have heard, which will take down everything you say; it is called
the phonograph. It makes little marks on a sheet of tinfoil, and
by means of these it will repeat for you all you have said,
though it may have quite passed out of your own mind. There are a
great many uses to which this little instrument may be put; but I
think that one of the best would be to make people more careful
of what they say. They would think before they spoke, if a
phonograph was around. Few people would like to have a record
kept of their talk, all ready to be turned off at a moment's
notice. It would sound rather silly, if no worse, when it was a
day or two old.
Perhaps the phonograph will never be used in this way; but there
is a record of all your words on something more durable than a
sheet of tinfoil. This record is in the book from which you will
be judged at the last day. Our Lord has told us that at that day
we shall have not only to hear but to give an account for all the
idle words spoken in our lives.
Should not, then, this thought restrain our tongues, and make us
rather be swift to hear than to speak?--more especially as it is
generally only by hearing that one can learn to speak well.
But what should you be swift to hear? Not the foolish or sinful
talk of others no more careful than yourselves. Be willing,
indeed, to listen to all with humility, believing them to be
wiser or better than you are; but seek the company and
conversation of those whom you know to be so. Nothing better can
come out of your heads than what is put into them. You will be
like those with whom you converse.
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And therefore, above all, seek silence, that in it you may
converse with Almighty God, and hear what he has to say to you.
He is the one above all others whom you should be swift to hear.
When you get in the way of listening to him you will be slow
enough to speak. There is nothing so sure to prevent idle words
as the habit of conversation with God.
-------------------
Sermon LXXII.
_Let every man be ... slow to anger.
For the anger of man
worketh not the justice of God._
--St. James i. 19, 20.
What is the reason, my brethren, that people sin by anger so
much? There is no temptation, it seems to me, that is more often
given way to. Other ones, though frequently consented to, are
also frequently resisted, even by those most subject to them; but
with this it seems as if we were like gunpowder: touch the match
to us, and off we go; if any one does us an injury or says an
insulting word, we flare up at once and give back all we got, and
more.
Afterward, perhaps, we are sorry; but that seems to do no good.
Next time it is just the same. And so it goes on, till perhaps we
begin to think that we really are like gunpowder; that God made
us so that we cannot help going off when the match of provocation
is applied.
But that is not true. It will never do to make God the cause of
our sins. It is our own fault. But what is the fault? What is the
matter that this temptation is not resisted like others?
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I will tell you what I think the matter is. It is that the
temptation to anger does not seem to be a temptation at the time.
The angry word seems to you all right when you utter it. It is
not so with other things--sins of impurity, for instance. You
know they are wrong, and that you ought to resist them, even when
they are on you; and sometimes you make up your mind to do so.
But it is not so in this sin of anger.
And why does it not seem to be a temptation? Why do you think it
no sin to say the angry word, to flare up when you are provoked?
It is because your mind is confused at the time, so that you
cannot tell what is sin and what is not.
That is the truth, if I am not mistaken. It is just the peculiar
danger of this temptation that it disturbs and confuses the mind
more than any other one. You cannot tell what really is right
when you are under it; it is not safe to do anything at all. You
are for the time like one who is drunk or crazy.
When a man has drank too much, if he have any sense left he will
keep out of the way of other people until he is sobered. For he
knows he is not fit to do or say anything when he is intoxicated,
and that he will only make a fool of himself if he tries.
That is common sense and prudence; and many men, oven when drunk,
have enough common sense and prudence left to follow this course.
But very few have when under the passing drunkenness of anger.
Most angry people do not know enough to hold their tongues. They
ought to. They ought to have learned by experience. Well, then,
this being the matter, the fault of angry people is plain enough.
It is this: that they do not try to guard themselves against this
temptation in the only way they can--that is, by remembering and
acting on these words of St. James which I read to you from the
Epistle of to-day: "The anger of man worketh not the justice of
God." It always works injustice; that is, it always makes a
mistake and does what is wrong. It has not sense enough to do
what is right.
