which most endears the Blessed Sacrament to us. For as long as we
are in exile from our true fatherland--the "patria" of the __O
Salutaris__--we shall always be wanting consolation, and prize
it as a foretaste of our rest. This consolation, then, this
foretaste, is abundantly vouchsafed to us in the Blessed
Sacrament. And, first, as regards our Lord Himself. It is
impossible to love Him without sorrowing for all He once
suffered; without grieving at the thought of the world's sins,
and our own share of them, which drenched His soul with anguish,
and steeped His heart in woe. And what pains us most is the
melancholy fact that His love was thrown away on the majority of
mankind, and is so at this hour. It is, therefore, indeed a
consolation that now He dwells on earth without the condition of
suffering--impassible for evermore; that, at last, He "comes
unto His own, and His own __do__ receive Him"; that He is
enthroned King of His elect in the kingdom He so dearly
purchased; that He can now take unmixed "delight" in "being with
the children of men"; that if His Sacramental Presence is still
to the heretic "a stumbling-block," and to the sceptic
"foolishness," yet to millions upon millions, who believe and
love, it is "the power of God and the wisdom of God"; and,
further, that whatever degeneracy may come upon Christ's kingdom,
however widely the "love of many may wax cold," yet, even in the
worst times, "those whom the Father hath given Him" will
unfailingly confess Him their "Emmanuel."
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Again, the Blessed Sacrament is full of consolation as regards
ourselves. In the first place, because it is our Emmanuel--God
tabernacled with men; and because the veiled Presence here is an
earnest of the unveiled hereafter. Also, because it is an abiding
"propitiation for our sins," and the perpetual oblation of
infinite merit to obtain us all good things. Again, it is the
food in the strength of which we travel, like Elias, through the
wilderness of this world "unto the mount of God": [Footnote 65]
the medicine of our spiritual diseases, the balm of our sorrows,
and, sweetest thought of all, perhaps, our viaticum in death.
[Footnote 65: 3 Kings xix. 8.]
[USCCB: 1 Kings xix. 8.]
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If God could thus address His people of old, how much more
meaning have His words for __us__: "Fear not, for I have
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name: thou art mine.
When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and
the rivers shall not cover thee; ... for I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." [Footnote 66]
[Footnote 66: Is. xliii. 1-3]
But especially ought we to take comfort in the Blessed Sacrament
in times of trial for the Church, such as that which is on us
now. You remember how the ship of Peter was tossed one day on the
lake of Galilee, and the disciples got terrified and awoke their
Master, who was asleep on a pillow. [Footnote 67]
[Footnote 67: St. Mark iv. 36-38.]
And He rebuked them for their want of faith; because, let wind
and sea rage as they might, could that vessel have perished with
the Lord of the elements on board, though He __was__ "asleep
on a pillow"? Now, that ship is a striking figure of the Church,
with the Blessed Sacrament reposing on her altars. She has ridden
out many a heavy gale as yet, and no matter how many more are in
store for her, weather them she __must__ while she carries the
Almighty Saviour. Instead of losing heart, then, our aspiration
should be that of the sacred poet:
"Amid the howling wintry sea,
We are in port if we have Thee."
{166}
And even if there should come a time, as many think, when "the
daily sacrifice shall be taken away," when it shall be death to
say Mass or to hear it, and the Church has to "fly into the
wilderness"--if the final persecution thus exceed even those of
the Cæsars, yet Mass __will__ be said and Communion
__will__ be given; and still, at the words of the priest,
"even as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto
the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" to His altar;
and still, "wheresoever the Body shall be, there will the eagles
be gathered together." [Footnote 68]
[Footnote 68: St. Matt. xxiv. 27, 28.]
In conclusion, my dear brethren, let me remind you how apt we
are--we who are so favored with the faith--to neglect the Blessed
Sacrament, to be irreverent in its presence, to show it
ingratitude by receiving it too seldom, and to betray our
forgetfulness of its presence by never coming to visit it. I
would dwell a little on this last point. When we meet with
misfortune or trouble of any kind, we often brood over it at
home, and get impatient and fretful, and make mischief in
consequence to others as well as to ourselves, instead of coming
to tell the Sacred Heart all about it, and draw on an ever-ready
help. So, again, we are constantly complaining how cold the world
is, what a want there is of sympathy, how selfish and thankless
people are.
