Presence when you see him pretend, as it were, to reverence the
altar by a sort of half-genuflection, very quickly made, which
looks more like a sign of disrespect than of adoration. What
would you think if you should see the priest, when saying Mass,
making his genuflections in this way? Well, you ought to do the
same as he. Our Lord is as really before you as before him; and
you are not more exalted in your station than the priest, that
you can afford to treat God more familiarly. Bring the knee to
the floor slowly and reverently when you pass the high altar, or
any other altar, while the Blessed Sacrament is on it. And when
our Lord passes in procession, or in any other way, through the
church, kneel down and pray; do not stand or sit and stare about.
And remember, too, that he is as really present when he goes
outside the church as when he remains in it. The state of things
in this country requires us to carry him to the sick without the
solemnity which should be observed; but he is as truly in your
houses when he comes to give himself to you there as if the
priest brought him with lights and sacred vestments, with the
sound of the bell, and with a train of attendants to do him
honor.
{42}
Imagine what you would do if he should come visibly at the side
of the priest, with that Face with which you are so familiar,
with glory shining round him, and with the prints of the nails in
his hands and feet; and do the same now. Do not stand around and
talk to the priest as if he had come for a social visit; kneel
down as soon as he enters the room, if the Blessed Sacrament is
with him. And do not kneel leaning on a chair, with your backs to
our Lord; that is a strange way to show respect for him.
If you will only think who it is that stands in the midst of you,
you will find out many other things which I have not time to
suggest. It is not really so much want of faith as want of
thought that makes people behave to our Lord in the irreverent
and almost insulting way that they sometimes do. Think, then,
about this matter, and you will need no rubrics to teach you what
to do in the presence of Him whom you really know and love.
-------------------
Sermon IX.
_I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make straight the way of the Lord._
--St. John i. 23.
Whenever, my dear brethren, men are going to a place they always
ask the way. They also make up their minds as to which is the
long way, which the short way, which the most convenient and
easiest way. They do this with reference to the places to which
they go in this world. Now, we are all going to heaven; at least,
each one of us will say, I hope I am going there. We know there
are many places to which we can go in this world, and many
different ways by which we can get to them.
{43}
There are also many places in heaven, but there is but one way of
getting to any one, even to the least of them.
Which is that way? Some will say it is the good way, or the way
of the good man. Another will say it is attending to your duties,
to your church. Yet another will say it is by keeping away from
mortal sin. Each answer is a good one, but neither one brings out
the important point. The true answer, and the first one to be
given, is that it is God's way--the way of the Lord. Yes, my
dear brethren, it is the very way, the one and only way, that our
Lord Jesus Christ has travelled before us. Every step he took
along this path was marked by the precious Blood from his own
veins. It is the way of the cross, of sacrifice, of penance and
mortification.
Are we all going this way? Is each one of us now here present
moving daily and hourly on this path? It is almost useless to ask
this question, for I know many, very many indeed, will answer.
No! It is indeed a sad truth that most people, most even of our
Catholic people, are not going this way.
But why is this? One reason is because they do not try, sincerely
and earnestly, to fix in the mind that this is the only condition
upon which any soul can be saved. For our Lord himself declares
that unless a man take up his cross _daily_ and follow him
he cannot be his disciple. They do not realize that there is an
absolute necessity, an unchangeable law in this assertion. God
has said it, and will not unsay it. Yet how quickly will men stop
a business or a transaction that will surely cause them to lose
their money! How quickly will they turn from a road that is sure
to lead to death! They realize the necessity when property and
life are to be lost; but they will not see or feel the same
necessity when their souls and eternal life are most certainly to
be forever lost.
{44}
Again, they are discouraged because the way is hard and
difficult. Show me any way in life not hard and difficult. Ask
the father, the mother, the single man, the married man. Ask the
rich and the poor, the old and the young, the active business
man, the idle and slothful man, as well as the common tramp. All
have the same answer--that life is a hard road any way you may
take it.
Man, then, is reduced to the necessity of suffering and
mortification. The secret of this is that all men are under sin,
all poisoned by it. The only remedy is to cure ourselves, to get
rid of this poison. The way of the Lord is the way given us to go
in order to find this cure. All along this way we find the remedy
at every turn. It is found in a good confession, in true penance
and mortification, in the sacrament of the altar, the Body and
Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is intended to nourish our
souls and to act against this terrible poison.
Make straight, then, the way of the Lord. Do not be terrified by
trouble, pain, and difficulties of any kind. Do not permit the
devil to make you think it will always last, always be the same.
These difficulties become less and less by degrees. They wear
away, as it were, or God so fills the soul with strength and
patience that it is the same in the end. We then bear easily by
the grace of God that which was so troublesome at first.