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The only way to avoid the sin, then, is the one that St. James
gives. Be slow to anger. Don't trust it, however sure you may be
that it advises you rightly. It is a fool; don't listen to it.
Wait till you get cool, till reason can have fair play.
I say this is the only way you can avoid this sin. I mean that
nothing else will cure you of it unless you do this. Confession
and Communion, prayer, penance, and other things, will help you;
but this is indispensable. You know when you are under the
influence of anger well enough. When you are, hold your tongue
and hold your hand. You may have to do or say something
afterwards, but very seldom there and then. God will not be
likely to give you grace that is not needed; and you will not
have the grace to do what is right when your duty is to do
nothing, and wait till the temptation passes by. Remember that
you are a fool when you are angry, if you do not want to act like
one and be sorry for it afterwards.
------------------------
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_Fifth Sunday after Easter._
Epistle.
_St. James i._ 22-27.
Dearly beloved:
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your
own selves. For if a man be a hearer of the word, and not a
doer, he shall be compared to a man beholding his natural
countenance in a glass. For he beheld himself, and went his
way, and presently forgot what manner of man he was. But he
that hath looked into the perfect law of liberty, and hath
continued in it, not becoming a forgetful hearer, but a doer of
the work: this man shall be blessed in his deed. And if any man
think himself to be religious, not bridling his tongue, but
deceiving his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Religion
pure and unspotted with God and the Father, is this: to visit
the fatherless and widows in their tribulation; and to keep
one's self undefiled from this world.
Gospel.
_St. John xvi._ 23-30.
At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples: Amen, amen I say to you, if you
ask the Father anything in my name, he will give it you.
Hitherto you have not asked anything in my name. Ask, and you
shall receive: that your joy may be full. These things have I
spoken to you in proverbs. The hour cometh when I will no more
speak to you in proverbs, but will show you plainly of the
Father. In that day you shall ask in my name: and I say not to
you, that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father himself
loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I
came forth from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come
into the world; again I leave the world, and I go to the
Father. His disciples say to him: Behold now thou speakest
plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now we know that thou knowest
all things, and that for thee it is not needful that any man
ask thee. In this we believe that thou camest forth from God.
----------------
{252}
Sermon LXXIII.
_Amen, amen I say to you,
if you ask the Father anything in my name,
he will give it you._
--St. John xvi. 23.
What a wonderful promise this is--that everything we ask of
Almighty God, who is the Father of mercies, shall be granted to
us, if we ask it in the name of his only-begotten Son, our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ! Does our Lord really mean all he says?
Do people get all they pray for? Does it not seem to us sometimes
that we pray in vain--that God seems to shut his ears against our
cry, and has no regard to our tears and supplications? Yes, it
does often _seem_ so, but it is not really so. God's ways
are not always our ways to reach the end we desire. And our own
experience will tell us that it is very seldom it would be the
best for us if God took us at our word. The real reason why we do
not obtain the answer we wish to many of our prayers is, first,
because we do not ask, as we ought, in the name of Jesus Christ.
What is it to ask in his name? It is to ask in the name of Him
who came on earth, not to do his own will, but the will of his
Divine Father. Oh! how seldom we pray for favors and blessings
according to the will of God. Our blessed Lord, on the night
before he was crucified, foreseeing his death, and bowed to the
earth in his agony, ended his prayer with the words. "Not as I
will, but as thou wilt." That is not our way.
{253}
When we are in sorrow and trouble we think God should will as we
will, and we are disappointed and discouraged because we do not
get well of our sickness, or that calamity we feared comes, or
poverty sticks to us, or the conversion of those we pray for is
denied, or we do not obtain the employment we seek, or we have to
give up hope of getting that farm we set our heart upon. Who is
the judge, after all, about granting prayers? Who else but God,
who not only has the power to grant or refuse them, as he
chooses, but also has the perfect knowledge whether it would be
best for us to receive a favorable answer or not? He who prays in
the name of Jesus, prays with implicit trust in God's goodness
and wisdom, and if he has not mistaken his own will for the will
of God, will feel and should feel just as contented, no matter
which way God answers his prayer.