{167}
And what are we but cold and unsympathizing, selfish and
thankless, toward our best Friend? He is here "love's
prisoner"--__our__ prisoner; and how few of us take any notice
of Him as such! Were an earthly dear one in prison for our sake,
we should move heaven and earth to get to him. But here is the
Lover of all lovers, the infinite beauty, accessible all day
long, and how many come to visit Him of those who are __not__
reasonably prevented? I wonder that more of us are not haunted by
those words, "I was in prison, and ye visited Me not." [Footnote
69]
[Footnote 69: St. Matt. xxv. 43.]
Let us endeavor, then, my brethren, to realize more the treasure
we possess in our Emmanuel, our __Gesù Sacramentato__
(Sacramented Jesus), our __Dios Sagramentado__ (Sacramented
God), as the happy Italian and Spanish languages can word it. If
we could only accustom ourselves to think a little more of the
Blessed Sacrament, it would soon have a perceptible influence on
our lives, on our domestic relations, on our intercourse with
society, on our dealings with the world of business. And this
influence would be anything but oppressive, as some of you may
think. It would exercise a wholesome restraint, indeed, for which
we should often be deeply thankful afterwards, but would give us
a true cheerfulness and an abiding sense of calm. Oh! that all
our words and actions might harmonize in one ceaseless chorus of
praise--
{168}
"Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and most divine Sacrament!"
---------------------
{169}
Sermon XI.
St. Paul, The Divine Orator.
(For The Patronal Festival.)
2 Cor. xii. 9.
"__Gladly, therefore,
will I glory in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may dwell in me.__"
The Church and the world are agreed in the estimate formed of St.
Paul as a preacher. By a common judgment, the name of this great
apostle has been inscribed at the head of the illustrious list of
teachers of doctrine. His renown increases as time goes on, and
in our own day his personal character, life, and writings have
been made the subject of an extraordinary amount of discussion,
and have elicited newer and higher eulogiums.
There is this difference, however, in the judgments formed by the
Church and the world of the prince of Christian preachers. The
world's panegyric is illogical, being made in direct
contradiction to its principles and the lessons which it has ever
inculcated as necessary to an orator's success.
{170}
The Church alone, by the aid of the supernatural principles of
faith, is able to explain the true secret of the wonderful power
he wielded in life, and the miraculous influence of his words
upon the nations of the earth during the many centuries which
have elapsed since he ceased to speak face to face with men.
What, indeed, are these words of his, "I will glory in my
infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me," but
foolishness to human wisdom, or, at best, an enigma without
solution! But it is precisely these infirmities of which he
boasts that gave him the power he possessed, and laid the
foundation of all his glory. "When I am weak," he says again,
"then am I powerful." Nonsense to human reason, but divine wisdom
to faith.
If, therefore, I would praise St. Paul, as is befitting on this
day, I must praise hid infirmities--weaknesses which the world
calls misfortunes, and deficiencies upon which none but saints
ever rest their hopes of success.
To judge after the manner of man, we would ordinarily expect to
find in one who is an orator of great power certain personal
qualifications which, in the very nature of things, would serve
to impress and win his audience. We would seek for great polish
in the style, and consummate art in the preparation and delivery
of his discourses.
{171}
For one who aims at swaying not only a chance multitude who, for
the moment, comes within the sound of his voice, but at
conquering their souls, and winning them to the point of making
most heroic sacrifices; who not only preaches to his hearers, but
commands them with the air of one having authority, we would look
for the favorable, popular verdict shown in honors and dignities
showered upon him, in credit and influence, and his having
reached that summit where men vie with one another in giving him
place, and when even his enemies fear to gainsay or persecute
him.
Such, indeed, are the orators whom the world crowns with its
laurels. But in all these St. Paul was lacking; and yet, by the
world's own confession, he has surpassed them all. To meditate
upon this mystery of Divine Providence, which makes use of the
weak things of this world to confound the strong, and the foolish
to confound the wise, cannot fail to enlighten and edify us.
