piety are the common qualities of her
character!
{442}
The faith also finds an apostle in such women. An intelligent
woman, though perhaps unable to argue skilfully, can establish
the truths of religion by methods all her own. A friendly jest,
good-natured silence, a patient return of loving services for
ill-treatment, the spectacle of her good life, not an hour of
which lacks a virtue--all this in one instinct with religion is
an unanswerable argument and often irresistible. How did it
happen, people sometimes ask concerning this or that person, that
she did not marry? She had good enough looks, excellent sense, a
bright mind, affectionate disposition, and saw plenty of company.
Why did she not marry? My brethren, the day of judgment will tell
us that it was because God had set her apart that she might be
for her widowed mother or her shiftless, unhappy brothers and
sisters the pot of meal that should not waste and the cruse of
oil that should not diminish. Brethren, I know of no order of
nuns more pleasing in God's sight than the devout women who live
a dependent, obscure, hard life in the world, and are old maids
for the love of God.
Finally, you may say that such sons and daughters are hard to
find. I answer that there are multitudes who approach the
standard we have been considering, and more, perhaps, than you
fancy who actually attain to it.
-------------------
{443}
_Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
_Ephesians iv._ 23-28.
Brethren:
Be ye renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new
man, who, according to God, is created in justice, and holiness
of truth. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak ye the truth
every man with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.
Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger:
Give not place to the devil. Let him that stole, steal now no
more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands that
which is good, that he may have to give to him who is in need.
Gospel.
_St. Matthew xxii._ 2-14.
At that time Jesus spoke to the chief priests and Pharisees in
parables, saying:
The kingdom of heaven is like to a man being a king, who made a
marriage for his son. And he sent his servants to call them
that were invited to the marriage: and they would not come.
Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were
invited: Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my beeves and
fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come ye to the
wedding. But they neglected, and went their ways, one to his
farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands
on his servants, and, having treated them contumeliously, put
them to death. But when the king heard of it he was angry, and,
sending his armies, he destroyed those murderers and burnt
their city. Then he saith to his servants: The wedding indeed
is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. Go ye
therefore into the highways, and as many as you shall find,
invite to the wedding.
{444}
And his servants going out into the highways, gathered together
all that they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was
filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests, and
he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he
saith to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a
wedding garment? But he was silent. Then the king said to the
waiters: Having bound his hands and feet, cast him into the
exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen.
-------------------
Sermon CXXXV.
Lying.
_Wherefore, putting away lying,
speak ye the truth every man with his neighbor._
--Epistle of the Day.
Of all the vicious habits into which we are prone to fall, there
is none more common, and none more miserable, mean, and
contemptible, than this one of which the Apostle here speaks.
There is also none about which Christians in general have so lax
and careless a conscience. True, every one regards lying as in
some sense at least sinful; and many would hesitate about going
to Holy Communion if they had told a lie after confession. But in
spite of that, when the Communion is once made, the tongue which
has just received the God of justice and truth will immediately
begin again to offend him by telling falsehoods which are too
often unjust as well as untrue.
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