The second reason why we do not always get what we pray for is
because we are constantly asking for things which we dare not
presume to ask in the name of Jesus Christ. We know in our heart
of hearts that it is a petition he would not offer to his Divine
Father for us. If we had to write that petition down we would
neither begin nor end it with the words, "In the name of Jesus."
It is our pride that is praying, our worldly ambition, our lusts
and our selfish desires. We do not put the name of Jesus to our
prayer, because the spirit of Jesus is not in it. Charity is
wanting. We want to be happy, even if others are suffering. We
want money, even if our brethren starve. We desire high places
and the success of our undertakings, even if our neighbor and his
interests go to the wall. Alas! it is self that prays the loudest
and the oftenest and makes the greatest show.
{254}
Now, dear brethren, let us learn to bring all our prayers up to
the right standard. No matter what we ask for, let it be always
according to the will of God, and that alone. Then our prayer
will surely be granted, for the will of God, no longer opposed
and hindered by our will, accomplishes just what is best for us.
If we do not get just what we think best, it is because God, in
his divine generosity, chooses to give us something better, or
takes a wiser way to do it than we knew of.
If I were to advise you how to always pray in the name of Jesus,
I would say, Add always these words to every prayer you make: "So
may God grant it, if my salvation be in it." God grants no prayer
that does not have that end in view. His divine love for us
constantly regards that, even if we forget it. Pray, then, with
confidence and perseverance, but have a care to pray always with
and for the will of God. Then in heaven we shall see, if not
here, how not a single true prayer we ever made was left
unanswered.
----------------------
Sermon LXXIV.
_Amen, amen I say to you,
if you ask the Father anything in my name,
He will give it you._
--St. John xvi. 23.
These are the words of Christ, taken from the Gospel of to-day;
we cannot doubt them for a moment. They are the words of him who
is the infallible Truth, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.
And yet how seldom do we act as if we really believed them! How
seldom do you, my brethren, ask anything of the Father in the
name of Christ with real confidence that you will receive what
you ask for.
{255}
Many people say prayers, but few really pray. That is, many say
over certain forms of prayer which they know by heart or read out
of their prayer-books; many even feel bound to say some
particular set of prayers every day, for the scapular which they
wear, or for some other reason; but if you should ask them what
they are praying for, what particular thing they wish to obtain
from God when they say these prayers, few would be able to tell
you, unless, indeed, they happened to be making a novena for some
special object.
So, I say, it does not seem as if we Christians believed what our
Lord tells us in these words. For surely, if we did, almost all
our prayers would be petitions for some particular thing which we
wanted, instead of mere devotional exercises. And why? Because we
are always in want of something, and we must certainly believe
that Almighty God has the power to give us what we want; should
we not, then, be always praying for what we want, did we fully
believe that he has the will to give it to us?
Is it, then, really true that God will give us all good things
which we ask in prayer? Yes, it certainly is; that is exactly the
meaning of these words of Christ. All good things, I say; for it
is only good things which we can ask in his name. And if God
would give us bad things which we should ask for, our Saviour's
promise would be a curse, not a blessing as it really is.
No; God will not answer bad prayers--that is, prayers for what is
bad. People sometimes make such prayers and expect him to answer
them. They pray for vengeance on those who have injured them;
they pray that others may suffer as much as they have made them
suffer, and the like.
{256}
Or they pray for something which seems to them good, but really
is not so--that they may get rich, for instance, when riches will
only be an occasion of sin to them. The prayer seems to them
good, but it is not; perhaps even those prayers for vengeance may
seem so. But God knows better, and will not, as he says in the
Gospel of to-morrow, give us a stone when we ask for what seems
to be bread. If anything, he will give better, instead of worse,
than what we ask.
