Part 9

Let us now look about ourselves in society. Here is a man possessed with the desire for distinction and places of honor. His thoughts by day, and his dreams at night, are set upon them. He is a lawyer, and aims at being at the head of the bar, or at becoming a judge. He is a politician, he seeks to be an alderman, or a state senator, or a congressman. He knows not but one day he may be the president of the United States. Does he seek these by legitimate means? Not at all. To gain popularity he sacrifices all self-respect, and bribery is connived at to obtain votes. If his religion is likely to aid his efforts, he _uses_ it; you will find him in church, and he gives liberally about election times to its charitable institutions. {172} Should his religion stand in his way, he ceases to practice its duties. Should it serve his purpose, he becomes a free-mason, or an odd fellow, or a member of some other secret society.

Another is driven on by an inordinate desire for riches. Not content with the rewards of an honest trade, or a respectable business, he must make money easier and faster. He starts a saloon or a liquor store, and to conceal the low and disgraceful character of his traffic, he places on his house a sign in large letters, "Bonded Warehouse," "Rectifying Distillery," "Importer of Foreign Liquors," or some other like falsehood. His foreign and domestic wines and liquors, are made of bad spirits, some coloring matter and essences, with fusil oil; and these he deals out for genuine, making from two to three hundred per cent. profit. Under the plea of providing for a family, and it may be that he has neither chick nor child, he opens in the city several such--Rectifying Distilleries!! What does this man care about the scandal which he is the occasion of to his religion, or the poverty and wretchedness he spreads abroad in his neighborhood, or the number of souls which he sends to an untimely and unprepared grave, caused by his poisonous stuffs, so that he gain wealth without effort and rapidly.

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Another, a young man who is bent upon seeking pleasure. He frequents low theatres, ball-rooms, and bar-rooms. He meets companions, he gambles, and occasionally he puts his hand in the till of his employer's drawer, or he forges his paper. The effects of late hours, intoxication and debauchery, by and by, show themselves on his face, a faint picture of the corruption which these vices have produced in his heart. He ends his life as an uncurable in a public hospital; or detected, he spends his time and dies in a penitentiary.

Here is a girl whose mind and imagination are filled with parties of pleasure, and forbidden friendships, gathered for the most part from reading popular literature and infectious novels. Her prayers are forgotten, the sacraments neglected, and she dreams of amusements and romantic attachments. Dress, tone of voice, every step and movement of her person betray the inordinate passions which have taken possession, and reign now in her bosom. To fill up the sketch, all that is now needed is time and opportunity, to complete her ruin, and make her a public shame.

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From these illustrations it is easily seen which world it is that, as followers of Christ, we are to separate from. It is this world fabricated of error, of the abuse of created things, and engendered of inordinate desires. This is the world of which the Apostle speaks when he says: "_Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world the charity of the Father is not in him: for all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the Father but of the world_." [Footnote 66]

[Footnote 66: 1 John ii., 15-16.]

There is then a world which is formed of the things which God has made, and the right use of these things by us; and this is an innocent and righteous world, of which it is said: "_God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself_." [Footnote 67]

[Footnote 67: 2 Cor. v., 9.]

[Transcriber's note: The USCCB reference is 2 Cor. v., 19.]

There is a world which is made up of error, and the abuse men make of created things; and this is the wicked and ungodly world condemned in Holy Scripture. {175} On the one let us look with interest and delight, and from the other let us separate and stand far apart, as did our blessed Lord and his Saints, giving heed to the advice of St. Augustine: "Let the spirit of God be in thee," he says, "that thou mayest see that all these created things are good; but woe to thee if thou love the things made, and forsake the Maker of them! Fair are they to thee; but how much fairer He that formed them!"

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Sermon XI.

The Afflictions Of The Just.

"Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, because your reward is very great in heaven; for so they persecuted the Prophets that were before you." --St. Matt, v., 11, 12.

(From the Gospel for All Saints' Day.)

I am about to preach you an old sermon this morning; but I doubt not, my dear friends, you will find it all the better for being old, and quite appropriate, moreover, to this day's feast, for it will carry us back to the earlier ages of Christianity, when living saints were more abundant than now.

