Part 17

Yes, my dear brethren, I think this is the cause of a great deal of the sickness that is sent upon us. The fever, the cholera, the accident, are good preachers, and they make themselves heard. I do not wonder, then, to see men compelled to listen to their threatening tones, and their souls terrified at their menacing gestures of death, and their eloquent descriptions of the coffin and the grave. The words of God's appointed preacher fall unheeded upon their ears. As long as they have strength enough to hear us, they have courage enough to disobey us. But God shows them a vision of a newly made grave, and causes their feet to totter upon its brink, that they may not go down into it unabsolved.

O blessed sickness! how many wandering souls have you not brought back to a forgotten God! How many almost lost have you not snatched from the jaws of hell! God is a kind and thoughtful Father to us, when we often think Him a hard and cruel Master. Like a surgeon, the deeper and more hidden the wound, the more resolutely does he cut down upon it, and lay it open, in order to effect a radical cure. He chastises us in mercy here, that He may spare us at His judgment-seat in the day of His wrath.

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Why are you sick, you who have no grievous crimes to expiate--you whose whole heart has belonged to God this many a day? Because you are the object of His special graces, and a chosen vessel of election. What is the secret of this apparent contradiction? God wishes to try you, and prove your constancy. Not that He doubts you. On the contrary, He knows how true your heart is. He has every confidence in your fidelity. But He wishes to glorify that fidelity. He wishes to give you a chance to show that you can trust Him in the darkness as well as in the light. He strikes you, that you may have glorious wounds to show at the last day. Do you not know that to suffer for any one is to give a better proof of love than to confer favors and benefits? You have done a good deal for God, I know. He does not forget it. He asks you to give up that which it is the hardest thing in the world to sacrifice--your health. It seems the most unreasonable thing to sacrifice. Your friends and neighbors pity you. They know how much good you were able to do when you were strong and well. They regret to see your usefulness cut off. That usefulness was your constant self-sacrifice for the good of your neighbor. They would like to see that go on. They forget that God wants you to do a little self-sacrifice for Him, for Him alone, just as if there were no one in existence except you and He in the whole universe. This is why you are sick and suffering. {302} Rejoice, then, O Christian sufferer! and bear your cross, not only with patience and resignation, but with holy joy and a thankful heart. Your labors are accepted in His sight, and only this is yet wanting to you--the merit of suffering for Him.

My brethren, this is, I well know, a strange doctrine in the ears of the world, and especially to the unbelieving world around us in our day. Meritorious suffering is something which our Protestant friends not only do not comprehend, but laugh at, so that to most of them, even the very passion and death of our Lord is an enigma. They may believe it, but it is an unreasonable belief on their part, for they ridicule the very principle upon which its reasonableness is founded.

The Catholic Church teaches us that there is a merit in suffering, in voluntary mortification, in fasting and abstinence, in giving up the world, its friendships and its pleasures; that it is meritorious and pleasing to God for the priest and the virgin to deny themselves the joys and comforts of the married state; in a word, that God is glorified as well by suffering as by act. This is her principle. It is the only principle which can give any reasonable explanation of the atoning sacrifice of our Lord, and to deny it is to deny Christ.

Accidental, or rather Providential, suffering, such as we have in sickness, is turned to the same account, and sanctified by our offering it to God in the spirit of sacrifice; for it is not in the act of suffering itself, but in the will, that merit is obtained.

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Now, my brethren, you see in what spirit we should receive and endure sickness. The will should accept it at once, calmly, willingly, without murmur or complaint. It is God's will. That should be sufficient. Our own will must respond and make an entire and generous offering of it. In the beginning of sickness, then, let us say, O my God! I accept this at your hands with all the pain I shall suffer, whatever may be the reason you have so willed it, in satisfaction for my sins, as an admonition to lead a better life, and as a happy chance to suffer something for your sake in union with the sufferings of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Help me by your grace to profit by it as you desire.

While the sickness lasts, let us often look back upon God, as a gallant knight upon a perilous journey thinks upon his liege lord, whose behests are his law, and whose honor is in his hands, renewing again and again our first fervent offering and oath of fidelity. There will be times when we need to think upon God--times of trial and temptation, when nothing but the thought of God will support us. For there are moments of suffering, when our nearest and dearest friends are dumb in our presence; when the friendly hand, uncertain, stops and hesitates before us, fearing lest too rudely it may draw aside the veil that shrouds our anguish--agonizing moments when all human thought and language dies upon the threshold. {304} Happy the soul who then knows whither to turn for that longed-for comfort which the world in its weakness cannot give! Happy is he who has learned the secret of sanctifying suffering! For such the Lord's words have a meaning: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."

