contrition, and purpose of amendment. How shall we acquire this
spirit By looking into our own conscience, unpleasant as it may
be, and letting those of our neighbors alone.
{359}
If we sincerely examine our own hearts we shall not thank God
that we are not like others, but rather pray to him that we may,
before we die, have something like the perfection that many
others have already reached; and ask him, as the publican did, to
have mercy on us sinners--on us poor sinners, who are trying to
be so no more.
That is the way, and the only way, that we sinners can get into
the company of the saints; not by fancying ourselves there
already. If we wish, then, to reach that blessed company, let us
start on this way at once, for there is no time to lose.
----------------------
Sermon CVII.
_Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exulted._
--St. Luke xviii. 14.
One does not need to be a Christian, my dear brethren, to
understand, as it would seem, the truth of these words of our
Lord. Everybody knows that a man who is all the time praising
himself, or who even shows that he has a pretty good opinion of
himself, loses by it in the opinion of others. He does not even
get as much credit for ability or virtue as he really deserves,
besides being considered as stuck up and conceited, which
everybody feels to be a defect. In fact, a man who is evidently
very proud makes himself ridiculous.
And, on the other hand, one who is modest and unassuming
generally is supposed to be more clever than he really is. People
sometimes get a reputation for learning and depth of thought by
simply holding their tongue--so convinced is the world that a
really great man will not make a parade of his greatness.
{360}
But this lesson of worldly prudence is not the real meaning of
our Saviour's words. He does not wish to show us how to get a
reputation for learning or for anything else. This would be
merely encouraging and helping our vanity and pride. What he
wishes to teach us is humility. He wants us to humble ourselves
really; not to pretend to do so, that we may be more esteemed by
the world.
Why, then, if that is the object, does he promise us that if we
humble ourselves we shall be exalted? That, it would seem, could
be no inducement to a man who had real humility. Such a man would
not want to be exalted, you will say. Ah! there is where you are
mistaken. Every humble man, every really good man, does want to
be exalted. The saints, who are the models of humility for us,
wanted it more than any one else in the world.
This may sound strange, but it is undoubtedly true. For what is
it to be exalted in the true sense of the word?
It is to get near to God, who is the Most High. And the more one
loves God the more does he wish to be near him; so all those who
love God wish to be thus exalted and the saints more than all,
because they love God more than any one else.
And this exaltation, which comes from being near to Almighty God,
is what he promises, in these words of the Gospel, to the humble
and refuses to the proud. This was what he gave to the publican
and refused to the Pharisee; for he gave the publican his grace
and his friendship, but the Pharisee failed to receive it on
account of his pride. "This man," says our Lord, "went down to
his house justified rather than the other"--that is, nearer to
God, and therefore more exalted.
{361}
The humble, then, will be raised into the friendship of God, and
the proud will not. Nor can they come near him in any other way.
He is too high above us for us to come near him except on his own
terms. You cannot get near Almighty God by making the most of
your natural powers, any more than you can get near the stars by
going on the roof of your house. Some people in old times thought
to scale the heavens by building a high tower; but God confounded
their pride, and the tower of Babel is a byword for human folly
and presumption to this day.
Let us, then, my dear brethren, not follow their example. Let us
seek truly to be exalted, but in the way that he has appointed,
in the way that his saints have chosen, and especially the way of
Our Blessed Lady, the nearest to him and the humblest of all.
And, in fact, if we really wish for this true exaltation it must
needs be in this way; for if we really wish to be near God it
must be for the love of him; and if we love him we must often
think of him; and if we often think of him we must be humble; for
how can the creature be proud who often thinks of the Creator of
heaven and earth?
-----------------
Sermon CVIII.
Every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled;
and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
--St. Luke xviii. 14.
It is a blessed and a happy moment, a sort of turning-point in
life, my brethren, for any one of us when he wakes up to the
conviction that he is nothing extraordinary after all. That is,
if there is such a moment; for sometimes this conviction dawns on
one gradually.
{362}
Almost every one begins life with the other idea. Not that he has
it himself at the start, but his friends have it for him. Almost
every baby is considered, as you know, to be the finest and most
beautiful one that ever was seen. Perhaps he does not quite come
up afterward to the expectations of his fond parents; but at
least he is remarkable in some way. He is a very clever boy, or a
very good boy, or, at any rate, he could be if he wanted to; he
has got it in him; he is much finer in some respects, perhaps in
a great many, than the common run. He is going to turn out a
great man; he is much more likely to be President of the United
States than any other boy of his age.
And by the time he has got to man's estate he has a good deal of
the same opinion himself. He does not like to have it even hinted
that he is at all below par in anything; or if it is plain, even
to himself, that he is, then it is a thing of no consequence, or
he could excel in it if he chose to. The sorest points are of
course those in which his choosing would make no difference. The
less said about these the better.
