strong for our daily conflicts, our heavenly Shepherd has left us a food
which is none other than His own body and blood. What a prodigy of love!
What could He do for us that He has not done? But, besides giving us
strength, He had another purpose in becoming our food. Since He has chosen
us for Himself, and has provided, in another world, eternal mansions for
our souls,(22) He wishes to make certain, not only the happy issue of our
lives, but our ever-increasing resemblance to Himself. He is therefore
preparing us, He is fitting us, through communion in the Holy Eucharist,
for our celestial home, and for visible companionship with Himself.
Intercourse, communion, intimate relationship produce likeness, even here
on earth, and it is a singular effect of Holy Communion that, unlike
earthly food, it changes into itself all those who partake of it.
Material, natural food becomes the substance of our flesh and blood, but
frequent participation in the heavenly nourishment of Christ in the
Eucharist transmutes our whole being—our lives and thoughts and
actions—into its own supernatural character.
Thus by living much with Christ on earth, by intimate converse with Him,
by allowing Him to enter into our lives and thoughts, and shape our
conduct and actions; and above all, by frequent and fervent communion with
Him in the sacrament of His love, we become like unto Him, even here in
our state of exile. And this likeness to Christ, which His faithful
servants assume here below, is a forestate of future blessedness; it is a
preparation for the great reunion and the eternal banquet which await us
in Heaven. Already we are led beside the waters of rest; we are directed
to pastures of sweetest nourishment; and through the calm and vigor that
reign in the soul we experience even now a taste of joys unseen.
V. HE RESTORETH MY SOUL.
Throughout the pastoral country of the Orient there are numerous places of
great peril for sheep. There are also, here and there, private fields and
vineyards and gardens into which, if a member of a flock should stray and
be caught, it is forfeited to the owner of the land. Strange as it may
seem, the sheep never learn to avoid these dangerous spots and forbidden
places, and it behooves the shepherd to be ever on his guard for them, and
to rescue them when wandering.
Here we cannot fail to observe the striking resemblance between this
wayward tendency of the shepherd’s flock and our own inclination and
propensity to wander from God and things eternal. The world is full of
occasions to evil; at every turn of the road on our journey through life
there are fierce and crouching enemies who are waiting the chance to
capture and bear us away. We know this; we have often been warned of the
danger; too many sad experiences and breathless escapes have convinced us
of the sundry perils to soul and body that lie along the way of life. But
we, like senseless, erring sheep, if bereft of the Shepherd’s guiding
care, do not learn, in life’s sad school, the way to keep free from harm.
Though wounded repeatedly, and scarred and worn, and left, perhaps,
without human aid, to waste and bleed our life away, we do not see the
lurking evils; we do not discern beneath the mask the enemy whose purpose
is ruin and death.
The creatures of the world, the things of sense take vicious hold of us,
and often drag us to the very verge of perdition before we are aware. They
come to us unprepared, and seek entrance into our lives and thoughts, and
allure us by deception. They tell us that the world is fair and beautiful
and full of promise; that God, for the moment, is not concerned; that the
soul is secure and safe, and the body and its needs the only object of
present solicitude. The process is gradual. The turning away and the loss
are not at once and from the beginning of seductive influences, but slowly
and unobtrusively in the guise of hope and high expectation. There is
Ambition, with its glittering prospects, with its proffered rewards and
castles of air. To the young man and young woman, just entering the arena
of life, Ambition says, “Come and follow me, and I will crown you with
glory and honor. I will lift you above the common, beaten paths of men and
seat you on a gilded throne. I will introduce you to my sister Pride, and
we two will make you happy. Pride will teach you your true dignity, your
place and position in the universe; she will remind you of your gifts and
faculties, and enable you to battle with the weak and the strong; she will
give you the secret of knowledge and train you to soar above your
fellow-creatures and probe the mysteries of God and Heaven.” Then
Pleasure, with dimpled cheeks and laughing eyes, and words that sound like
music to the ears, hurries out to greet the passers-by, and charms them by
her shining gifts. “Make me your object and your end,” she says, “and I
will make you blessed. Forget your troubles and your cares, your fears of
present and future ills; rejoice and be glad, eat, drink and be merry;
indulge and drain to dregs the cups of sense, for this is all there is.”
