Jesus said to his disciples: Be ye merciful, as your Father
also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged.
Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you
shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you: good
measure and pressed down, and shaken together and running over,
shall they give into your bosom. For with the same measure that
you shall measure it shall be measured to you again. And he
spoke also to them a similitude: Can the blind lead the blind?
do they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above
his master; but every one shall be perfect, if he be as his
master. And why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but
the beam that is in thy own eye thou considerest not?
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or how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull the
mote out of thy eye, when thou thyself seest not the beam in
thy own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast first the beam out of thy own
eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to take out the mote from
thy brother's eye.
--------------
Sermon LXXXII.
_Teach all nations:
baptizing them in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost._
--St. Matthew xxviii. 19.
The mystery of the Most Blessed Trinity is one of those wonderful
truths of our holy faith which form the foundation of the
Christian religion. He who does not believe in the Trinity cannot
call himself a Christian; neither can any one be a Christian
unless he is baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost. We are taught to make acts of profession
of this mystery oftener than of any other. We do so every time we
make the sign of the cross; and there are very few Catholics who
do not make that sign more than once every day. Every one should
know what is meant by the Trinity.
There is but one God, who is the infinite, eternal, almighty,
all-wise, all-good, and all-just Being who created all things
that exist.
But God, who is one in his Divine Being, is a Trinity in person.
That is, he is three persons. These persons are named Father,
Son, Holy Ghost. God is, then, Father, and he is Son, and he is
Holy Ghost. These three persons are the same God. So, if there
were three men praying to God, one praying to the Father, a
second to the Son, and the third to the Holy Ghost, they would
all be praying to the same God.
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How there can be more than one person in one being is a mystery
to us, because we have no knowledge of any other being but God
who has more than one person. But now this truth is revealed to
us, we know, by our faith, which is divine knowledge, that there
are three persons in God, and are sure also that God must, as a
Divine Being, have three persons, because God cannot be other
than he is. Let us help our minds to understand this by a
comparison. Suppose a tower built in such a shape that it has
three sides. Now, there are _three_ distinct sides and only
_one_ tower; and whichever side we look at we see a distinct
side which is not either of the other two sides, but we always
can say, I see the tower. So, no matter which person of God we
regard, it is always the same God.
Our holy faith teaches us that God the Father is the Divine
Person who created all things, as we say in the Creed: "I believe
in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth." It
furthermore teaches us that God the Son is the Divine Person who
redeemed us by becoming man and dying on the cross, as the words
of the Creed declare; and again it teaches us that God the Holy
Ghost is the Divine Person who sanctifies us and is the source
and giver of all grace. These truths are revealed to us, and we
believe them, as we do all mysteries, for the reason we give when
we make an act of faith: "O my God! I believe all things taught
by the holy Catholic Church, because thou, who canst neither
deceive nor be deceived, hast revealed them to her."
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The Catholic Church is the voice of God to us, and when we hear
her we hear God. She lives, and speaks, and acts by the Holy
Ghost through Jesus Christ, our Saviour, her Divine Head. The
reason some very wise people, very learned in different kinds of
science, do not believe in the Trinity and other mysteries of
religion as we do is because they do not hear the voice of God in
the Catholic Church. It is not by science that we know the
Trinity to be true, but by divine faith.
This divine faith is a gift of God, which we are bound to nourish
in our souls with profound gratitude and humility, for it is a
sad truth that this faith may be lost.
Catholics lose their faith by their sins, and chiefly by the sin
of pride. All heretics and apostates show this in their conduct
and in their words. They adhere to their own opinions and refuse
to submit to the divine teaching of the church. O dear brethren!
let us fear this sin of pride more than all other sin--a
temptation, too, that is very apt to come up when we are
ridiculed by unbelievers for our faith. Then is the time to
confess the truth boldly, for if we deny our Lord before men he
will deny us before the face of his Father in heaven.
Let us keep our faith by purity of life and humility of heart;
for, as says the _Imitation of Christ:_ "What doth it avail
thee to discourse profoundly of the Trinity, if thou be wanting
in humility, and consequently displeasing to the Trinity? If thou
didst know the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the
philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God
and his grace?"
-------------------
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Sermon LXXXIII.
_In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost._
--St. Matthew xxviii. 19.
To-day, my dear brethren, the church celebrates the greatest of
all the mysteries of our religion: the mystery of the Holy
Trinity; of the one God in three Divine Persons--the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost.
We all believe it; we must believe it if we would be saved. But
no one of us can perfectly understand it. St. Patrick, you know,
is said to have illustrated it to his converts by showing them
the shamrock with its three leaves on one stem; but, of course,
he never pretended that this was a perfect explanation of it. No
perfect explanation of it can be given to us.
