called to the feast which is spread for them, that ever sit down at the
Master’s table. Many are invited, and the servant is sent out at the hour
of supper to say to them that were called, that all things are ready, and
that they should come; but they tarry, they are not ready, they begin to
make excuses and wish to be held excused. Some are entangled in perishable
riches and cannot leave their possessions; others are preoccupied with
worldly affairs and must not neglect their business; still others are
pursuing the pleasures of earth, and have no time for the things of
Heaven. But the feast is not for these, after all. The Master invites
them, He calls them, He sends His ministers in search of them, He reproves
and chides them, He thunders against them to make them hear and obey; but
they will not come, they shall never taste of His banquet. He has not
spread a table for the proud, the haughty, the arrogant; He cannot meet in
loving communion the worldly, the sensuous, the lovers of ease and hurtful
pleasures. Such as these are not prepared to meet Him; they would be out
of place and ill at ease in His company, they do not like His society.(60)
To be able to come to the Master and to sit at His feast there is need of
preparation. The garments of the world must be changed for the garments of
Heaven, the ways of men must be made to yield to the ways of God. For what
is wisdom with men is foolishness with God,(61) the weak things of earth
are the strong things of Heaven, the outcast of the world are the chosen
of the Father Almighty. And hence our Saviour under the figure of the
master in the parable who prepared a great supper, says of all those who
will not hear Him, who neglect His divine inspirations and despise the
call of His ministers, that they shall never taste of His feast. But who,
then, shall sit down at His table? for whom has He prepared the banquet?
He tells us Himself, that those who shall partake of His supper are the
lowly, the humble, the poor, the lame, and the blind; the despised of men
and the outcast of the people; those who have known sorrow and suffering
and penance, who have found the way of the cross and embraced it; who, for
the kingdom of Heaven and the love of Christ crucified, have given up
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren and sisters; yea,
and their own life also, that they might inherit everlasting crowns that
fade not away.(62)
St. Paul was one of these masterful spirits, who surrendered all that he
had, all that he prized most dearly for love of Christ and His service.
“The things that were gain to me,” he says, “the same have I counted loss
for Christ. Furthermore, I count all things to be but loss for the
excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord, for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, and count them but as waste, that I may gain
Christ.”(63) What a struggle, too, was that which St. Augustine describes,
speaking of his own conversion! The parting with those sinful delights
which had hitherto held him in chains was like the forfeiture of all he
possessed, and it seemed to him that life thereafter would not be worth
living; yet he generously and vigorously gave them up that Christ might
become his possession. He has also described for us the change. “How
sweet,” he says, “did it at once become to me to want the sweetness of
those trifles, which to lose had been my fear, but which to have lost was
now a joy! Thou didst cast them forth from me, oh Thou true and highest
sweetness! Thou didst cast them forth, and in their stead didst enter in
Thyself, sweeter than all pleasure!”(64)
It is such as these, heroic souls, who for the sake of God and His
kingdom, have made the world their enemy, that compose the company of the
elect. And for these alone it is that the Shepherd of souls has spread a
table of rest and peace, even in this life, of which they partake in the
sight of their enemies, in the presence of those who think evil of them,
who despise and deride them, in the sight of the world which hates them.
These holy souls, the elect of God, whom the Father has chosen for
Himself, have learned, through the trials and losses of life, the lessons
of peace and detachment which crosses are intended to teach. They have
learned, by exclusion and retirement from worldly festivities and
pernicious delights, to draw near to God, out of love for His beauty and
mercy, or if only to ease their breaking hearts and dispel the loneliness
of their forsaken lives. In the words of the Psalmist, they have tasted
and seen that the Lord is sweet, and that there is no one like unto
God.(65) With the image of the Crucified before their eyes and conscious
of the presence of their loving Shepherd, they greet with delight the
sufferings that oppress them, and they feast in peace in the presence of
their enemies. They know that all is arranged or permitted by the hand
that guards them, and by the One that loves them; and, though He slay
them, yet will they trust Him.(66) For what can happen to those that love
God? what evil can befall them? Angels have charge over them to keep them
in all their ways.(67)
It is confidence, therefore, in their Saviour and God that gives peace and
tranquillity to the souls of the just. To know Him, to love Him, to trust
Him, to dwell in His presence and to please Him, throughout all the
vicissitudes and evils of life, are the objects of their constant actions
and the highest aspirations of their fervid souls. Confident of the favor
and protection of God, and rooted in His love, they despise all pain and
the threats of men; and in the midst of the battle of life they rejoice in
a peace of mind and soul of which the worldling cannot dream. The pasture
in which they feed, the banquet of which they partake are nothing else
than the love and friendship of God which nourishes and refreshes their
spirits when to every mortal eye they seem destitute, abandoned and alone.