{45}
Set to work, then, at once. Let your souls be ready for the holy
Feast of Christmas. Remember that we must celebrate that as
Christians ought to do. Gratitude, love, Christian manliness, and
honor require that all shall celebrate the birthday of a
suffering God in such a manner as to make him feel he is truly
remembered and honored. The least one can do, then, is to begin
to make straight the way of the Lord by cleansing the soul of all
mortal sin and by making a good Christmas communion. That feast,
you know, is a time when great graces are given to the sincere
soul. Do not, then, for the sake of your own soul, fail to keep
Christmas day as a true Catholic should keep it.
--------------
{46}
_Fourth Sunday of Advent._
Epistle.
1 _Corinthians iv._ 1-5.
Brethren:
Let a man so look upon us as the ministers of Christ, and the
dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required
among the dispensers, that a man be found faithful. But as to
me it is a thing of the least account to be judged by you, or
by human judgment: but neither do I judge my own self. For I am
not conscious to myself of anything, yet in this am I not
justified: but he that judgeth me, is the Lord. Therefore judge
not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring
to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest
the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have
praise from God.
Gospel.
_St. Luke iii._ 1-6.
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being
tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea
and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of
Abilina, under the high-priests Annas and Caiphas: the word of
the Lord came to John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And
he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the
baptism of penance for the remission of sins: as it is written
in the book of the words of Isaias the prophet: A voice of one
crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make
his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled: and every
mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall
be made straight, and the rough ways plain. And all flesh shall
see the salvation of God.
{47}
Sermon X.
Christmas Eve.
_For he shall save his people from their sins_.
--St. Matthew i. 21.
To be _saved_, dear brethren, always supposes a previous
danger. Thus, we say saved from drowning, saved from a fire,
saved from a terrible accident. Also it supposes a person or
thing that saves. Now, dear friends, we are met together here
to-day, and it is Christmas Eve. The church tells us in the holy
Gospel that Jesus Christ came to save his people. Let us think,
then, for a few moments what danger it was that he came to save
us from, and who he was who came to act the part of Saviour. The
danger from which we were to be saved was the danger of sin. Sin
is dangerous in the extreme. It is more dangerous than the most
terrible disease, more perilous than the cholera or the plague.
These things only kill the body; mortal sin kills the soul. If
Jesus Christ had not redeemed us sin would have destroyed us.
Adam and Eve brought sin into the world. Sin spread with the
awful swiftness of an epidemic. It threatened to descend upon
mankind and to bury everything beneath the ruins of everlasting
death. Then, when poor human nature seemed about to be
overwhelmed, Jesus came and saved it, washed us in his precious
Blood, and snatched the uplifted sword from the hand of the
enemy. Yes, the danger was great, but we were saved from it. But
a little while ago we read in the papers of an awful
calamity--the burning of the Brooklyn Theatre.
{48}
We can imagine how frightful was the scene of hundreds of human
creatures fighting for life--the all too narrow door before them,
the crying multitude around them, the scathing, ruthless flames
behind them. What would we think of one who, saved from such a
place, should afterwards make light of the danger and care
nothing for the one who saved him? O brethren! it was not from
the danger of earthly fire, from the peril of blazing rafters,
falling beams, and a trampling multitude, that Christ saved you
and me. 'Twas from the fire of hell that he snatched us. 'Twas
from the danger, the all-surrounding danger, of sin. And what
have we done, many of us? We have turned back, let go the hand
that held us, and gone back into the appalling peril. Because men
do not see a _material_ danger they will not believe there
is _any_. Dear friends, there is danger. You that have gone
back into the ways of sin, you that are in mortal sin now, at
this moment--you are in an awful danger. Save your lives, then;
take the hand held out to you or you are lost! Brethren, some of
those poor creatures who perished in the Brooklyn fire were so
charred, so burnt that they could not be recognized. Take care
that you do not become so disfigured by sin that at the last day
God will say to you: "I know ye not."
Who saved us from the awful peril? It was Jesus Christ, Jesus the
Son of God, Jesus the Babe of Bethlehem. In the morning it will
be Christmas day. The church will bid you come to the crib. Will
you still persist in rejecting the Saviour? You know who he is.
You know he is God. You know he is full of love and full of
power--full of love for your souls, full of power to rescue you
from the danger in which you stood. Come to him then, and no
matter how black or how many your sins may be, you will know that
"he shall save his people from their sins."