But really most things that Christians would think of praying for
are not bad; but you do not pray for them, because you think that
if they are good for you, you will get them, if you try, whether
you pray or not. Now, that is the great mistake which our Lord
wishes to correct. When he says, "If you ask the Father anything
in my name, he will give it you," that means, also, that if you
do not ask he will not, or at least not in such abundance.
Try, then, to bring this truth home to yourselves and make it
practical: that if you want anything the way to get it is to ask
it from God, not forgetting, of course, to work for it as well as
to pray; for no one prays in earnest who does not do that. And
the way not to get it is not to ask for it.
Pray, then, for what you want; and of course, before praying,
find out what you do want. You want, for instance, to be kept
from sin; but what sin? What is the one you are most inclined to?
Examine your conscience and find out. Then your prayer will
really mean something, especially if it be accompanied by good
and strong resolutions against your besetting vices.
{257}
If you know what you want, and pray for it in Christ's name and
in earnest, using all other means to get it, it shall, if it be
good, be yours. That is the lesson of our Lord's words in the
Gospel of to-day.
---------------
Sermon LXXV.
_Amen, amen I say to you,
if you ask the Father anything in my name,
He will give it you._
St. John xvi. 23.
These words must be true, my brethren, for it is the Eternal
Truth who has spoken them. And yet I dare say you cannot see how
they are. You have often, perhaps, asked God for something which
you wanted, and put our Lord's name to your prayers, and yet you
have not got the thing on which your heart was set.
Well, let us see what is the matter; why it is that our
experience seems to contradict our faith. It may be that, though
the words seem plain, we do not understand them aright.
Perhaps we are under a mistake as to what is meant by asking in
the name of Christ. Let us consider what is really the common and
natural sense of asking for anything in somebody else's name.
What should we ourselves mean by it?
Suppose I say to one of you: "If you ask Mr. So-and so for such a
position or employment in my name you will get it," what do I
mean? I mean that his regard for me is such that, if you have my
name to support you, he will give it to you for my sake.
Well, now, this is, as it seems to me, what our Lord means by his
promise. The sense of it is: "The Father loves me so much that if
you have my name to support your prayers--that is, if I wish that
you should have what you ask for--he will give it to you for my
sake."
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What it comes to, then, is this: If we ask the Father for
anything _really_ in the name of Christ--that is, if our
Lord really endorses our prayer--we shall have it.
"Well," perhaps you may say, "it seems to me that does not amount
to much. Will not God give us what our Lord approves of, any way,
whether we ask it or not? I don't see what we gain by praying, if
that is all."
There, my friends, you labor under a great mistake. The Father
wants Christ's name, but he wants your prayer, too. Some things,
it is true, you have got without praying; but there are many
which you have not got, but which you might have had if you had
added your own prayer to the name of our Lord.
I do not believe, for instance, that you ever asked in his name
to be rich. And yet it is quite possible that you might have done
so. If he knew that it would be good for yourself and others for
you to have money, if he knew that you would make a good use of
it, he would have put his name to your request. So you might,
perhaps, have been much richer than you are; perhaps it was only
the prayer for it on your part that was wanting. If it could have
been made in the name of Christ--that is, with his approval--it
would have been effectual.
It is very likely that he would, for good reasons, have refused
to give his name to such a prayer. Still it would be worth while
to try. It is always worth while to try praying for anything that
is not in itself bad; we may be able to get Christ's name for it,
who knows? And if we do not pray for what we want we will not be
nearly so likely to get it.
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There are some things, though, that we can be sure to have his
name for, and which are besides much better than worldly goods.
Those are the virtues with which our souls ought to be
adorned--our true riches, the riches of the soul. Pray for these,
then, with full confidence that he will endorse your prayer.
But when you pray for them work for them too. He will not give
you either spiritual or temporal riches if you sit still and fold
your hands, and wait for them to drop into your lap. A prayer
which is not in earnest is no prayer at all; and no prayer is in
earnest if the one who makes it is not trying to get what he
wants in every way open to him.