And this peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding,(68) develops in
souls truly spiritual a habit of mind and a character of life that even
here below partake of the stability and calm sense of victory which, in
their perfection, belong only to the state of the blessed in Heaven. They
feel that all things are possible to them through Him that strengtheneth
them,(69) and that no temporal affliction, no power of man or any creature
shall wrest from them the feast which they enjoy. And hence they are able
to ask, in the confident words of the Apostle, “Who shall separate us from
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or
nakedness; or danger, or persecution, or the sword ... In all these things
we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. Therefore we are 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.”(70)
X. THOU ANOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL; MY CUP RUNNETH OVER.
In these words the Psalmist alludes to one of the most touching offices
performed by the good shepherd towards his sheep. The day is drawing to a
close, the golden orb of light has sunk to rest, and the shadows are
creeping up the hills. The hush of night is falling round, and the
shepherd must gather his flock into the fold. The labors, the journeys,
the trials, the wanderings of the day are over, and now comes the time for
rest. It is a scene full of peace, and the sheep greet its approach with
feelings of restful anticipation. Many of them are foot-sore and lame;
many have received bruises and scratches during the journeyings of the
day; some have gaping and bleeding wounds from the attacks of wild beasts;
while others are simply tired out and exhausted from the long walks and
steep climbing of hills. The shepherd knows all this, and before leading
them into rest he takes care to see that the wounds of all are dressed and
soothed, so that nothing shall disturb the sweet repose of their sleep.
For this purpose he stands at the door of the fold as the sheep pass in.
He has olive oil and cedar-tar to use as healing ointments for their
wounds, and he has cool, refreshing water for those that are worn and
weary. Lovingly and tenderly he regards each member, as one by one they
enter into rest; and they that are wounded or over-weary he holds back
with his rod, till their scars and sores are duly cared for and made ready
for the night’s repose.
How closely these offices performed for the sheep by the shepherd resemble
the care of our Father and Saviour providing at the end for the souls that
He loves! He has been with them all through life, leading, guiding,
guarding, shepherding them at all times, going before them with the
blessings of goodness. And when at length the end approaches, they feel
the need of His loving-kindness perhaps more than ever before. Like the
shepherd’s flock, their needs are many and various. Some souls there are
who, through the special grace of God, are able to pass their lives in
innocence and holiness, living in the world, yet not of it, dwelling in
the midst of men and in the sight of their wickedness and sin, yet
undefiled withal, beautiful witnesses of the power and love of Him that
strengthens and preserves them.
But the majority are not thus favored. Notwithstanding all their graces,
they have been subject to falls—perhaps to many grievous falls; they have
suffered many wounds and bruises, they have had many tears to shed.
Multitudes there are, in fact, who come down to the verge of life, to the
very gate of death, sin-stained, racked and wounded, their life blood
ebbing out through sores and wounds which they themselves have made by
wilful open friendship with sin and vice, the deadly foes of their souls.