Philosophy comes with another hope. “Drink deeply,” she counsels, “at the
spring of wisdom, and fear not God nor man; believe and trust in me, and I
will steal away the sting of sorrow and pain; I will restore you to man’s
primeval state and land you safe on the shores of rest.”
And when these deceivers—Ambition, Pride, Pleasure, and the like—have
plundered and sacked their victim’s goods, when these painted idols of a
passing world have led away their worshippers as slaves, and stripped them
of all they possessed, they give them over to evil habits and to masters
that scourge and tear them. Like other prodigals, these pursuers of
earthly phantoms take leave of their Father’s house of comfort and plenty,
they give up virtue, innocence, honesty, purity; they go into a far
country to waste their substance living riotously, only to awake, soon at
latest, to a land of famine, and to find themselves alone and in want.
Instead of the honor and fame and high estate they sought to gain, instead
of the escape from evil and pain and labor they hoped to find, they are
sent into fields to minister to swine—the swine of their own degradation.
So, to a degree, it is with us, each and all, who listen to other voices
and heed other calls than the voice and the call of God. If we prefer to
stray to other fields and desert the pasture of our Shepherd, if we prefer
a far country to our Father’s home, if the world and its fleeting
pleasures are more to us than God and His paternal rewards, then we must
of necessity find ourselves at length in utter want and penury. It is this
possibility of deserting God, of seeking happiness outside of Him, of
overturning the plans which He has made for our salvation, that gives us a
vision of the awful failure of human life. The gifts of this world are by
nature fleeting and fast-flying, and if we allow them to take the place of
Him who made them, no matter how great our present boons, in spite of
wealth and friends and all success, we have missed our chance and our
purpose in the world, and can only have at last a desolate and a ruined
life.
But how is it, then, one may ask, that man can be so deceived? How is it
that we do not learn from others’ disasters to avoid, every one of us,
those deceiving, ruinous masters, those false gods that can lead us away
from the one true Shepherd of our souls? It is, indeed, a curious fact
that our deception is so easy. Surely a rational, intelligent being, who
stops to consider, ought easily to distinguish between the great God of
Heaven and the creatures of His hands. It ought not to be difficult for us
to see the transient vanity of human things when compared with the eternal
mansions. But the truth of the matter is, that we _are_ deceived, we do
not at all times see the objects of our choice as they really are
objectively. Our vision is defective and blurred. If God stood out in our
lives as He really ought to stand, if He occupied that place in our
thoughts and plans which belongs to Him by right, it would not be possible
that we should ever be led astray. And that God does not always hold in
our lives the place which is His due is partly the result of our fallen
nature; partly, therefore, in a way, excusable; but more frequently and
chiefly from our own perversity—from wilful neglect of our highest duties.
The blindness and perversity of our nature, which have come from the
wounds of original sin, make it easy for us, if we are neglectful and
careless of our higher spiritual obligations, to mistake the false for the
true, evil for good, the creature for the Creator. In the midst of the
world and its allurements, it behooves us to be ever watching, if we are
never to stumble and to fall. Had our nature never been corrupted by
original unfaithfulness, had our first parents never turned away from God
and transgressed His sacred precept, all our present ills would never have
existed. But now it is different. We are born into the world a weakened
people; each one of us has had an implicit part in the first
transgression; we all, like erring sheep, have gone astray. And while this
tendency to evil is part of our natural condition, and therefore less
imputable to us, it nevertheless is true that our actual sins and
evil-doing are the work of our deliberate choice. If, at any time, we
really turn away from God and break His law, it is because we have freely
chosen so to act. The native perversity of nature in a normal man can
never explain and excuse the grievous sins which he deliberately commits.