We who, like the world in general, have known the great Apostle
chiefly from the sublime picture which his unparalleled success
presents, have doubtless imagined him to be a person of tall and
majestic stature, of pleasing address and magisterial deportment;
being, as we say, a man of fine presence, whose appearance was
alone sufficient to bring forth plaudits from his auditory, and
enforce at once a respectful and submissive hearing.
{172}
Such are, indeed, the ideal portraits of him with which we please
ourselves, and such have the masters in art represented him. But
from various allusions he makes in his writings to himself, it is
certain that he was frail in body, of a diffident and submissive
bearing, and altogether wanting in that air of decision and
self-assertion which naturally overawes the multitude.
When he, with his companion apostle, St. Barnabas, healed the
cripple at Lystra, the people imagined them to be gods; but in
calling St. Barnabas, rather than St. Paul, Jupiter, it is
evident that other apostle far surpassed St. Paul in the dignity
and majesty of his person. He can write boldly, he says, but "in
presence is lowly"; [Footnote 70] and, again, he affirms the
truth of what people said of him, that "his bodily presence is
weak, and his speech contemptible;" and the frequent contrasts he
draws between his personal infirmities and his spiritual power
and graces, leave the fact beyond doubt that he was by no means a
man of dignified aspect or commanding mien.
[Footnote 70: 2 Cor. x. 1]
We might be tempted to think he would feel this infirmity most
keenly as a serious drawback to his success as an orator, as we
ourselves would judge it to be. But no. He will rather glory in
his infirmities as the source of his power; and here at the
outset we get an insight into the whole spirit of this champion
of the Gospel.
{173}
From the instant of his miraculous conversion, he appears to be
wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the sublime mystery of
the voluntary abasement of God in concealing the awful majesty
and splendor of his Divine Being in human nature, that what he,
with apostolic hardihood, calls the "foolishness of God" and the
"weakness of God," might subdue and atone for the sinful pride
and vainglory of men. He rejoices, therefore, that he has nothing
in himself which might cause the admiration of men and make void
the humility of Jesus and His cross--a thought which so fills his
soul that he says he knows nothing else besides. The less he has
in himself to glory in, the greater is his consciousness of the
power of the Gospel of the Crucified, which he only lives to
preach. "Power is made perfect in infirmity," was the revelation
made to him when caught up to the third heaven. "I will glory,
therefore," he exclaims, "in my infirmities." I am glad that I am
weak in bodily presence and contemptible in speech. Freed from
this temptation of human vanity, which in turn would divert the
souls of my hearers from the Gospel to the preacher of the
Gospel, the power of Christ will dwell more fully in me. "When I
am weak, then am I powerful."
{174}
When I, Paul the Apostle, am nothing, then will the victory of
grace be complete in the souls who, through me, believe and are
converted--when I have nothing in me to please and attract the
sight, men will see only the Cross which I hold up to their gaze.
So fearful was he of attracting to himself any personal
affection, that he avoided baptizing his own converts and
receiving them into the church, lest they should say--I am of
Paul, I belong to the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, instead of
acknowledging, as he was always doing himself, "By the grace of
God, I am what I am--a Christian saved from hell by God's mercy."
Let us look now at his second and greater infirmity--his weakness
as an orator. He had a strange, difficult, shocking, and what he
terms a scandalous doctrine to preach--the redemption of the
world by a crucified God. Surely, this man, who is so lacking in
the external qualifications of an effective speaker, possesses at
least the magic power of sublime eloquence. He who has such a
repulsive truth to announce will seek the most polished phrases,
and cover up the hard things which he has to say by flowers of
rhetoric, and, with studied art in his tones of speech, will
charm his unwilling audience to receive and obey the austere
lessons of the Gospel.
{175}
By no means. Such was his infirmity in this respect that his
disciples called his speech contemptible, and he acknowledged the
truth of their judgment, and reminds his beloved Corinthians that
he was "with them in weakness, and in fear, and in much
trembling," adding, "My speech and preaching was not in the
persuasive words of human wisdom." [Footnote 71]
[Footnote 71: I Cor. ii. 4.]
Not only do we see in the discourses recorded of him the most
simple and unadorned phraseology, but even his writings, full as
they are of the most profound and heavenly doctrine, are the most
inartificial, disconnected, and poor in imagery that could well
be imagined. What a misfortune for an orator! cries the world.