We have many varying examples of these straying souls. There is the type
of Mary Magdalen, of St. Peter, of St. Paul, of St. Augustine, who passed
a portion, brief or prolonged, of their mortal days far from the Father’s
home, feeding on the husks of swine; but who, while yet in the vigor of
life, felt the touch of the merciful hand and heard the sound of the
loving voice, leading them, calling them back to God, back to the “beauty
ever ancient and ever new.” Such souls as these, it is true, constitute
one class of erring, but repenting sinners; but there is another class
whose plight is far more pitiable. They are those long-delayed, but
finally repentant sinners, men and women who have lived their lives away
from the Church and its sacraments, who have grown old and gray in the
sins of their youth, and now, at the last, when death is coming, are
moved, by a special grace from Heaven, to weep for their sins and wasted
years before they enter their eternal abode.
For each and all of these how important it is that the Shepherd should
stand at the door of the fold and bind up their wounds with His tender
grace before they pass through the portals of death! Scarred and wayward
children, victims of evil circumstances, creatures of vanity and of folly,
they realize at the end how impotent they are, how helpless in the
presence of the coldness of death to redeem or make sure the years that
are fled, unless He draw near and assist them who has sustained them in
life, and who is at once the author and the master of both life and death!
But for all, without exception, the need of the Shepherd is imperative at
the end. The victory, the happy issue of life’s struggle, “is not of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”(71)
All may run, all may strive, indeed, for the prize of eternal life, but
none can be sure, short of the mercy of God, that he will be saved; none
can merit this crowning glory of life. Whether young or old, whether
favored or neglected, whether innocent or guilty, whether the life has
been dowered with special blessings and never known the stain of grievous
sin, or whether it has been eked out amidst deepest misery and defiled
with hateful crimes, the same uncertainty for all remains as to the manner
in which the end shall come. Men may reason and conjecture, from what they
see and know, that this one or that is in God’s favor, and shall so
persevere to the end; that the members of a certain family, or class, or
station in life, are sure to be saved, and shall never fall short; but
that those of another class or condition shall, on the contrary, die as
they have lived, in the filth of their sins, to be forever in torment. But
these are the reasonings of men, which are of no avail in the sight of
God. It is only the Father in Heaven who knows the elect. He alone is able
to tell who shall remain to be crowned, and who is to be condemned.
Perseverance is a gratuitous gift of God, we cannot merit it. All our good
actions and holy deeds, which are performed in the state of grace and out
of a motive of charity, do, it is true, merit a reward in Heaven, they
tend to increase our blessedness hereafter; but just as it is not in our
power to merit the first grace, by which we are raised from a state of
sin, so are we utterly unable to do anything which shall secure for a
certainty the final grace, by which alone we can be saved. Wherefore the
Preacher said: “All these things have I considered in my heart, that I
might carefully understand them: there are just men and wise men, and
their works are in the hand of God; and yet man knoweth not whether he be
worthy of love or hatred. But all things are kept uncertain for the time
to come, because all things equally happen to the just and to the wicked,
to the good and to the evil, to the clean and to the unclean, to him that
offereth victims, and to him that despiseth sacrifices. As the good is, so
also is the sinner; as the perjured, so he also that sweareth truth.”(72)
This uncertainty as to the end of life, and of the gift of final
perseverance, all holy souls have felt. To die in the friendship of God,
and thence to enjoy His presence forever, is a gift of so transcendent a
nature, so far above our natural powers and utmost deserts that no
creature, which can at all conceive it, would dare claim it as a right. It
was this conviction that made the saints tremble to think of it. This it
was that prompted St. Paul to admonish the Philippians to work out their
salvation with fear and trembling,(73) and that also evoked from the same
Apostle those candid words concerning himself: “I chastise my body, and
bring it into subjection; lest, perhaps, when I have preached to others, I
myself should become a castaway.”(74)
And have we not sometimes witnessed instances which, so far as man can
judge, give ground for this fear as to perseverance, and emphasize the
great truth that to die in God’s favor is, indeed, a singular and a
gratuitous gift? How many have we not known who started well, but
terminated ill! How many are innocent and holy in youth and give every
promise of splendid manhood, but fade and drop, like poisoned flowers, ere
the age of maturity has dawned! How many are able to pass through the most
critical period of their lives, unshaken and undefiled, full of faith,
hope, love, purity; but who, when the age of security is thought to have
come, lose the grip which seemed so firm, turn to evil, yield to vicious
habits, and die reprobates of God! Look at King Solomon! Who was ever more
promising than he in his youth? Who ever gave fairer prospects of
continued holiness and of a beautiful end? He was so lovely, so amiable,
so favored of God in the morning of life; graced with such high
perfections, not knowing evil, a stranger to vice, a lover of sanctity, of
wisdom, and of grace. It would seem that he could never fall—he who was
the object of such unwonted favors, who dwelt so supremely in the smile of
Heaven. But lo, and behold the end of him who had received so many graces,
who chose wisdom as his handmaid that he might be guided aright! Behold
that youthful figure, so full of promise and goodly hope, praying to God
that he might never deviate from the ways of grace; and then see the
gray-haired apostate tottering to the grave, borne down by the weight of
his sins and of his years! And how many more there have been, like King
Saul, like Renan and Voltaire, and numerous others that we ourselves
perhaps have known, who were great and good in youth, and for a term of
years, but whose end was a miserable failure!