And why not? Is it because it really has no explanation? No, but
because we are not able to understand the one which might be
given. Explain the solar system to a child of five years: will he
understand you? It is something the same with us and this greater
mystery of God.
Some people, especially at the present day, who consider
themselves very wise, say to themselves and to others: "Oh! this
doctrine of the Trinity cannot be true." Ask them why not, and
they will say: "Because we cannot understand it; it seems to us
to be nonsense."
Well, what does their argument amount to? Just to this: "If the
doctrine were true we should understand it; but we don't
understand it, therefore it is not true."
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"If it were true," they say, "we should understand it." And why?
"Why, of course, because we are so wise that we can understand
everything. It is well enough for stupid people, like those
benighted Romanists, to believe what they don't understand, but
such a proceeding would be quite below our dignity and
intelligence. It is quite absurd to suppose that there is any
mystery so deep that we cannot see to the bottom of it."
Now, I do not want to accuse these worthy people of any one of
the seven capital sins; they are, no doubt, as good as they are
wise. But there is something in what they say that looks just a
little bit like one of those sins; like the first and most deadly
of them all: that is, the sin of pride. And there is not much
doubt that pride has in some form or other had something to do
with all heresies; so I am afraid that those who deny the Holy
Trinity are not quite free from it.
You think so, my brethren, I have no doubt. But, after all, are
you not perhaps guilty of a little of the same sin yourselves?
You believe in the Holy Trinity, it is true, but are there not
some other things which you do not fully believe, though you
ought to, and for very much the same reason?
God has given you the gift of faith; and you are willing to
believe what you know to be of faith, even if it be beyond your
reason, especially if it be something, like the Holy Trinity,
beyond the reason of any one else. But are you not sometimes
rather unwilling to believe other matters of religion, for which
there is good authority, just because you, with your present
lights, do not quite see through them? That is just the trouble
with the heretics of whom I have spoken; is it not so with you,
too, perhaps?
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Do you not say even about some of these matters: "Oh! I do not
think the same about that as the priests do; they are welcome to
their opinion but I claim the right to mine"? It may be some
question of morals; then you say: "The priest say so-and-so is
not right; but I don't see any harm in it. I have got a
conscience of my own."
Did it ever occur to you that as God knows more, and has told
more to his church about himself than you could have found out,
so he may have enlightened it rather more about some other
matters in its own sphere than he has enlightened you, even
though they are not of faith? And even setting that aside, is it
not possible that those who have studied a subject know more
about it than those who have not?
I think there is only one answer to these questions. Try, then,
to have the same humility which you have about the doctrine of
the Holy Trinity in other things too. You believe that the
officers of a ship know a little more about her position and
proper course than you do; make the same presumption in favor of
those who are in charge of the bark of St. Peter. It is only
reasonable to think so; only showing a little of the same common
sense which you show in other things.
--------------------------
Sermon LXXXIV.
_Why seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye,
but the beam that is in thy own eye
thou considerest not?_
--St. Luke vi. 41.
These words, my dear brethren, are taken from the Gospel of the
first Sunday after Pentecost, which is always read at the end of
Mass on this day. Of all those which our Divine Lord spoke during
his ministry on earth, there are none more practical, none which
have a more immediate bearing on our daily lives.
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There is nothing which shows the perversity of our fallen nature
more clearly than the common habit, in which even many persons
who are pious in their way continually indulge, of criticising
and commenting on the actions and character of others.
Some people, indeed, seem to think that there is no harm in
talking about the character and conduct of their neighbors, as
long as they do not say anything which is not true. This is a
great mistake; one hardly needs to stop and reflect for a moment
to see that it is a grievous injustice to speak of a sin which
another person has actually committed, if it be not known, or at
least certain soon to be known in some other way, by the one to
whom we speak. So there are many who have sense enough not to
make this mistake and who do hold their tongues about the secret
sins of others. But there are comparatively few who seem to
realize that it is against charity, though not against justice,
to speak even of well-known and evident faults of one's
neighbors, when there is no good object to be gained by so doing;
and, in fact, even to think of them and turn them over in one's
mind, for which there can never be any good object.
It is to such as these--and there are hosts of them--that our
Lord's words are addressed. He does not himself answer the
question which he asks in the text; but there is not much
difficulty in our answering it ourselves.
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"Why," then, "seest thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but the
beam in thy own eye thou considerest not?" The two always go
together. You will always find that just in proportion to a
person's watchfulness about others' faults is his carelessness
about his own. Why, I say, do you do so? Let us try to find out.
Are you so sensitive about your neighbor's faults because they
offend God? No, I do not believe that is the reason. If it were
you would be a great deal more troubled about your own than you
are. If you really cared for God's honor in the matter you would
go to work on your own sins, which you really can amend, and not
on those of your neighbors, which you only carp at but do not
even try to correct. Do not pretend, then, that your habit of
finding fault with others comes from a desire that God may be
better served. Such a pretence would be only hypocrisy. It is
especially to such pretenders that our Saviour says: "Hypocrite,
cast first the beam out of thy own eye; and then shalt thou see
clearly to take out the mote from thy brother's eye."