It is only true that a weak and wounded nature leaves one less able to
choose what is right, and more disposed to wrong. And since we know the
state of things, since we know that the fault is really ours when we dare
to stray to forbidden deeds and places, how constant and unrelenting, if
we are truly wise, should be our efforts to keep our vision unobscured and
our ears attuned to the voice and call of our heavenly Shepherd! We know
that by following Him our way will be certain and clear. Howsoever
enormous the evils of life, and notwithstanding all our weakness, we know
that in Him we are safe and strong. But we must hear Him to follow Him, we
must be guided and directed by His gracious commands.
This failure to hear and obey the voice of God it is which more explains
the falls and sins of men than all their inherited frailty. So long as His
words are heard and directions heeded, mistake and error are impossible.
We see, therefore, why it is that so many actually do desert Him and are
led by evil voices. The cause chiefly lies in the wilfulness of human
nature and in the abuse of human liberty. We cannot stand unless God
support us, and we shall surely fall if He withdraws His supporting hand.
But the choice of evil, the beginning of unfaithfulness comes from
ourselves; for Almighty God will never forsake us unless we first forsake
Him.
If, ever, then, we find our lives to be at variance with God, whether in
lesser or in greater matters, if it should ever be our unhappy fortune to
wander from Him, like another prodigal, and waste our lives with the
enemies of our souls, we can be assured that the desertion is all our own.
We forget God, we deliberately wander from His sight and care, and then we
fall. Engrossed in worldly affairs, taken up with present vanities, with
ourselves, our ease, our temporal advancement, we begin to neglect prayer
and communion with God, we begin to rely on ourselves and to forge ahead
of our own accord, only to encounter complete defeat and be shorn of all
our strength. The secret of our power and success is to keep close to Him,
to speak to Him lovingly and often, to seek guidance and protection from
Him, and habitually to live in His comforting presence.
But such is the boundless kindness of our heavenly Shepherd that, no
matter how often we may have wandered from Him, or how seriously we may
have grieved Him, He is ever ready to pursue our wanderings, and to seek
until He finds us. He does not stop to consider the enormity of our guilt,
or our unreasonableness, or our ingratitude, but He seeks us. He does not
pause to take an account of all He has done for us, of the many graces He
has given us, of the tears and blood He has shed in our behalf; but He
goes after our straying souls, and He will not be appeased until He
restore us. God does not will the death of the sinner, but that he be
converted and live.(23) He knows all our frailties and our diverse
temptations; He knows how alluring are the things of sense to a nature
perverted like ours; He knows how easy it is for us, blind and ignorant as
we are, to forget Him and our dearest interests, and to obey the call of
other voices; all this He understands, and He has pity on us. “He knoweth
our frame, He remembereth that we are dust.”(24)
To bring us back, therefore, when wandering, and to restore us to the
circle of His chosen flock, our Saviour has made ample provision. Through
those divine mediums of grace—the sacraments of His Church—He has arranged
to succor all our wants and to cure our various infirmities. The
sacraments of Baptism and Penance, in particular, were instituted to raise
our souls from death to life, and to heal our spiritual wounds. Baptism
may be aptly compared to the door of the sheepfold. It is the gate through
which men must enter into the fold of Christ, it is the entrance to His
Church. It clears away the guilt and stain of original sin, and restores
the soul from a state of enmity to the friendship and grace of God. None
can really belong to Christ, none can be of His true fold who have not
entered by way of the door, who have not been baptized. Many there are who
pretend to belong to Him and think themselves of the number of His flock;
they speak of Him as their Master and Shepherd; they pretend to be doing
His work; they call Him Lord and preach in His name; but they have not
entered by the door of the sheepfold, and He knows them not. Like thieves
and robbers, they have climbed up some other way, and they neither know
Him, nor does He know them, neither can they understand His voice. Baptism
is the entrance, it is the door, to the fold of Christ.