Our perseverance, then, or the favor to die in the state of grace, is not
of ourselves, not the reward of our efforts, or of our good works, “but of
God that sheweth mercy.” We must do all in our power to merit eternal
life; we must press on to the mark, waging ceaseless battle in behalf of
God and of our souls, even to the last moment; but for the happy end of it
all we must perforce rely on the tender mercy of God. This is why our
Lord, before He departed from earth, prayed to His heavenly Father for His
disciples: “Holy Father, keep them in Thy name whom Thou hast given me;
... I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world; but that
thou shouldst keep them from evil.”(75) This same truth the Psalmist also
had in mind when he prayed: “Perfect thou my goings in thy paths, that my
footsteps be not moved.”(76)
It is this appalling uncertainty about the end and outcome of life,
together with our own inability to make them secure, that makes death so
terrible to the minds and thoughts of multitudes, even of Christians and
well-living persons. They fear to fall into the hands of the living God.
For them the present life may be not so attractive; on the contrary, it is
likely replete with pain and toil; but somehow they wish to linger here,
preferring that which is certain, although so miserable, to that which is
doubtful, perhaps awful and irreparable. So long as they continue in this
present world there is chance for change, there is hope of improvement.
But when death intervenes, and the soul is removed to the other life, all
hopes of change are swept away, and the lot of the soul is fixed for
eternity. There is, of course, a fear of death which is altogether
natural. Many dread death who pretend not to believe in a future life, or
even in the existence of God. And many there are whose lives are holy, and
who have not whereof they ought to fear, but for whom, nevertheless, the
very thought of death is fraught with all manner of terrors. As some are
naturally afraid in the absence of light, and tremble with fear at being
alone in a dark and lonely dwelling, or spot, or place, so there are many
who, without assignable reason, other than a native tendency, are appalled
at the thought of death.
But when all due allowances have been made for the uncertainty of final
perseverance, and for the anxiety arising from natural temperament, it
seems not too much to say that, for the most part, the fear and dread of
death which haunts so many Christians can be reduced to two causes: a
defect of faith or a love of the world. It is one of these causes, or both
of them together, which alone can explain, in the majority of cases, why
such numbers of Christians and Catholics are unwilling to surrender the
present life, and are disturbed at the very thought of dying. Either they
do not realize by faith the surpassing glories of the life beyond—doubting
its reality, questioning its nature, misunderstanding the goodness and
mercy of God; or else they are so attached to the present existence that
all serious thought and desire for a better life are excluded from their
minds and hearts. Fenelon says that the condition of our spiritual life is
indicated by the answers we give to the following questions: “Do I love to
think of God? Am I willing to suffer for God? Does my desire to be with
Him destroy my fear of death?” We do not fear to meet or to be with one
whom we really love, for “love casteth out fear.” There is no dread at the
coming of the parent or friend whom we truly love, unless, perchance, we
have offended him, and lack full faith that we have been forgiven and
reinstated in his favor and friendship.