Now, I hope you see that our Lord's promise is a real and true
one; for by it we can get many, very many things which otherwise
we never can have. And I hope you see that it is a most generous
one; for by it we can have everything that is really good. Could
you possibly ask anything more?
------------------------------
{260}
_Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension_.
Epistle.
1 _St. Peter iv._ 7-11.
Dearly beloved:
Be prudent, and watch in prayers. But before all things have a
mutual charity among yourselves: for charity covereth a
multitude of sins. Using hospitality one towards another
without murmuring. As every man hath received grace,
ministering the same one to another, as good stewards of the
manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the
words of God. If any man minister, let it be as from the power
which God administereth: that in all things God may be honored
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Gospel.
_St. John xv_. 26-_xvi_. 4.
At that time:
Jesus said to his disciples: When the Paraclete shall come whom
I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who
proceedeth from the Father, he shall give testimony of me. And
you shall give testimony, because you are with me from the
beginning. These things have I spoken to you, that you may not
be scandalized. They will put you out of the synagogues: yea,
the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you, will think that he
doeth a service to God. And these things will they do to you,
because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these
things I have told you, that when the hour of them shall come,
you may remember that I told you.
--------------
Sermon LXXVI.
_Charity covereth a multitude of sins_.
--1 St. Peter iv. 8.
{261}
Those words are from the Epistle appointed for this Sunday, and
St. Peter, when he wrote them, meant that a man who gets his
heart full of charity is sure to be truly penitent for his sins,
no matter how many they may have been, and will thus win the
mercy of God and receive full pardon for them. St. Peter's words
are quite a popular saying. You will hear all sorts of people
quote them with evident satisfaction and belief in their truth.
But do they all mean just what I have said _he_ meant? I am
not so sure that they do. I fear that some think that giving a
few dollars to the poor (which they call charity) is a convenient
way of throwing a cloak over a multitude of sins--covering them
up, as it were--and hiding them rather than getting rid of them.
I know the Scripture says also that "almsgiving redeems the soul
from death," and tells the sinner to "redeem his sins with alms
and his iniquities with works of mercy to the poor." But the
Catholic doctrine is that charity must prompt the almsgiving in
order to work the miracle of pardon. It is not the money or the
clothing, the food or the fire, given to those who need, which
compounds for sins and buys pardon at a cheap rate; but the
virtue of divine charity, a Christ-like love of God and of our
neighbors, that wipes out the judgment of condemnation and
cleanses the guilty stains from the soul. The giving of alms to
the suffering poor is certainly one of the first things that a
sinner who is trying to get back, or has already got back, the
love of God will set himself to do; and it is the very sacrifice
of his goods for God's sake and for God's love that proves he
wants to have done with his sins, and that he is anxious to do
penance for them. It would be the greatest folly in the world for
a man to give alms _for his sins_, if he was not trying to
do so for the love of God.
{262}
It is all very well and very benevolent to help a poor wretch
with food and raiment because we do not like to see a fellow
human being suffer. But thieves, and adulterers, and drunkards,
and Easter-duty breakers, and all sorts of sinners who have no
intention whatever of stopping their sinful career will do that;
and when they say, "Charity covereth a multitude of sins," they
are very well content to have their benevolence accounted as a
set-off to their sins. But mere benevolence is not charity, and
to think it is would be a very great mistake. St. Paul says that
a man may distribute all his goods to feed the poor, and yet not
have charity. So then, dear brethren, if you want your almsgiving
to be profitable to your own soul as well as helpful to your
suffering neighbor, stop your sins and begin to be, first of all,
a little generous with God. Give him what he is constantly
knocking at the door and begging for--your heart, your love. Then
you will have the charity that covereth a multitude of sins, even
before you give the poor a cent. Get into the love of God, and
then the love of your neighbor for God's sake will follow of
itself. You will then feed and clothe and comfort the poor, not
only because you pity them, but because you love them. Then will
God love you and forgive you your sins.