These thoughts and the lessons they teach appear to my mind not inappropriate to the season through which we are passing. Nature is putting on her autumn garb of sombre tints, telling us that her strength and beauty are passing away, and that her days of brightness are declining. The woods, once vocal with the song of birds, now begin to look lonely and deserted. Their stillness is broken only by the rustling fall of the dry and withered leaves, like the stealthy and hushed footsteps heard in the sick chamber. The sighing of the winds through the branches robbed of their crown of verdure is mournful in the ears of the listener, as the low, dreamy moanings in a sick man's sleep. They both speak of decay and whisper of death. Of those of us, my brethren, for whom God is preparing the couch of sickness, against whose sight the light of day will be shut out, and upon whose prostrate form the shadows of suffering will soon fall, some will rise and walk forth in the warm sunshine of a hopeful spring, and some, like the fallen leaves, will never flourish again, but lie, like them, to crumble, decay, and mingle with the dust. {305} Their white pall of the winter snow shall also be ours. The fierce winter storm shall howl its doleful requiem over our heads as it passes by, but we shall not heed it. The earth shall smile in beauty again, but not for us.

Oh! be it for us as it may--God knoweth! it will be well for us to have thought upon sickness, and to have prepared our souls for the trial. If health be again granted to us, we shall return to it again all the better for having known how to receive it and how to improve its time. If not, then, when our name shall have become a memory, and our form a vision of the never-returning past, we shall look back from the further shore of the dark river of death over which we have passed, and be glad that we learned how to lean upon God in those last dreadful hours in life, glad that we offered to Him beforehand the willing sacrifice of health and strength and life, and thus ascended from the altar of the bed of suffering, as a victim of acceptable merit in the sight of Him who rewards, more than tongue can tell, the least we ever do or suffer for His sake.

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Sermon XXI.

Thoughts For Advent.

(For The Third Sunday Of Advent.)

Philippians iv. 8.

"__For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are modest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are holy, whatsoever things are amiable, whatsoever things are of good repute; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise of discipline, think on these things__."

The Christian is so deeply impressed with the truth, that a time will come when his faith will be changed to sight, his hope be realized in reward, and his charity be perfected in the enjoyment of all that is good, that he may be said to have this thought always uppermost in his mind. It regulates his conduct, consoles him in affliction, cheers him in the hour of darkness and of doubt, and puts in his mouth and hands the words and deeds of encouragement to his fellows. It is a magnetic thought, which, amid the storms and tempests of life, and through all its weary wanderings, keeps one's heart ever turned towards God and eternity. {307} This blessed time for which we are all looking is the coming of the Lord, the manifestation and glorious consummation of the Kingdom of God. As the Apostle expresses it: "Looking for the blessed hope and coming of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." [Footnote 111]

[Footnote 111: Ep. Titus ii. 13.]

The holy season of Advent brings this truth more strongly before us, and directs our thoughts to it by the Gospel prophecies of the second advent of Christ, and by the warnings to prepare for it which St. Paul gives so often in his epistles. The words of the text follow immediately the admonition of the great Apostle which the Church has chosen for the third Sunday of Advent: "The Lord is nigh." Let us to-day, then, think on these things, and endeavor to make these thoughts profitable.

I. __Whatsoever things are true__. Here is a thought worth thousands. We look around us, and see so much insincerity, duplicity, and double-dealing; we meet so many who will overreach us with a friendly smile on their countenance, and cheat us without a blush, that we are tempted both to exclaim with David, in haste, "All men are liars," and to descend from our Christian stand-point of high integrity and noble frankness, in order to cope with the world after its own fashion, and meet it with its own weapons. {308} But it is an unfortunate day for the Christian when he begins to forget or disbelieve in what is true, and to think on what is false. His mind is quickly pervaded with a subtle poison, which induces a meanness towards his fellow-men--a distrust of their good faith, and ends in a practical disbelief of the Providence of God. To him such unmerited success as attends the corrupt and swindling practices of the day is at first astonishing. The wicked seem to have it all their own way, and profit by the delay, and despite the coming of the hour when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed before the judgment-seat of Christ. His Christian simplicity and candor gives way little by little before the attacks of this lying spirit; his faith in truth, honesty, and pure motives is gone, and his practice is not slow to follow his faith.

It is a trite saying that the world is full of humbug, but it is a degrading thought; and to accept this saying as a universal truth, or as the guide of his actions, is unworthy of the Christian man. I envy not the man who acts on the despicable maxim, "Treat every man as a rogue until he has proved himself honest." Rather, a thousand times, would I trust in the power of truth, be true to myself, and, if need be, suffer the loss thereby; for he who has cheated me is the loser in the end, while I have preserved, for a small price, that which is above value, my Christian honor and loyalty to truth.