So it is with God. If we are unwilling to meet Him, or filled with fear at
the approach of His coming, it seems of a certainty that our faith is at
fault. Why should we not wish to meet Him who has made us, who loves us,
who has washed away our sins with His own blood, who alone can comfort our
trembling souls and fill us with every good? Perhaps we have sinned and
betrayed our Maker many times and grievously in our lives, and the voices
of those sins are haunting us, and bidding us beware of the hour of death
and of the judgment that follows. Perhaps there is a lurking suspicion
that we have not been forgiven, a temptation that we are not sincere, a
feeling that our sins are too grave to be pardoned, a conviction that we
do not belong to the company of the elect. We may have notions, moreover,
altogether severe, of the nature of God and of His justice; we feel His
immensity and sanctity, we have heard so much of His ineffable beauty,
that, weighed down with a sense of our nothingness, of our poverty and
misery and sinfulness, we cannot but shudder at the thought of appearing
in His presence. These and similar terrors may take hold of us and fill us
with a dread of death; but is it not clear that, whatever their cause,
these fears are born of a lack of faith? We do not trust, as we ought, the
Shepherd that loves us, we are not convinced of His mercy and kindness, if
we do not believe with child-like confidence that He stands ready ever to
forgive and bless the least of His children that humbly and sincerely seek
Him, asking for the help they need. The severity of God toward sinners
endures only so long as they refuse to acknowledge their guilt. His
harshness with them, like that of Joseph with his brethren, is but love in
disguise; and as soon as they are brought to own their guilt, that which
before was the anger of God is swiftly turned into His love and mercy.
Christ did not come to destroy, but to save. He will not crush the broken
reed, nor extinguish the smoking flax.(77) “As a father hath compassion on
his children, so hath the Lord compassion on them that fear him; for he
knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust.”(78)
But there is also the love of the world, which enslaves so many. So
numerous and so bewitching are the attractions of the present life that
they are loath to leave them. It is a beautiful world, this universe of
ours, so deep, so wide, so vast! It is filled with pleasures and
allurements and graced with myriad charms; and he, indeed, seems cold of
heart who can easily turn from its enchanting beauties, and close his ear
to its manifold voices. Ponder for a moment the richness of nature, its
similarity and variety, its sameness and its diversity; consider the
abundance of the harvest—the glowing fruits, the green and golden crops,
the sweet-scented flowers and gift-bearing grasses; see the stars above
and the waters beneath—all the wonders of earth and sky; and then when you
have ranged over fields and waves and mountains, when you have climbed up
the steeps of the sky and gazed on the marvels of the heavens, descend
again to earth and consider the human form—the chiefest work of the
Almighty hand, and the crown of the natural world. What beauties are here
concealed! What a mingling of material and spiritual, of human and almost
divine! What words can express, what lines portray the beauty of the human
countenance? Who can describe or adequately define the loveliness that
streams from human eyes, or echoes from the human voice? And yet these are
but the outer fringes and dimmest glimpses of the beauties of the soul
that dwells within.
How painful, then, it is for the worldly to forsake the beauties and
pleasures of this present life. Bound down to their beds of clay by the
things of sense, they are grieved to part with a life so full of diverse
attractions. How can they think undismayed of closing forever their eyes
and ears to these charms of color and sound! It is such a difficult thing,
and so hard to nature, to abandon these scenes of enticing pleasure, to
bid farewell to those that are dear and be hurried away alone and forlorn
to the chill and gloom of the grave.
So reason the children of the world; but are not their reasonings and
feelings a proof of their little faith, and of their poor conceptions of
spiritual and eternal interests? They do not want to leave the world,
because they love it; and they love the world, because their faith is too
weak to raise them to a vision of higher things. The plain on which they
stand is too low clearly to see the things of Heaven. How poor and
trifling at best is the earth and all it contains to Him who beholds with
a vivid faith the world above that is to come! How gladly does he lay down
his life and give up the struggle with ceaseless battles, who sees by
faith, just beyond the portals of death, the great home of the blessed,
spread out like a city on the mountains, bathed in light inaccessible,
full of joy and unending gladness, where “death shall be no more, nor
mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more.”(79)