Are you so sensitive about your neighbor's faults, then, because
they offend yourself? No, I do not think that can be the reason
either--or, at least, not the whole reason; for you are nearly as
apt to speak of them when they do not concern you at all. You
even take trouble to find out about those which do not come under
your own observation. I know that we all have a weakness for
noticing unpleasant things when they occur, and passing over
those which are agreeable as a matter of course; we complain of
the weather when it is bad, and give no thanks when it is fine;
we grumble when we have a bad dinner, and say nothing about a
good one. But this does not explain the matter entirely, for most
of the faults which you notice in others do not hurt you in any
way.
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No; the fact is, it is simply a vice in yourselves which makes
your neighbor's faults so glaring in your eyes. And that vice is
the great vice of pride. You are trying to exalt yourselves, at
least in your own mind, above others, and the easiest way to do
it is to try to push them down. This is at the bottom of all this
uncharitableness which is the staple of so many people's thoughts
and conversation.
There is, therefore, only one real remedy for it, only one which
strikes at the root of the whole thing: that is to cultivate the
virtue which is the opposite of pride, the great virtue of
humility.
I said just now that as a person is watchful about his neighbor's
faults, so is he careless about his own. Well, the rule works
both ways. If you will be careful about your own you will not
notice those of other people. For you will acquire this virtue of
humility. You will appear so bad in your own sight that others
will appear good in comparison. And then, when you have cast out
this beam of pride from the eye of your own soul, you will indeed
be fit to correct others, and not till then.
--------------------
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_Second Sunday after Pentecost_.
and Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi.
Epistle.
1 _St. John iii._ 13-18.
Dearly beloved:
Wonder not if the world hate you. We know that we have passed
from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother, is
a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life
abiding in himself. In this we have known the charity of God,
because he hath laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay
down our lives for the brethren. He that hath the substance of
this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut
up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in
him? My little children, let us not love in word, nor in
tongue, but in deed and in truth.
Gospel.
_St. Luke xiv._ 16-24.
At that time:
Jesus spoke to the Pharisees this parable: A certain man made a
great supper, and invited many. And he sent his servant at
supper-time to say to them that were invited that they should
come, for now all things are ready. And they began all at once
to make excuse. The first said to him: I have bought a farm,
and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee, have me
excused. And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen, and
I go to try them; I pray thee, have me excused. And another
said: I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. And
the servant returning, told these things to his lord.
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Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant:
Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and
bring in hither the poor and the feeble, and the blind and the
lame. And the servant said: Lord, it is done as thou hast
commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said to the
servant: Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them
to come in, that my house may be filled. But I say unto you
that none of those men that were called shall taste my supper.
------------
Sermon LXXXV.
_A certain man made a great supper,
and invited many._
--St. Luke xiv. 16.
If there could be any question about what kind of a "great
supper" our Lord meant in the parable all doubt is removed by
reading the Gospel, which tells us that some one of the persons
to whom he was speaking had just said: "Blessed is he who shall
eat bread in the kingdom of God." We know how to interpret the
parable. The "great supper" is the divine banquet of Holy
Communion, in which we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus
Christ. On another occasion our Lord said: "I am the bread that
came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread he shall live
for ever, and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life
of the world." The parable of the "great supper" is, therefore,
very appropriately chosen as the Gospel for this Sunday in the
octave of the magnificent and triumphal festival of Corpus
Christi. This festival is also well placed in the calendar of the
church, coming as it does, at the end of all the solemn
commemorations of the divine life and person of our Lord. For the
institution of the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest act of his
love; the consummation and fulfilment of his love.
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"Having loved his own, he loved them unto the end." He is present
in this divine mystery because he would be present with us and
give himself to us, and unite himself to us in the most intimate
manner. He promised that he would live in us, and we in him and
be one with him. In the Blessed Sacrament he makes that life and
union a reality.
Before the altars of his holy church, therefore, he spreads the
holy table for his "great supper," and he invites many to the
banquet. Such an invitation, we would think, does not need much
urging to bring in the guests--_all_ the guests--as quickly
and as frequently as he desires. And yet, as he tells us in the
parables, and as we see and hear ourselves, there are many who
make little of his invitation, and either do not come at all or
come with such reluctance or so seldom that it is plain they are
acting more from fear of punishment than from a motive of love.