"What a glory is mine infirmity!" responds the Apostle of that
Gospel which is wisdom hidden from the self-sufficient rich and
the insolent magnates of a depraved world, but a revelation of
divine truth to babes. And I, who praise St. Paul, will praise
this infirmity of his as well, knowing that he has not rested his
power as an apostle and his hopes of success upon it in vain.
If St. Paul be unable to use, or disdain in his preaching all
rhetorical flourish and tricks of oratory, if his language is
almost rude in its plainness and harsh from the total absence of
brilliant metaphor or well-rounded period, it is because he has
nothing to preach but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
{176}
All those harmonious cadences which flatter the ear, all that
fanciful imagery in which the orators of human doctrine and
science deal so largely and are paid with clapping of hands, are
at best but showy tinsel, unworthy of the Incarnate Wisdom, and a
vain mockery of the lowly speech and simple words of the Man of
Sorrows. What we adore in our Lord's person is His lowliness and
humility, mingled with a certain divine and grand simplicity of
character. So are all His words, plain and simple; spoken
evidently without passionate gesture, and in no loud or clamorous
tone. Simple, because all that is divine is simple; all else is
human pride and sensuality. Such is what I may call the divine
instinct of the Church, the Body of Christ, who also disdains,
when she lifts her voice in prayer or praise, all the effeminate
and meretricious ornaments of harmony or melody, which are the
sources of attraction and admiration in worldly music, and
adheres to what is simple in its enunciation, grave in movement,
and moderate in tone, as one who reveals divine thoughts, and not
the dreamy, overwrought imaginations of impassioned genius, which
minister rather to the senses than to the soul.
{177}
Behold, therefore, the great Apostle, inspired by this simplicity
of Divine truth, going out upon his great mission to become the
preacher of that truth to the whole world, but so thoroughly
imbued with the spirit of the meek and humble-hearted Jesus that
he speaks in weakness, in much fear and trembling, yet with such
power that even Greece, that mother of philosophers and orators,
forgets the fervid eloquence of her Plato and Demosthenes to
drink in the divine lessons of the Gospel from the lips of this
unskilled orator; and Rome herself, the mistress of the world, at
his word overthrows her idols and consecrates her majestic
temples of glory to the worship of a Man crucified at Jerusalem.
O glorious Apostle! well mayest thou glory in that which before
men is thy weakness! Thine infirmity is thy power. Without human
power, thou abandonest thyself wholly to the divine power of
Christ, and that--that is more than enough power to conquer the
world. That world in its pride will criticise you, and ridicule
your want of polish and lack of rhetoric, and your trembling,
hesitating gesture, but it will believe in Jesus Christ and Him
crucified whom you preach. Its orators will not follow you as a
model, but they themselves will beat their breasts, and confess
their sins, and do penance at your bidding.
But, powerful as he is in the infirmity of his speech, to fully
convince the world of the truth of his awful and austere
doctrine, he has yet to measure his strength against a more
obstinate and unyielding enemy to the Gospel of the Cross.
{178}
The mind of man cannot long blind its sight to the illumination
of the truth; but who shall subdue and win the hardened heart? O
wondrous science of the saints! O divine enigma which no one
shall understand who does not write its solution in his own
blood! "__Regnavit a ligno Deus!__" "God hath reigned from the
wood of the cross." Even God cannot reign in the kingdom of the
hearts of men until He is a crucified man, whose streaming blood
cries aloud and pleads, with the irresistible torrent of the
eloquence of suffering, to heaven. Yes; to heaven must the voice
of suffering preach; for Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but
God alone can give the increase. From God alone can come the
grace that achieves the consummation of the triumph of the truth,
and completes the labor of the Apostle. When was Jesus Christ the
Master of the world? Where was it that He drew all things to
Himself by the cords of Adam and the bands of love? Was it when
He went about doing good, working miracles, preaching His divine
doctrine? Ah no! It was when He was lifted up the pleading
Victim, whose blood and wounds spoke better things than the blood
of Abel, and whose requests could not be denied.