{49}
Brethren, I doubt not that many of you mourn the loss of some
dear ones. Within the last few years some one has gone from the
fireside, some sweet voice has been stilled for ever. Perhaps a
father or a tender, beloved mother has gone home to rest with
God--gone in the peace of Christ to their reward. 'Tis Christmas
Eve in heaven to-day, and oh! don't you think they are waiting
for you--praying for you that you may be there with them? Don't
disappoint them. Don't let them wait in vain. Flee from sin, the
danger that threatens to separate you from them for ever. Do not
disappoint Jesus and Mary and Joseph. Do not spend this holy time
in sin. Don't go back into the danger. Keep Christmas like a
Christian. Then, brethren, in the morning, the bright morning of
eternity, the Christmas morning of heaven, we shall see His
glory. We shall be united to Jesus and our dear ones who have
gone before. We shall hear them and the white-winged angels who
circle around the throne, singing aloud: "Glory be to Jesus
Christ the Babe of Bethlehem, for he hath saved his people from
their sins!"
Rev. Algernon A. Brown.
----------------------
Sermon XI.
Preaching the baptism of penance
for the remission of sins,
--St. Luke iii. 3.
St. John Baptist certainly seems, from what we read about him in
the Gospels, to have been quite a stern and uncompromising
preacher. He did not come with a coach and four to take people to
heaven.
{50}
He had but one message for every one, high and low, rich and
poor; and that message was: "Repent of your sins; do penance for
them, and bring forth fruits worthy of penance. Cease to do evil,
learn to do good; get rid of your bad habits, and put good ones
in their place. If you have wronged any one, make restitution for
it; and, moreover, practise charity even to those whom you have
not wronged. These things you must do; there is no other way
possible in which you can flee from the wrath to come."
This was St. John's doctrine, everybody must acknowledge. But
some people seem to think that our Lord, when he came, offered
salvation to sinners on somewhat easier terms than these. This,
however, is a great mistake. There never has been, is not, and
never will be any way for a sinner to be saved except by doing
penance. Our Saviour did, indeed, by his coming make salvation
easier; but how was it that he did so? It was not by offering it
on any other terms than these, but by making it easier for men to
comply with these terms. He did not free us from the obligation
of doing penance, but gave us more abundant grace that we might
be better able to do penance. That is plain enough to every one
who will stop and think.
And yet some Christians seem to imagine that it is enough to be a
Catholic, to be quite sure of one's salvation. Practically, at
least, they hold the heresy which the devil brought in at the
time of the so-called Reformation, and which before that time
hardly any one had dared to put in words--that a man may be
justified by faith without good works.
{51}
They say to themselves the very thing which St. John warned the
Jews not to say: "We have Abraham for our father." They say to
themselves: "We are Catholics; we are children of the holy
church; all we have to do is to remain so (and, thank God! we
have not the least idea of being anything else), and then to
receive the rites of our church when we come to die, and we will
be as sure of going to heaven as a child which has just been
baptized."
But, my friends, this is a fatal delusion. Depend upon it, the
devil is glad when he sees men or women with this notion in their
heads, for he has got good hopes of having them with him in hell.
He knows well what such people do not seem to know: that it is
not enough to be a Catholic, but that one must also be a good
Catholic, if he is to be saved. He knows as well as St. John that
penance is necessary now, as it always has been; but he takes
good care not to preach what he knows.
And what is penance? Is it a mere confession that we are sinners?
No, by no means. If it were, every one would be a penitent who
was not a fool, for every one who has common sense must
acknowledge that he has sinned. Nor is it a mere acknowledgment
that sin is a bad thing, and a wish that we had not committed it,
and that God had given us more grace that we might not have done
so. No, it is a real and hearty sorrow for it, with a conviction
that we might have avoided it, and that the fault was not with
God, who gave us plenty of grace to avoid it, but with ourselves,
who did not make use of the grace which he gave. And following
from this, as a matter of course, is a firm conviction that we
can avoid it for the future, and a firm determination to do so.
{52}
And following from this, also as a matter of course, is a real
change in our lives, a real giving up of sin. That is the only
certain mark of a true repentance and of a good confession--that
a man stops committing mortal sin. The priest may indeed give
absolution to one who continues to fall; but it is with the
gravest fears that the sentence which he pronounces is not
confirmed by Him who alone has power to forgive.
I said in the beginning that salvation was easier than before our
Lord came, because we have now more grace to help our weakness.
But that only makes penance the more necessary. "A man making
void the law of Moses," says St. Paul, "died, without any mercy,
under two or three witnesses; how much more, do you think, he
deserveth worse punishments, who hath trodden under foot the Son
of God, and hath esteemed the blood of the testament unclean, by
which he was sanctified, and hath offered an affront to the
Spirit of grace?" Be warned, then, in time; repent indeed, and
change your lives. Make not only a confession but a good
confession at this holy time, and cease, for the love of God, to
offend him any more.