It is true that those who do not come when he calls are far from
daring to say that it is not worth coming to, but they act very
much as if they thought so. They have other friends who invite
them to their feasts, and as they think more of these friends
than they do of Jesus Christ, and relish their food more than
they do his, they send in their excuses to him. These excuses are
paltry enough. One has bought a farm and must go and see it;
another has purchased five yoke of oxen--this is just the time he
must go and try them; a third has just got married, and so on.
Any excuse for not coming to Communion seems good enough for some
Catholics, who want to keep friends and company with the world,
the flesh, and the devil, and eat their dishes of avarice, lust,
and pride.
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I don't wonder they stay away; for let a man get his heart full
of avarice, or burning with lust, or puffed up with pride, the
very idea of Holy Communion is wearisome and distasteful to him.
But there is a dreadful warning in the parable. _The excuses
are not taken_; and he who sets forth the banquet declares
that none of such men shall eat of his supper; and he makes that
threat in anger. Woe, then, to those Easter-duty breakers who
heard the invitation and came not! They have incurred the anger
of the Lord. To pass by the Easter duty out of contempt for it,
or because one is unwilling to give up the sins that he knows
make him unfit to make it, is to commit a mortal sin. And when I
see some persons who know their duty, and have every opportunity,
neglecting their Easter Communion for years, and appearing to be
perfectly hardened against every appeal and argument made to
them, I am always fearful lest the Lord is not only angry with
them, but that he is carrying out his threat that he will never
invite them again, and that they will die some day without
absolution and without Communion. Oh! if there be any such here
let them hasten to beg pardon with deep contrition for their past
neglect, and earnestly seek for admission to the heavenly
banquet. Perhaps it may not be yet too late even for them. I know
it is the eleventh hour, but the Lord invites some to come even
at the eleventh hour. But they must not wait longer! At midnight
the door will be shut, and the only answer they will get then is;
"It is too late; I know you not!" God grant that such a curse of
banishment from the eternal Communion of heaven shall never be
addressed to one of us!
---------------
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Sermon LXXXVI.
_And they began all at once to make excuse._
--St. Luke xiv. 18.
Notice the words, my brethren. Our Lord does not say that these
men whom the master of the house invited to supper all happened
to have an excuse, but that they began all at once to make one.
They gave various flimsy reasons why they could not come--
reasons that anybody could see would not have prevented them from
coming if they had wanted to, but were merely given in order to
avoid telling the plain truth, which was that they did not care a
straw for the one who had invited them or for the supper that he
proposed to give.
Well, now, what did our Saviour mean by this story which I have
read you in the Gospel?--for he certainly did not tell it simply
for the amusement of his disciples. It was a parable, and had a
spiritual signification, or more than one. I think there cannot
be much doubt in our minds about one of them, at least. We cannot
help seeing that the supper means the rich banquet to which all
of us are invited, and which has been commemorated in the great
solemnity of Corpus Christi, through which we have just passed.
God himself is the master of the house, and he has invited all of
as his friends--that is, all of us who have come by holy baptism
into the fold of his church--to come to this great feast, the
feast of his own Body and Blood. Not once only but many times he
has invited, nay, commanded, you all to come and taste of this
supper, which is himself--to receive him in Holy Communion.
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And what have you done--many of you, at least? You have done
exactly what these men did of whom the parable tells us. You
have, as soon as the words of invitation came to you, immediately
set about to see if you could not find some way of avoiding
compliance with them. You have begun all at once to make
excuses--excuses as silly as those which the men made in the
parable.
"Oh!" you say, "I have not got time to approach the sacraments
worthily. It's all very well for women, who can run to church
whenever they want, but I have got my business to attend to; if I
neglect it my family will starve." Humbug! I say--as transparent
humbug as that stupid story which the man whom our Lord speaks of
had about his farm. "I have bought a farm," says he, "and I must
needs go out and see it." That excursion to his farm was got up
just to dodge the invitation, which he did not care to accept. It
is the same with you. Your business is not so important that it
will keep you from the theatre or the liquor-store, but as soon
as the service of God is mentioned it becomes urgent all at once.
Or perhaps you do not plead any particular business, but you make
an excuse like that of the man who said he had married a wife,
and therefore could not come. You say: "Piety is very good for
priests and religious; but I am living in the world, and can't be
good enough to go to Communion." Humbug!
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I say again; you know very well that there have been plenty of
people, who have lived in a much brighter world than is ever
likely to be open to you, who have not only made good communions,
but made them frequently, and become saints by doing so. Kings
and queens have given the lie to your excuse. Are you more in the
world than St. Henry, Emperor of Germany; St. Louis, King of
France; the two Saints Elizabeth, of Hungary and Portugal; and
St. Margaret, Queen of Scotland, whose feast we kept last
Tuesday?
Don't make any more foolish excuses, then; our Lord, who has
invited you to his banquet, will not be deceived by them.
Acknowledge the truth, that if you do not come to his supper it
is because you do not care for it, or for Him who gives it.