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Sincerity and candor are not dead, neither has humbug killed them. There are many true people in the world, be there ever so many hypocrites; and truth is always living, real, indestructible, for it lives with a divine, immortal life. Remembering our blessed Lord's words, then, let our "speech be always yea, yea, and nay, nay; for that which is over and above these is of evil." [Footnote 112] Whatsoever things are true, let us think on these.

[Footnote 112: St. Matt. v. 37.]

From another point of view, what a thought that is for those who are out of the pale of the Catholic Church! Have they the true faith? Have they now that truth which shall stand the trial at the coming of Jesus Christ? Do they consider their present state a true one in all respects--true before their conscience, and without doubt before their intelligence? Do they regard their religion as a sure religion? What a serious thought it ought to be for many of them who are even now struggling with the strong power of duty, which bids them make their calling and election sure, by embracing, at all hazards, and with ready obedience and trust in God, that truth in the Holy Catholic Church, without which they would not now dare to die. {310} Oh! how earnestly, sincerely, and courageously ought they to listen to the Apostle's words, and think upon those things which are true!

There is one of the eight beatitudes for those who think upon the truth. It is the first: "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven"--the poor in spirit; the simple in heart and mind; a heart and mind to which cunning, duplicity, or falsehood is both strange and repulsive. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven which Christ will bring at His coming, who are poor and humble in spirit, receiving God's truth as a little child, and not rejecting it with high-minded and arrogant self-will, or with proud disdain. Brethren, whatsoever things are true; let us think on these things during the Holy Advent time.

II. __Whatsoever things are modest__. Modesty is a marked and well-known characteristic of the Christian. No one would ever think of using the expressions, "heathen modesty" or "Mohammedan modesty," simply because it is neither a heathen nor a Mohammedan virtue. The Apostle evidently uses it here in the sense of reservedness of action which springs from true humility of heart. This displays itself in a most pleasing manner to us in the persons of those who, though endowed with some remarkable talent or accomplishment, yet, through the Christian humility they possess, are not on that account arrogant and puffed up, but bear their honors meekly, and with gentle, unassuming manners.

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So with their natural gifts. God has given to some, more than to others, beauty of face or form, or some personal qualification which excites our admiration or affection. And in those who are thus favored, how much all this beauty is enhanced by the softened halo which Christian modesty and reserve throws about them! Who would pretend to compare the beauty of the haughty and sensual Magdalen, flaunting her profane charms in the streets of Capharnaum, the theme for the toasts of libertines, to the beauty of the saintly and almost angelic penitent, bathing the feet of Jesus with her tears, and wiping them with her dishevelled hair!

He whose thoughts are modest cultivates an unselfish spirit. Alas! what with our fund of pride, our intolerant self-will, and ungovernable temper, how much we need to think on whatsoever things are modest! How prone we are to stand upon our rights; how ready to quarrel with and grumble about our neighbors! A profitable thought for the Advent time, St. Paul urged this especially: "Let your modesty be known of all men." And why so? Because "the Lord is nigh." Yes, He is nigh who taught us a similar lesson: "Learn of Me; for I am meek and humble of heart." [Footnote 113]

[Footnote 113: St. Matt. xi. 29.]

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At His coming He will recognize for His own flock, not the wolves, but the sheep; not the bold-faced and giddy votaries of fashion and pleasure, but the meek and humble Christians, whose beauty is the beauty of their holiness. It is not the useless thorns and briers, which no one can approach without being wounded, but the hidden and inoffensive wheat that will be gathered into the garner of the Lord.

There are two beatitudes for the modest-minded--the second and the third: "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." And again; "Blessed are the mourners: for they shall be comforted." For the meek and modest, who possess as though they had not; who teach as though they learned; who rule as though they obeyed; whose beauty of body and soul shines among men as though they but reflected that of others; whose inheritance is renunciation, and whose wealth is in their gifts; for them is the whole earth reserved, in its beauty and its glory, at the coming of the Lord. For the blessed mourners, whose perfection in Christian modesty has led them to fly all worldly honors and escape its flatteries; to exchange the gay paths of life for the tearful road of penance, and whose contrite and humble hearts God has promised not to despise--for them is dawning an everlasting day of comfort.

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III. __Whatsoever things are just__. The just man always desires to act honorably and fairly in his dealings. The Christian is required to give anxious thought as well to the obligations he has contracted towards his neighbor. The closing year naturally brings these obligations to mind; the debts that are owing, the promises made, and the claims for support which others hold against us; and it is a mark of the good, conscientious Catholic that he is anxious about these things, and is earnestly striving to discharge them.