{179}
Well does the Church say, "__Regnavit a ligno Deus!__" And
what shall we expect, if even Jesus is only powerful from His
cross, but that His chosen vessel of election, who shall carry
His Gospel to the whole world, first shall say: "I judge myself
to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified"; and that
afterwards his life should prove the truth of his same infirmity
in himself: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross," [Footnote 72]
"I die daily;" that he should be stoned and scourged, and
imprisoned and persecuted, and driven from city to city, "in
journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in
perils from the Jews, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in
the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in
perils from false brethren, in labor and painfulness, in long
watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness;" [Footnote 73] and, added to all these sufferings,
those interior trials and bitternesses of spirit with which God
invariably purifies the souls of His elect. He must preach in the
stead of Christ, and therefore he must suffer in His stead.
Wherefore he says: "I fill up in my own flesh those things that
are wanting of the sufferings of Christ." [Footnote 74]
[Footnote 72: Gal. ii. 19.]
[Footnote 73: 2 Cor. xi. 26, 27.]
[Footnote 74: Col. i. 24.]
Nor are we surprised, if the world be, that he should please
himself in this life of constant suffering in what seems to be,
as men judge, failures and losses, and disheartening, conflicting
obstacles to his success.
{180}
The world, to whom the cross of Christ is foolishness, would
demand for a preacher who could hope for a success equal to St.
Paul's, invariable good health, a well-nourished body, a mind not
overtaxed, popular applause, and a career of unvarying triumph.
But I, who would praise St. Paul, will praise him for his life of
suffering. When he is weak before men, then is he powerful with
God. God and the whole court of heaven is the audience of the
suffering man; and he who would sway the Divine Mercy must take
counsel from the Crucified Incarnate Wisdom, and find an advocate
in his own blood.
For thirty long years did this "Victim dear to heaven" suffer a
daily death, yet rejoicing always that he was counted worthy to
suffer for the name of the Lord Jesus; and as we follow him about
from country to country, and from city to city, we can number his
successes by the number of his adversities--adversities which had
no power to subdue his exalted soul, or shake for one instant the
constancy of his superhuman love for Christ and His cross. Hark
to that outburst of generous love from his undaunted heart--"Who,
then, shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or
persecution, or the sword? I am sure that neither death nor life,
nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Footnote 75]
[Footnote 75: Rom. viii. 35-39.]
{181}
Thirty years of restless labor and fatigues, and now this aged
and worn-out Apostle, to whom we would fain grant some days of
sweet repose for his declining years, must gird up his loins and
prepare to meet the crowning suffering of his life--a martyr's
death.
Rome, imperial Rome, palace of pride and sensuality, thou
boastest that thou art the mistress of the world; that thy name
and power is honored and feared by every nation, and none dare
refuse thee tribute! Proud throne of the world, tremble! for
there is coming into thy gates a conqueror who will humble thee
in the dust, who will take away all thine armor in which thou
trustest, and compel thee to pay tribute to him; and, through
him, constrain thee to bring the world under another Ruler, whose
kingdom shall be without end, and whose principality no man shall
take away. Go, O captain of many victories! __Prospere procede,
et regna__. Rome will laugh at thy apostolic folly, but thou
shalt make her weep. Rome is the world's citadel of error; thou
shalt make her the ever-enduring and infallible chair of truth.
Rome will bring thee into her as a prisoner in chains, but thou
shalt prove her liberator.
{182}
Rome will put thee to death, but the voice of thy martyr's blood
shall cry to heaven and give her eternal life. Take glory to
thyself, O holy Paul! and rejoice and exult in thine infirmities,
for now is the hour when thy strength shall be divine!
Though dead, he yet speaketh. From his tomb St. Paul is still the
preacher of the truth to the whole world. Still he announces the
truth as it is in Christ Jesus and Him crucified. Still he
confounds the Gentile philosophies of every age, still draws with
irresistible eloquence the hearts of men to the sacrifices of an
heroic love for Christ. The text of St. Paul living and suffering
was, "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He who to-day approaches
the vast temple beneath whose majestic dome repose the sacred
ashes of the divine preacher, descries upon the base of a lofty
obelisk that confronts the portals of the Apostle's
world-renowned sepulchre the text of St. Paul dead and
triumphant:
"Ecce crucem Domini!
Fugite partes adversæ."
"Behold the Cross of the Lord!
Let all its adversaries be put to flight."
-----------------------
{183}
Sermon XII.
The Value Of Faith.