minds is that, in all sickness, from whatever cause, the will of
God is to be acknowledged. It is not every Christian, I regret to
say, who does so look upon it. Too often you will find it
regarded as a grievous misfortune, having no good reason why it
should be, and without any compensation for the loss of worldly
enjoyment and advantages which it necessarily entails; and, even
if they do agree that God has sent it, then it is because God is
angry with them. He is taking vengeance upon them. There appears
to be no other possible reason that can be given for it.
As I said before, we are afflicted with sickness not only as a
chastisement for sin, but sometimes also in mercy, as an act of
loving-kindness and forethought on the part of God; and again
very frequently, as in the case of holy Job, as an opportunity to
try our faith, to enable us to show our constancy and love to
God, and is therefore to be looked upon as a mark of
predilection, and a positive blessing and grace.
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Certainly, sickness is sometimes sent as a punishment for sin. It
comes as a natural and just consequence of sinful excesses. Look
at the drunkard and the debauchee. They have gone on for awhile
in seeming impunity, but every debauch was a blow struck upon the
citadel of life and health. Soon it is shattered, and totters and
falls into ruin. Go into the streets, and you may meet them, with
haggard faces and trembling limbs. Go to the hospitals and the
insane asylums, and see those wrecks of humanity, almost soulless
men and women, drivelling idiots, and sickening masses of
corruption. Go to many a sick bedside, in palace or in hovel, in
this great city, and you may see how sin is punished by an
outraged God. And, though you yourself could not trace the fever
that blighted you for many long weeks to any natural cause, you
know that you deserved it all. Your alarmed conscience did not
fail to tell you that there were crimes of your life that
demanded retribution. Your overweening pride, your ungovernable
anger, has been humbled in the dust. Your days are shortened
because of your disobedience and cruelty to your parents.
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The money you have stolen and would not restore has been wrested
from you by the heavy charges of your illness. Your disorderly
appetites and lusts are now punished with compulsory and
exhausting fasts from all food. "He hath struck you as being
wicked, in open sight; who as it were on purpose hath revolted
from Him, and would not understand His ways: so that you have
caused the cry of the needy to come up before Him, and He has
heard the voice of the poor." [Footnote 109]
[Footnote 109: Job xxxiv. 26, 28.]
You thought in your sin that you were stronger than God. Now He
has rebuked you by sorrow on the sick bed, and has made all your
bones to wither. Bread is become abominable to you, and to your
soul the meat which before you desired. You have trampled on
God's holy law; you would not go to Mass to worship Him. Now,
though you would gladly go any distance, and suffer any pain to
be present at it, you are denied that joy and consolation. You
are as one upon whom the church doors are closed, for whom the
altar is thrown down, and the priest departed. "In whatsoever a
man sins," says the Holy Scripture, "in that also shall he be
punished."
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Sickness has come upon you. Why? In mercy, God sees how
indifferent you have become to Him. He sees how your soul has
become absorbed in worldly things. Your heart is following after
strange gods, and your footsteps are leading down to hell. As
Eliu said to Job, "Your guardian angel has spoken to God for you,
and said, Deliver him, that he may not go down to corruption."
and God in mercy has heard his prayers, and your way is stopped.
It is because God loves you, and would save you, that this has
come upon you. In the days of pain, and during the long, feverish
nights, you will remember God. In your anguish you will turn to
Him for comfort, and in your fear you will put your trust in Him.
This world has had too much of your heart. On a sick bed you will
be able to judge how much it is worth. You will condemn the
vanity of your life. The past will be repented of. New
resolutions will be made. You will come back to health with a
refreshed and chastened spirit. What the friend of Job said to
him, you will say of yourself: "My flesh is consumed with
punishments, that I may return to the days of my youth. I will
pray to God, and He will be gracious to me: and I shall see His
face with joy. When I look upon men, I shall say, I have sinned,
and indeed I have offended, and I have not received what I
deserved, hath delivered my soul from going into destruction,
that it may live and see the light." [Footnote 110]
[Footnote 110: Job xxxiii. 25-28.]