A wise thought for Advent. For now the Lord is nigh, the day of His Judgment approaches, when all wrongs will be made right. The unjust escape payment here, through some quibble in the law, or through practices of chicanery and partial testimony of which they take an unfair advantage, but whose unpaid debts and hidden thefts will not escape the memory of their righteous Judge on the last day. Let our thoughts be, then, to render quickly unto every man his due, "because the Lord cometh, because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with His truth."

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He who thinks upon whatsoever is just will think upon the poor. It is the word of God, that "the just taketh notice of the poor, but the wicked is ignorant of them." [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: Prov. xxix. 7.]

God has given to the poor and needy rights which no Christian man can ignore. They are committed to him by his Master, and their Friend and Protector, to be taken care of, to be thought about, to be sought out and ministered unto. Oh! a thousand times happier is he who in Advent time thinks upon the poor: when winter, with his icy blasts, is making the poor shiver with cold and nakedness; when the poor man goes sadly home to find the cupboard bare and his little ones moaning for hunger; when lonely widows and friendless girls, whose homes are in hovels and cheerless garrets, sit up far into the night with no fire in the stove, warming their weary and chilled fingers over the candle, that they may be able to ply the needle that keeps them from starvation. Oh! blessed is that man who, knowing no hunger or thirst for his body, yet hungers and thirsts in his soul after justice for the poor; whose thoughts revert to them when the weather grows colder, and the storm howls more fiercely, and can say when he lays his head upon his pillow at night: "Thank God, I have not forgotten them to-day!"

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You all know the beatitude in store for those who think on what is just. It is the fourth: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall be filled." Yes, God will reward them plenteously. The Psalmist says of them: "The just shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus; they shall increase to a fruitful old age, that they may show that the Lord our God is righteous." [Footnote 115]

[Footnote 115: Ps. xci. 13, 15.] [USCCB: Ps. xcii. 13, 15.]

IV. __Whatsoever things are holy__. The vice of the world is irreligion. Its votaries do not believe in sanctity. Unholy in their lives, so are their thoughts. They are ever ready to scoff at holy persons and things, and to stigmatize the pious as hypocrites. But the Christian is slow to suspect evil. To his pure mind all things are pure. His religion, which is the law of his life, he knows to be replete with holiness; that it is holy in doctrine, holy in its moral teachings, and glorious in the great multitude of its saints. And just so far as his religion guides him, and exercises its hallowing influence over him, just so far will he delight to think upon what is holy and pure. There are times when the evil we are forced to witness becomes a severe trial to us. Scandals are now and then brought to light which grieve the saints, bring the blush of shame to the cheek of the good Christian, and not unfrequently destroy the faith of the lukewarm. {316} "Scandals must needs come," said our Saviour; but is it, therefore, necessary for us to think about them and brood over them? No; there is good enough for our thoughts, good enough for us to glory in, and for which to praise God. The Church never bears her name in vain. She is always the __Holy__ Catholic Church; and we should rather be striving to prove that holiness in our own lives, "pressing forward towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," than stay and linger on the way, losing our time in mourning an evil we see and cannot remove.

There is a beatitude for those whose thoughts are holy. It is the sixth: "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God." The pure-minded, the holy in heart, are those who are most dear to God. Brethren, this is a blessing worth winning, and it is easily won. Remember that the Lord is nigh. Keep your thoughts in the presence of God, and you will prepare your hearts and minds to see Him in the clear vision of His glory, which is promised to the clean of heart.

V. __Whatsoever things are amiable__. To the Christian there is something sacred in all the beauties of nature and of grace. In everything he sees the hand of God, and all the acts of Providence are admirable, and he does not need to be told that they are the best that could happen. {317} One who has such thoughts is sure to be a kind-hearted soul. The world wears easily with him, for he sees only what is pleasant, is long mindful of favors, and quickly forgets and forgives injuries. If his friends happen to be at a disagreement with him, or even among one another, it is a positive pain to him. He is uneasy until it is all made up again. It gives him unfeigned delight to bring about a reconciliation between people at variance. Oh! charming and beautiful is such a soul! Sweet is the interior peace which it enjoys. He is filled with thoughts of kindness and gentleness because he thinks on those things that are amiable.

There is a beatitude for such. It is the seventh: "Blessed are the peace-makers: for they shall be called the children of God." Let us strive, dear brethren, to merit this blessing during holy Advent time, when we are preparing to meet our Lord, who came to bring peace on earth to men of good-will.