And as it is through Baptism that our bountiful Lord first recalls us from
the ways of sin and makes us members of his flock, so in the sacrament of
Penance He has provided a means by which we may at all times be recalled
from our wanderings and restored to His friendship. Penance is an
inexhaustible means of reconciliation between the erring soul and God. It
lasts throughout our lives, it stretches even to the end of time. If only
we are men of goodwill and have at heart our eternal interests, we need
not be disturbed at our frailty, or at repeated lapses into sin. There is
no sin which cannot be forgiven by the sacrament of Penance. Not that
anyone, knowing that he can be forgiven, should presume to abuse God’s
gracious sacrament, and yield freely and without restraint to the voice of
sin; nor that we are not to be truly sorry to the end of our days for
having even once offended our benign Maker and Redeemer; but we must be
confident that, whatever may have been our faults and failings, however
prolonged and extraordinary our transgressions, if we approach the
sacrament of Penance with sincere sorrow and a firm purpose of amendment,
God will always lovingly receive us back to Himself, and remember no more
our unfaithfulness. God hates sin, because it is opposed to Himself and is
the only evil in the world, but He loves the wounded sinner who is made in
His own image and likeness. Precious in the sight of God is the penitent
sinner. Does He not tell us Himself that, like a good shepherd, He leaves
ninety-nine just to go in search of one lost sheep? Yea, He assures us
that there is rejoicing among the angels of Heaven over one sinner who
does penance.(25)
To make worthy use of the sacrament of Penance we must be truly sorry for
having offended God, and be resolved, at the time of confession, to do
what lies in our power never again to turn away from Him. To these
dispositions must also be joined the intention of doing something to
repair the injury which sin has done to God. Given such conditions, and we
need only speak the word to God’s duly appointed minister and our sins are
no more. The dark veil which hung around the soul like a cloud is lifted,
and we again rejoice in the smile of our heavenly Father. How simple, yet
how potent are the means provided for our salvation! None but God could
have thought of them, nothing but the love of God could have arranged
them!
But even before the sinner is brought to penance, even while he is
wandering and reveling afar off in the vile delights of sin, God is
pursuing him, God is seeking after him, calling him by name, whispering to
his heart, disposing him for repentance. We cannot return to God, once we
have deserted Him, without His help. It is our awful power to be able to
leave Him, but to return alone we are not able. Wherefore He comes after
us when we have wandered into the wilds of sin; He pleads as it were, with
our souls, and offers us the grace to repent. Oh privileged are our souls
to be thus appraised by God, and happy those who hear and heed the
appealing voice of His grace!
VI. HE LEADETH ME IN THE PATHS OF JUSTICE FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE.
The shepherd country of the East is full of walks and pathways, some
leading this way, some that. Some lead to dangerous precipices over which
the sheep might fall and be lost, others would expose them to the attack
of wild beasts, while still others would lead them so far astray that they
could not find their way back. It is, therefore, always needful that the
shepherd go ahead of his flock and lead them in the right path. The
Psalmist, in the title of the present chapter, is applying this
carefulness of the shepherd for his sheep to our Lord, in His regard for
our spiritual welfare. The Saviour goes before us with the blessings of
His goodness to help and lead us aright, lest perchance we become lost and
perish in our journey.
This solicitude of our Redeemer in providing for the various needs of our
souls is characteristic of Him as Saviour. It is implied in the meaning of
his name. Before He was born, before He was conceived in His Mother’s
womb, it was foretold of Him that He should be called Jesus, which means
Saviour, for He would save His people from their sins.(26) He exercised,
as we know, this mission of saviour throughout His earthly career. It was
for this that He came into the world, for this that He was born in
Bethlehem with a manger as His cradle, for this that, at the age of
twelve, He was found teaching in the Temple, for this that He retired to
Nazareth and was subject to Mary and Joseph, for this that He labored and
suffered and bled and died. And with His passing from this visible scene
to the bosom of His Father, He did not cease to be that for which He had
been eternally anointed—the great High Priest, the Mediator between God
and man, the Saviour of the world. His work is everlasting; and now that
He has gone up on high, He pleads for us ever more with the Father. We
belong to Him, He has purchased us with His blood, and He must needs care
for our safety to the end.