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Yes, my dear brethren, I think this is the cause of a great deal
of the sickness that is sent upon us. The fever, the cholera, the
accident, are good preachers, and they make themselves heard. I
do not wonder, then, to see men compelled to listen to their
threatening tones, and their souls terrified at their menacing
gestures of death, and their eloquent descriptions of the coffin
and the grave. The words of God's appointed preacher fall
unheeded upon their ears. As long as they have strength enough to
hear us, they have courage enough to disobey us. But God shows
them a vision of a newly made grave, and causes their feet to
totter upon its brink, that they may not go down into it
unabsolved.
O blessed sickness! how many wandering souls have you not brought
back to a forgotten God! How many almost lost have you not
snatched from the jaws of hell! God is a kind and thoughtful
Father to us, when we often think Him a hard and cruel Master.
Like a surgeon, the deeper and more hidden the wound, the more
resolutely does he cut down upon it, and lay it open, in order to
effect a radical cure. He chastises us in mercy here, that He may
spare us at His judgment-seat in the day of His wrath.
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Why are you sick, you who have no grievous crimes to expiate--you
whose whole heart has belonged to God this many a day? Because
you are the object of His special graces, and a chosen vessel of
election. What is the secret of this apparent contradiction? God
wishes to try you, and prove your constancy. Not that He doubts
you. On the contrary, He knows how true your heart is. He has
every confidence in your fidelity. But He wishes to glorify that
fidelity. He wishes to give you a chance to show that you can
trust Him in the darkness as well as in the light. He strikes
you, that you may have glorious wounds to show at the last day.
Do you not know that to suffer for any one is to give a better
proof of love than to confer favors and benefits? You have done a
good deal for God, I know. He does not forget it. He asks you to
give up that which it is the hardest thing in the world to
sacrifice--your health. It seems the most unreasonable thing to
sacrifice. Your friends and neighbors pity you. They know how
much good you were able to do when you were strong and well. They
regret to see your usefulness cut off. That usefulness was your
constant self-sacrifice for the good of your neighbor. They would
like to see that go on. They forget that God wants you to do a
little self-sacrifice for Him, for Him alone, just as if there
were no one in existence except you and He in the whole universe.
This is why you are sick and suffering.
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Rejoice, then, O Christian sufferer! and bear your cross, not
only with patience and resignation, but with holy joy and a
thankful heart. Your labors are accepted in His sight, and only
this is yet wanting to you--the merit of suffering for Him.
My brethren, this is, I well know, a strange doctrine in the ears
of the world, and especially to the unbelieving world around us
in our day. Meritorious suffering is something which our
Protestant friends not only do not comprehend, but laugh at, so
that to most of them, even the very passion and death of our Lord
is an enigma. They may believe it, but it is an unreasonable
belief on their part, for they ridicule the very principle upon
which its reasonableness is founded.
The Catholic Church teaches us that there is a merit in
suffering, in voluntary mortification, in fasting and abstinence,
in giving up the world, its friendships and its pleasures; that
it is meritorious and pleasing to God for the priest and the
virgin to deny themselves the joys and comforts of the married
state; in a word, that God is glorified as well by suffering as
by act. This is her principle. It is the only principle which can
give any reasonable explanation of the atoning sacrifice of our
Lord, and to deny it is to deny Christ.
Accidental, or rather Providential, suffering, such as we have in
sickness, is turned to the same account, and sanctified by our
offering it to God in the spirit of sacrifice; for it is not in
the act of suffering itself, but in the will, that merit is
obtained.
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Now, my brethren, you see in what spirit we should receive and
endure sickness. The will should accept it at once, calmly,
willingly, without murmur or complaint. It is God's will. That
should be sufficient. Our own will must respond and make an
entire and generous offering of it. In the beginning of sickness,
then, let us say, O my God! I accept this at your hands with all
the pain I shall suffer, whatever may be the reason you have so
willed it, in satisfaction for my sins, as an admonition to lead
a better life, and as a happy chance to suffer something for your
sake in union with the sufferings of my Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. Help me by your grace to profit by it as you desire.