-----------------------
Sermon XIL.
_Prepare ye the way of the Lord_.
--St. Luke iii. 4.
Before our Blessed Lord came into public notice his missionary,
St. John Baptist, appeared in the wilderness preaching penance,
and good works worthy of penance, to the people, who were in the
darkness and bondage of sin. He cried out in a loud, thrilling
voice; "Prepare ye the way of the Lord."
{53}
So the church on the last Sunday of Advent, the first before
Christmas, cries out to those who expect to meet our Lord on
Christmas and worship him on that glorious feast: "Prepare ye the
way of the Lord." To the tepid and lukewarm she cries out: "Come
away from your darling venial sins; fill up your empty hearts to
the brim with the overflowing love and grace of God; be more
generous in his worship and service." To the young: "Prepare ye
the way of the Lord." Give me your heart while you are young and
tender; do not be allured by the empty joys and false pleasures
of the world; avoid those dangerous occasions of sin that are
about to entice you, and keep your youth innocent and pure, that
you may see the evening of your life in joy, and not in bitter
remorse.
To the old: Forget the past; if it has been bad, ask pardon and
do penance; if good, preserve it and live in grace and fervor, so
that when you are near the end of your pilgrimage here you may
attain to the great destiny for which you have been created.
To the sinner--to the one in mortal sin; the one who has not had
a happy Christmas for many a year, for the sinner has no chance
to have part in the real joy of Christmas; to the sinner who has
been exalted with pride and worldly pleasure, who has been in the
valley of impurity, and wilful neglect, and cold
indifference--oh! to you there is a voice terrible and
irresistible: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Prepare it by
prayer for grace; warm your heart by gratitude and love; fall on
your knees at the foot of the cross in the confessional; have
your heart purified by the bitter waters of penance, and you will
indeed have a happy Christmas.
{54}
Then the promise: All flesh shall see the salvation of God. Yes,
to know and to feel and see the pardon and peace and love of
God--to have the consciousness that he is our friend, and that we
have no enmity against him--is the way to see on this earth the
fruits of salvation.
The poor shall see the salvation of God. O ye poor men and women
who have nothing in this world but sorrow, tears, and bitter
suffering! to you this coming feast of Christmas is a foretaste
of the great reward that is prepared for you. God loves you. He
spurned the palaces and royal robes of the Cæsars when he came on
the earth, and chose a poor Virgin for his mother and a hovel for
his birthplace. The poor shepherds were the first to see him, and
they will be near to him in his glory. "Blessed are ye poor, for
yours is the kingdom of heaven." For He who was rich, for your
sakes became poor.
The poor shall see the salvation of God; for He who was rich, for
their sakes became poor.
The rich shall see the salvation of God; for they will be taught
humility by looking into the crib at Bethlehem, and learning a
lesson that they can learn nowhere else, and that will dazzle
them more than their jewels, diamonds, dresses, or palaces.
So if we prepare the way of the Lord we shall finally see the
salvation of God in eternity, where we shall rejoice evermore in
the thought that all our preparation here to please God, by
keeping the commandments, suffering, and toiling, will be
rewarded by the vision of the Redeemer of all nations who washed
their robes and made them white in the
Blood of the Lamb.
--------------------
{55}
_Sunday within the Octave of Christmas_
Epistle.
_Galatians iv._ 1-7.
Brethren:
As long as the heir is a child, he differeth nothing from a
servant, though he be lord of all: but is under tutors and
governors until the time appointed by the father: even so we,
when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of
the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent
his Son, made of a woman, made under the law: that he might
redeem those who were under the law; that we might receive the
adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God hath sent the
Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father.
Therefore now he is no more a servant, but a son. And if a son,
an heir also through God.
Gospel.
_St. Luke ii._ 33-40.
At that time:
Joseph, and Mary the mother of Jesus, were wondering at these
things, which were spoken concerning him. And Simeon blessed
them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for
the ruin, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a
sign which shall be contradicted. And thy own soul a sword
shall pierce, that out of many hearts thoughts may be revealed.
And there was a prophetess, called Anna, the daughter of
Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser; she was far advanced in years,
and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity.
And she was a widow until fourscore and four years; who
departed not from the temple, by fastings and prayers serving
night and day. Now she at the same hour coming in, gave praise
to the Lord; and spoke of him to all that looked for the
redemption of Israel. And after they had performed all things
according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee,
to their own city, Nazareth. And the child grew, and waxed
strong, full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in him.
{56}
Sermon XIII.
_And the Child grew, and waxed strong,
full of wisdom: and the grace of God was in him._
--St. Luke ii. 40.