Well, you know all this is what we call pride. Almighty God has
mercifully arranged it so that it is generally knocked out of us
to some extent as we travel on through the world; but still a
good deal of it remains.
It is a thing that gives us a great deal of trouble of mind, and
which generally keeps us back a great deal from really excelling
in anything. It is a thing, therefore, which it is good to get
rid of as soon as we can; and of course, therefore, you all want
to know how to do this. I think the Gospel story of to-day throws
some light on this point.
{363}
The way to do it is the way of the publican, and the way not to
do it is that of the Pharisee. And the way of the publican is
that of common sense, too.
What is it? It is lo look at and consider our defects, and not
our strong points. The publican might have talked like the
Pharisee, too. He might have said: "I am a much better fellow
than that old Pharisee. I am a good, hearty, generous soul. I
treat my friends to the best I have got; and if I do cheat
sometimes a little in business I make up for it in charity; and I
don't make a show of the good I do and put on a pretence of
religion like those canting hypocrites."
And so he might have gone on to the end of the chapter. But he
didn't. No; he just went off in a corner all by himself and said:
"O God! be merciful to me a sinner." He did not think about his
virtues, but about his sins; and when he asked the Lord to be
merciful to him he meant that he wanted to amend his life, and
was going to do it with the help of God, and imitate the
Pharisee, whom he really thought better than himself; for you see
he did not think of the sins of the Pharisee, but of his virtues.
I say that his way was of common sense. It is the way we all
follow when at work on anything except ourselves. We look at the
defects in our work, and not its excellences; and if we have very
good sense it seems to us pretty much all defects.
Humility, then, after all, is only common sense. And I think you
ought to see pretty well one reason at least why, as our Lord
says, he that exalteth himself shall be humbled, and he that
humbleth himself exalted.
{364}
The one who exalts himself, who stops to look at his virtues, is
all the time running down, and losing even the little virtue that
he admires; while he that really humbles himself is constantly
getting better. So humility is necessary for progress. It is so
in the things of this world even, and much more so in our
spiritual affairs.
-----------------
{365}
_Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
1 _Corinthians xv._ 1-10.
Brethren:
I make known unto you the gospel which I preached to you, which
also you have received, and wherein you stand: by which also
you are saved, if you hold fast after what manner I preached to
you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered to you
first of all, which I also received: how that Christ died for
our sins, according to the Scriptures: and that he was buried,
and that he rose again the third day, according to the
Scriptures: and that he was seen by Cephas, and after that by
the eleven. Then was he seen by more than five hundred brethren
at once, of whom many remain until this present, and some are
fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the
apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one
born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who
am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the
church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his
grace in me hath not been void.
Gospel.
_St. Mark vii._ 31-37.
At that time:
Jesus going out of the borders of Tyre, came by Sidon to the
sea of Galilee, through the midst of the territories of
Decapolis. And they bring to him one that was deaf and dumb;
and they besought him to lay his hand upon him. And taking him
aside from the multitude, he put his fingers into his ears, and
spitting, he touched his tongue: and looking up to heaven, he
groaned, and said to him: Ephpheta, which is, Be opened. And
immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue
was loosed, and he spoke right. And he charged them that they
should tell no man.
{366}
But the more he charged them so much the more a great deal did
they publish it. And so much the more did they wonder, saying:
He hath done all things well; he hath made both the deaf to
hear, and the dumb to speak.
--------------------
Sermon CIX.
_He hath made both the deaf to hear,
and the dumb to speak._
--St. Mark vii. 37.
Our Saviour, in his ministry on earth, no doubt cured a great
many deaf and dumb people. The story of this particular cure has
been preserved for us on account of the peculiar and significant
way in which he performed it. The memory of it is renewed every
time that a child is baptized in the Catholic Church.
In the ceremonies of baptism the priest, who represents our Lord
in this as in all other sacraments, touches the nostrils and the
ears of the infant or adult with his thumb moistened with the
saliva of his mouth, saying this same word, "Ephpheta"--that is,
"Be opened."
Now, the child or grown person who is brought to baptism is not,
as a general thing, deaf or destitute of any of the senses, and
the priest does not, in performing this ceremony, work what we
should commonly call a miracle, as our Lord did in the cure of
this deaf and dumb man. But in baptism what we may call a
miracle, because it is so wonderful, though so common, is worked;
or rather not one miracle but many. One of them--the one
represented by this action of the priest, and also by that of our
Saviour in the Gospel--is the opening of the spiritual senses by
the words which come from the mouth of God.