While the sickness lasts, let us often look back upon God, as a
gallant knight upon a perilous journey thinks upon his liege
lord, whose behests are his law, and whose honor is in his hands,
renewing again and again our first fervent offering and oath of
fidelity. There will be times when we need to think upon
God--times of trial and temptation, when nothing but the thought
of God will support us. For there are moments of suffering, when
our nearest and dearest friends are dumb in our presence; when
the friendly hand, uncertain, stops and hesitates before us,
fearing lest too rudely it may draw aside the veil that shrouds
our anguish--agonizing moments when all human thought and
language dies upon the threshold.
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Happy the soul who then knows whither to turn for that longed-for
comfort which the world in its weakness cannot give! Happy is he
who has learned the secret of sanctifying suffering! For such the
Lord's words have a meaning: "Blessed are they that mourn: for
they shall be comforted."
These thoughts and the lessons they teach appear to my mind not
inappropriate to the season through which we are passing. Nature
is putting on her autumn garb of sombre tints, telling us that
her strength and beauty are passing away, and that her days of
brightness are declining. The woods, once vocal with the song of
birds, now begin to look lonely and deserted. Their stillness is
broken only by the rustling fall of the dry and withered leaves,
like the stealthy and hushed footsteps heard in the sick chamber.
The sighing of the winds through the branches robbed of their
crown of verdure is mournful in the ears of the listener, as the
low, dreamy moanings in a sick man's sleep. They both speak of
decay and whisper of death. Of those of us, my brethren, for whom
God is preparing the couch of sickness, against whose sight the
light of day will be shut out, and upon whose prostrate form the
shadows of suffering will soon fall, some will rise and walk
forth in the warm sunshine of a hopeful spring, and some, like
the fallen leaves, will never flourish again, but lie, like them,
to crumble, decay, and mingle with the dust.
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Their white pall of the winter snow shall also be ours. The
fierce winter storm shall howl its doleful requiem over our heads
as it passes by, but we shall not heed it. The earth shall smile
in beauty again, but not for us.
Oh! be it for us as it may--God knoweth! it will be well for us
to have thought upon sickness, and to have prepared our souls for
the trial. If health be again granted to us, we shall return to
it again all the better for having known how to receive it and
how to improve its time. If not, then, when our name shall have
become a memory, and our form a vision of the never-returning
past, we shall look back from the further shore of the dark river
of death over which we have passed, and be glad that we learned
how to lean upon God in those last dreadful hours in life, glad
that we offered to Him beforehand the willing sacrifice of health
and strength and life, and thus ascended from the altar of the
bed of suffering, as a victim of acceptable merit in the sight of
Him who rewards, more than tongue can tell, the least we ever do
or suffer for His sake.
----------------------
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Sermon XXI.
Thoughts For Advent.
(For The Third Sunday Of Advent.)
Philippians iv. 8.
"__For the rest, brethren,
whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are modest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are holy,
whatsoever things are amiable,
whatsoever things are of good repute;
if there be any virtue,
if there be any praise of discipline,
think on these things__."
The Christian is so deeply impressed with the truth, that a time
will come when his faith will be changed to sight, his hope be
realized in reward, and his charity be perfected in the enjoyment
of all that is good, that he may be said to have this thought
always uppermost in his mind. It regulates his conduct, consoles
him in affliction, cheers him in the hour of darkness and of
doubt, and puts in his mouth and hands the words and deeds of
encouragement to his fellows. It is a magnetic thought, which,
amid the storms and tempests of life, and through all its weary
wanderings, keeps one's heart ever turned towards God and
eternity.
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This blessed time for which we are all looking is the coming of
the Lord, the manifestation and glorious consummation of the
Kingdom of God. As the Apostle expresses it: "Looking for the
blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ." [Footnote 111]
[Footnote 111: Ep. Titus ii. 13.]
The holy season of Advent brings this truth more strongly before
us, and directs our thoughts to it by the Gospel prophecies of
the second advent of Christ, and by the warnings to prepare for
it which St. Paul gives so often in his epistles. The words of
the text follow immediately the admonition of the great Apostle
which the Church has chosen for the third Sunday of Advent: "The
Lord is nigh." Let us to-day, then, think on these things, and
endeavor to make these thoughts profitable.