Inasmuch as we are heirs, according to divine decree, to thrones beyond
the skies, it was necessary, as we have seen, that He who is our Saviour
and Shepherd should have left behind Him in this world of ours a doctrine,
a code, or system of instructions and laws, which should safely direct and
guide us to our royal destiny. Those who lived with Him on earth, those
who heard His assuring, life-giving words, and felt the inspiration of His
example and visible presence needed not to fear for the direction or
safety of their course. The divine, living voice and sacred presence of
their Lord and Master they enjoyed, and care and anxiety fled from their
souls. But not for these alone had the Redeemer come, but for all mankind,
for all who in future were to breathe the breath of human life. He came to
save all, He died for all; and thus the teaching which He gave to the
world, and which He committed to His chosen followers, was for every human
being, even to the end of the world, that through it all might live and
attain to life everlasting.
The doctrine which the Saviour left us, and the laws which He prescribed
were vastly different from the teachings of men. Guiding, saving words of
a Shepherd to his flock, they engendered safety, comfort, peace. Free from
error or mistake, sealed with the seal of Heaven, holding out a promise of
future glory, they exhaled the perfumes of the eternal city, they told of
mansions not built with hands. And since this immaculate doctrine, given
for the souls of men, was to last till the end of time, there was need
that it should be shielded against the assaults of the world and protected
from the influence of our changing human teachings. It could not be
corrected, because it contained no mistakes; it could not be changed or
altered, because it came from the changeless God; it could have no
substitute from the part of men or creatures of any kind, because it was
given by Him who alone was the way, the truth, and the life. Consequently
the truths which the Saviour declared to the world as the only means by
which we can be saved, were at once infallible in themselves, and so
provided for that no human agency, no lapse of years or revolutions of
time and place should ever be able to infringe on their eternal,
changeless character. It was to preserve these truths in their integrity
and freshness that He founded His unerring Church and committed to it the
office of custodian and expounder, under the guidance of His Holy Spirit,
of all He had revealed for the salvation of human kind. Hence to hear our
Shepherd’s voice, to understand what He says to us, to know what we must
do to obey His laws and save our souls, we need but listen to the voice of
His Church. Before it was established He declared that He should build His
Church upon a rock, and that no enemy, or group of enemies, not even the
gates of hell should ever prevail against it.(27) He established the
Church as His mouthpiece, and He said to the little band that constituted
it in the beginning, “he that heareth you, heareth me, and he that heareth
me, heareth Him that sent me;”(28) and, as if to emphasize this
declaration, He added that any one who would not hear and obey the Church
should be considered as a heathen and a publican—types of all that was
bad.(29) The Church, therefore, is the oracle of God, it is His
mouthpiece; it possesses and guards the only revelation which God has made
to His rational creatures; it alone has the words of eternal life.
Thus it is that our divine Shepherd goes before us, leading us in the
paths of truth and justice, preserving us from danger and error with
respect to our spiritual destiny. We cannot go astray if we listen to Him
speaking to us through His church. In all our perplexities and
uncertainties, when confronted by any doubt, or confused and distracted by
the wrangling voices and conflicting opinions of men, we can be calm and
at peace, assured in our inmost souls that the voice which guides us
cannot err, that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for
one word of His to fail.(30)
He leadeth me in ways of justice, in the ways of holiness, in the ways
which the saints have walked. How exceeding great, indeed, is our
privilege, and how certain and individual our election! All that remains
to us is to listen to His words and to follow Him, and present peace will
attend our labors, while future glory waits upon our end.