{367}
This opening of the spiritual senses is a much greater blessing
than the opening of the bodily ears. But, unfortunately, most of
us who are baptized do not preserve this great grace. As we grow
up, instead of seeing and hearing better and better all the time
with our spiritual eyes and ears, as we do with our bodily ones,
we are too apt to lose the use of them altogether. They get
covered over and choked up with the dust of this world; and,
after a while, though having eyes we do not see, and having ears
we do not hear.
So there are a great many deaf and dumb people besides those who
are commonly called so. These deaf and dumb people, however,
often talk a good deal, and hear, as it would seem, pretty much
everything that is to be heard. But there is only a very little
of all the immense amount of talk that comes from their mouths
that is of any use to themselves or to their neighbors, and that
which they happen to hear that might be of use to them seems to
go in at one ear and out at the other.
What is it that the spiritual ear ought to hear? It is the voice
of God. The Holy Ghost is all the time speaking to us, either by
his own inspirations in our hearts, by our guardian angels, by
the voice of the clergy who preach with his authority and in his
name, by good books, or by some other means. But we do not listen
to his voice; we do not let it reach the ears of our soul, though
it may those of our body; and so those ears of the soul, from
want of practice, get so deaf that they cannot hear it, though it
sound ever so plainly.
{368}
And so, becoming deaf, we become dumb also. You know that is
always the way. When a person cannot hear at all he is apt to
forget how to speak. This is the case with people who become deaf
to God's voice. First they do not try to hear it, either because
they are careless, or because they do not want to; they stifle
his inspirations; they never think of such a thing as reading a
spiritual book, and if they listen to sermons it is only to
criticise the preacher, not to hear the word of God, which they
could find in any Catholic sermon, if they chose. And so, not
hearing his voice, their spirit loses its tongue; they forget to
pray to him, or, if they do pray, it is only with the lips and
not with the heart; they forget to say anything for him or about
him to their neighbor; and, worst perhaps of all, they forget to
go to confession. That is where their tongues are specially tied.
Sometimes they even imagine that if they should go to confession
they would have nothing to tell.
To be spiritually deaf and dumb is a great deal worse than to
have no bodily senses at all. A man may live without those senses
just as with them; but when he is spiritually deaf and dumb, it
means that his soul is dead. If, then, you are in this state, or
falling into it, rouse yourself while there is time, and beg of
our Lord to open your ears that you may hear his voice plainly,
for it will not speak to you much more; and to loose your tongue,
that it may give glory to his name before you die.
-------------------------
{369}
Sermon CX.
_He hath made both the deaf to hear,
and the dumb to speak._
--St. Mark vii. 37.
There are a good many people, my dear brethren, who are afflicted
with a deafness and dumbness a great deal worse than that of the
poor man whose cure is recorded in to-day's Gospel. You all know
several such people, I think; perhaps you are acquainted with
quite a number; it may be even that you are such yourselves. The
trouble with the poor man whom our Lord cured was only in his
body; the trouble with these people of whom I speak is in their
souls. He was deaf and dumb corporally; they are deaf and dumb
spiritually. Who are these unfortunate people? They are those who
are in the state of mortal sin; who are living day after day in
that state, and have been, perhaps, for years. Their souls are
deaf; for God is calling to them continually to repent, and they
refuse to hear him. Their souls are dumb; for they have had for a
long time a confession to make, and that confession is not yet
made.
As I said just now, you all know such people. They are easily
known. They are the people who let Easter after Easter go by
without approaching the sacraments. Their life may be evidently
bad; or perhaps, on the other hand, it may seem to be pretty
good. They go, it may be, quite regularly to Mass, and observe
some of the other laws of the church. But there is one which they
neglect, and that is the one which shows their true character.
That is the precept of the yearly confession.
{370}
When it comes to that either they are honest enough to say: "I
cannot make up [my] mind to give up my sins, so it will be no use
for me to go to confession," or they are dishonest enough to make
some wretched excuse, such as: "I have too much reverence for the
sacraments to receive them without due preparation, and I have
not time to prepare," or, "I am sure I don't know what I would
have to say to the priest; I can't think what you people are
bothering him for all the time."
My dear brethren, people that make excuses of this kind are like
ostriches. These birds, it is said, when pursued, hide their
heads in the sand to avoid being seen, leaving their whole bodies
exposed. Excuses like these never deceived anybody yet, and never
will. Everybody knows that if a man refuses to go to his
confession when the church requires him to do so, the reason is
that he is living in a way that his conscience reproaches him
for, and that he does not choose to live in any other way.
Everybody knows that if a man's conscience is really clear he
will be very willing to go to the priest and tell him so; and
everybody knows that everybody has time to prepare.