I. __Whatsoever things are true__. Here is a thought worth
thousands. We look around us, and see so much insincerity,
duplicity, and double-dealing; we meet so many who will overreach
us with a friendly smile on their countenance, and cheat us
without a blush, that we are tempted both to exclaim with David,
in haste, "All men are liars," and to descend from our Christian
stand-point of high integrity and noble frankness, in order to
cope with the world after its own fashion, and meet it with its
own weapons.
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But it is an unfortunate day for the Christian when he begins to
forget or disbelieve in what is true, and to think on what is
false. His mind is quickly pervaded with a subtle poison, which
induces a meanness towards his fellow-men--a distrust of their
good faith, and ends in a practical disbelief of the Providence
of God. To him such unmerited success as attends the corrupt and
swindling practices of the day is at first astonishing. The
wicked seem to have it all their own way, and profit by the
delay, and despite the coming of the hour when the secrets of all
hearts shall be revealed before the judgment-seat of Christ. His
Christian simplicity and candor gives way little by little before
the attacks of this lying spirit; his faith in truth, honesty,
and pure motives is gone, and his practice is not slow to follow
his faith.
It is a trite saying that the world is full of humbug, but it is
a degrading thought; and to accept this saying as a universal
truth, or as the guide of his actions, is unworthy of the
Christian man. I envy not the man who acts on the despicable
maxim, "Treat every man as a rogue until he has proved himself
honest." Rather, a thousand times, would I trust in the power of
truth, be true to myself, and, if need be, suffer the loss
thereby; for he who has cheated me is the loser in the end, while
I have preserved, for a small price, that which is above value,
my Christian honor and loyalty to truth.
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Sincerity and candor are not dead, neither has humbug killed
them. There are many true people in the world, be there ever so
many hypocrites; and truth is always living, real,
indestructible, for it lives with a divine, immortal life.
Remembering our blessed Lord's words, then, let our "speech be
always yea, yea, and nay, nay; for that which is over and above
these is of evil." [Footnote 112] Whatsoever things are true, let
us think on these.
[Footnote 112: St. Matt. v. 37.]
From another point of view, what a thought that is for those who
are out of the pale of the Catholic Church! Have they the true
faith? Have they now that truth which shall stand the trial at
the coming of Jesus Christ? Do they consider their present state
a true one in all respects--true before their conscience, and
without doubt before their intelligence? Do they regard their
religion as a sure religion? What a serious thought it ought to
be for many of them who are even now struggling with the strong
power of duty, which bids them make their calling and election
sure, by embracing, at all hazards, and with ready obedience and
trust in God, that truth in the Holy Catholic Church, without
which they would not now dare to die.
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Oh! how earnestly, sincerely, and courageously ought they to
listen to the Apostle's words, and think upon those things which
are true!
There is one of the eight beatitudes for those who think upon the
truth. It is the first: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven"--the poor in spirit; the simple
in heart and mind; a heart and mind to which cunning, duplicity,
or falsehood is both strange and repulsive. Theirs is the kingdom
of heaven which Christ will bring at His coming, who are poor and
humble in spirit, receiving God's truth as a little child, and
not rejecting it with high-minded and arrogant self-will, or with
proud disdain. Brethren, whatsoever things are true; let us think
on these things during the Holy Advent time.
II. __Whatsoever things are modest__. Modesty is a marked and
well-known characteristic of the Christian. No one would ever
think of using the expressions, "heathen modesty" or "Mohammedan
modesty," simply because it is neither a heathen nor a Mohammedan
virtue. The Apostle evidently uses it here in the sense of
reservedness of action which springs from true humility of heart.
This displays itself in a most pleasing manner to us in the
persons of those who, though endowed with some remarkable talent
or accomplishment, yet, through the Christian humility they
possess, are not on that account arrogant and puffed up, but bear
their honors meekly, and with gentle, unassuming manners.
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So with their natural gifts. God has given to some, more than to
others, beauty of face or form, or some personal qualification
which excites our admiration or affection. And in those who are
thus favored, how much all this beauty is enhanced by the
softened halo which Christian modesty and reserve throws about
them! Who would pretend to compare the beauty of the haughty and
sensual Magdalen, flaunting her profane charms in the streets of
Capharnaum, the theme for the toasts of libertines, to the beauty
of the saintly and almost angelic penitent, bathing the feet of
Jesus with her tears, and wiping them with her dishevelled hair!
He whose thoughts are modest cultivates an unselfish spirit.
Alas! what with our fund of pride, our intolerant self-will, and
ungovernable temper, how much we need to think on whatsoever
things are modest! How prone we are to stand upon our rights; how
ready to quarrel with and grumble about our neighbors! A
profitable thought for the Advent time, St. Paul urged this
especially: "Let your modesty be known of all men." And why so?
Because "the Lord is nigh." Yes, He is nigh who taught us a
similar lesson: "Learn of Me; for I am meek and humble of heart."
[Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: St. Matt. xi. 29.]
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At His coming He will recognize for His own flock, not the
wolves, but the sheep; not the bold-faced and giddy votaries of
fashion and pleasure, but the meek and humble Christians, whose
beauty is the beauty of their holiness. It is not the useless
thorns and briers, which no one can approach without being
wounded, but the hidden and inoffensive wheat that will be
gathered into the garner of the Lord.
There are two beatitudes for the modest-minded--the second and
the third: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth." And again; "Blessed are the mourners: for they shall be
comforted." For the meek and modest, who possess as though they
had not; who teach as though they learned; who rule as though
they obeyed; whose beauty of body and soul shines among men as
though they but reflected that of others; whose inheritance is
renunciation, and whose wealth is in their gifts; for them is the
whole earth reserved, in its beauty and its glory, at the coming
of the Lord. For the blessed mourners, whose perfection in
Christian modesty has led them to fly all worldly honors and
escape its flatteries; to exchange the gay paths of life for the
tearful road of penance, and whose contrite and humble hearts God
has promised not to despise--for them is dawning an everlasting
day of comfort.
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III. __Whatsoever things are just__. The just man always
desires to act honorably and fairly in his dealings. The
Christian is required to give anxious thought as well to the
obligations he has contracted towards his neighbor. The closing
year naturally brings these obligations to mind; the debts that
are owing, the promises made, and the claims for support which
others hold against us; and it is a mark of the good,
conscientious Catholic that he is anxious about these things, and
is earnestly striving to discharge them.
A wise thought for Advent. For now the Lord is nigh, the day of
His Judgment approaches, when all wrongs will be made right. The
unjust escape payment here, through some quibble in the law, or
through practices of chicanery and partial testimony of which
they take an unfair advantage, but whose unpaid debts and hidden
thefts will not escape the memory of their righteous Judge on the
last day. Let our thoughts be, then, to render quickly unto every
man his due, "because the Lord cometh, because he cometh to judge
the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people
with His truth."
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He who thinks upon whatsoever is just will think upon the poor.
It is the word of God, that "the just taketh notice of the poor,
but the wicked is ignorant of them." [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 114: Prov. xxix. 7.]
God has given to the poor and needy rights which no Christian man
can ignore. They are committed to him by his Master, and their
Friend and Protector, to be taken care of, to be thought about,
to be sought out and ministered unto. Oh! a thousand times
happier is he who in Advent time thinks upon the poor: when
winter, with his icy blasts, is making the poor shiver with cold
and nakedness; when the poor man goes sadly home to find the
cupboard bare and his little ones moaning for hunger; when lonely
widows and friendless girls, whose homes are in hovels and
cheerless garrets, sit up far into the night with no fire in the
stove, warming their weary and chilled fingers over the candle,
that they may be able to ply the needle that keeps them from
starvation. Oh! blessed is that man who, knowing no hunger or
thirst for his body, yet hungers and thirsts in his soul after
justice for the poor; whose thoughts revert to them when the
weather grows colder, and the storm howls more fiercely, and can
say when he lays his head upon his pillow at night: "Thank God, I
have not forgotten them to-day!"
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