No, the fact is that these Christians who live in the state of
sin and neglect of their duties are, if not already quite deaf
and dumb spiritually, at least rapidly becoming so. Every day the
voice of the Holy Ghost is sounding more and more faintly in
their ears; every day, instead of bringing them nearer to a good
confession, puts them farther away from it. Every day the cure of
their spiritual deafness and dumbness is getting more and more
difficult, and needing more of a miracle of God's grace to
accomplish it. They are like travellers who lie down to rest in
the Alpine snows and wake only in the next world.
{371}
If any of you, my dear brethren in Christ, who are now here and
listen to my voice, which is another call from him to you, are in
this fearful state, or are falling into it, may he work that
miracle and bring you back to your senses! But whether he is to
work it or not depends very much upon yourself. Rouse yourself,
then, and ask him to do so while you are yet able.
For a time is coming, and that soon, but too late for you, when
he will make you hear and speak indeed, whether you will or no;
when the thunders of his eternal judgment shall sound in your
ears, and when you will have to confess your sins, not to one man
in secret, but before all men and all the angels and saints; and
not with the hope of forgiveness, but with the certainty of
condemnation. God grant that you may save your soul before that
dreadful day, and be able to say with thankfulness, not with
terror and despair: "He hath made both the deaf to hear and the
dumb to speak."
---------------------
Sermon CXI.
_And taking him aside from the multitude._
--St. Mark vii. 33.
I suppose there is no trouble more common to people in the
practice of their religion, whether they are particularly pious
or not, than distractions at prayer. One's thoughts, perhaps, are
pretty well under control while employed in the usual duties of
the day; but as soon as the time comes to get on one's knees
before God, away go the thoughts over everything under the sun
except the words which are in the prayer-book.
{372}
It really is quite discouraging sometimes; it appears as if our
Lord did not want to speak to us or to have us speak to him.
But we know that this is not so. How, then, shall we account for
our not hearing his voice, and not being able to say anything
worth his hearing, when we set out to pray? How is it that we are
so deaf and dumb in his presence?
There are various reasons, no doubt, my brethren, but there is
one common to almost all people living in the world; and I think
it was this which our Saviour wished to suggest to us when he
took the deaf and dumb man aside from the multitude, as we read
in to-day's Gospel, before he would work his cure.
He could have cured the man where he was; but he took him aside
from the multitude, he got him away from the crowd in which he
was, to show us, as it seems to me, that we cannot be cured of
our spiritual deafness and dumbness, that we shall never be able
to hear God or to speak to him as we should, till we, too, come
out of the crowd.
This living all the time in a crowd is really the most common and
most fatal obstacle to prayer, at least with those who are really
trying to serve God. It is not always that there are so very many
people around us; we may make a crowd, a multitude for ourselves
out of a very few. The crowd is not so much one of people as of
ideas coming from the people and things which we meet with in our
daily life. We talk too much; we look around and notice things
too much; we read the papers too much--too much for our profit in
any way, but especially for acquiring the spirit of prayer.
{373}
What wonder is it that it is so hard to pray, and that there are
so many distractions? One kneels down at the end of the day and
tries to say some evening prayers. There is not a single thought
in his or her head like those which are in the prayer-book. And
why not? Because there is no room for any. The poor head is
packed full of all sorts of other ones coming from the events of
the past day or week. All the people one has seen, all the
foolish things they have said, the gossip they have retailed,
even the clothes they have worn, or perhaps the stories or squibs
and the useless and trifling news one has seen in the paper, take
up the mind; there is a multitude of reflections and echoes from
the sights and sounds of the day, which hide the face of God and
drown his voice. It is in vain to say that one cannot help it. Of
course one cannot separate one's self from these things
altogether. Those who live a life of prayer in the most secluded
convent, even the hermits of the desert, have sources of
distraction around them and in their past lives. But what is the
need of having so many of them? Why not hear less talk and
gossip, see fewer people and things, read less useless trash,
cultivate silence a little more, and make a little solitude
within ourselves, even when we cannot have it outside? If we will
not do this, if we will distract ourselves needlessly out of the
time of prayer, what wonder if we are distracted in it?
{374}
Come out of the multitude, then--the multitude of people that
surround you, and of unnecessary thoughts, words, and actions,
and see if your spiritual deafness and dumbness will not get
better. You will hear a good deal from God, and be able to say a
good deal to him that seems impossible now, if you will get a
little away from this crowd, and from the noise it makes.
-------------------------
{375}
_Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost._
Epistle.
2 _Corinthians iii._ 4-9.
Brethren:
Such confidence we have, through Christ towards God. Not that
we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves as of
ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God. Who also hath made
us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but
in the Spirit. For the letter killeth; but the Spirit giveth
life. Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters
upon stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could
not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his
countenance, which is done away: how shall not the ministration
of the Spirit be rather in glory? For if the ministration of
condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice
aboundeth in glory.
Gospel.
_St. Luke x._ 23-37.