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In a vast desert of Palestine, which lay near the boundaries of Arabia, there dwelt, during the fourth century of the Christian era, a number of devout hermits, who, after a life of great innocence and saintly virtue, were cruelly massacred by the Saracens. Some of their brethren, deeply afflicted and scandalized by this outrage, began to ask themselves, how it was possible that God should permit such holy men to perish by the hand of these wicked infidels. In their perplexity, they deputed several of their number to visit and consult an aged Egyptian hermit who, on account of the great veneration in which he was held, and the number of disciples gathered around him, was called the Abba, or Abbot Theodore. These came to him with their sad story, and besought him to explain why God should permit such holy men to perish so miserably, and how he could consent to the triumph of these cruel barbarians over his saints.

I invite your particular attention, my brethren, to his answer; for perhaps you have asked similar questions yourselves. In the various wars in which nations have engaged, and even in those where the interests of religion seemed most involved, we do not see that victory has always perched upon those banners which the prayers of God's people have blessed. {178} So it has been throughout the history of the Church, and especially during the past three centuries. Who can recount the calamities which from year to year have fallen upon the children of the faith? The soul grows sick to read of kingdoms wrested by violence into schism and heresy, the burnings of monasteries and convents, or their confiscation to the state, the persecution of the Catholic clergy, the oppression of the laity. And especially when we turn our thoughts to Ireland, poor, faithful, down trodden Ireland--is it not wonderful that every thing seems to turn out to her disadvantage, and to the prosperity of her oppressors? Have you not sometimes been tempted to exclaim: "Has God forgotten Ireland? Has she clung to her faith so long in vain, amid poverty, oppression and bloodshed? Has heaven no favors for her? Why does not God give victory always to the just cause?" Or, perhaps, you have noticed in your own neighborhood, how often the most faithful servants of God have been visited by heavy afflictions, long sickness, loss of property, death of children and other dear friends, while others, destitute of faith, piety, and of all virtuous principle, seem to prosper on every hand. {179} And perhaps, seeing this, the thought arises in your mind: "Does not God take notice of these things? Has He no chastisement for the wicked, no sympathy for the good? Why does He not take part with his own, and make them prosper most?" All these murmurings are like those of the good anchorites who visited Abbot Theodore, and his answer to their questions will answer yours.

(_Prelude of Abbot Theodore_.)--"These questions, my brethren," said he, "only astonish those who, having little faith and little light, think that the saints ought to receive their recompense in this life, while God reserves it for them in the other. But we have far different thoughts. If our hopes in Christ were only for the present life, we should be, as St. Paul tells us, the most miserable among men, having no recompense in this world, and losing heaven also by our want of faith. We ought to guard our minds against this error, for it would leave us without hope or courage in the moment of temptation, fill us with distrust of God, and so bring us into sin, and to our ruin."

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After this short prelude, he goes on to show that God neither sends nor permits any real evil to those that love Him, but that, on the contrary, all things contribute to the welfare of the just. And this is his argument:

I. God Neither Sends Nor Permits Any Real Evil, &c.

"Every thing in this world," said the good abbot, "is either good, or bad, or indifferent. There is nothing really good but virtue, which conducts us to God. There is nothing really bad but sin, which separates us from God. In different things are such as hold a middle place between good and evil, and may pass into one or the other, according to the disposition of him that uses them. Such are riches, honor, health, beauty, life, death, sickness, poverty, injuries, insults, &c."

"This distinction laid, let us see whether God has ever sent any real evil to his saints, or permitted any one to do them a real injury. That is something that we shall never be able to make out. For no one is able to make a man fall into sin, who is unwilling and resists, but only those who consent to it, and give admittance to it, by the effeminacy of their hearts, and the depravity of their will. {181} The demon employed every possible artifice against holy Job to make him murmur against God; but in spite of all the afflictions which he heaped upon him, body and soul, he could not provoke him so far as to sin even with his lips, and thus fall into the only real evil he had to fear. We must not think, therefore, that the ill turns which our enemies or other persons sometimes do us are really evils, but they belong rather to the class of indifferent things. To be sure, they may think to have done us harm, and rejoice at it; but the harm does not depend upon what they may think, so long as we do not count it for such. For example: a good man is put to death, without any just cause or provocation. Now, we must not suppose that any thing really evil in itself has happened to him, but simply something which is either good or evil, according to circumstances. For, in truth, death, which is commonly counted to be an evil, comes with a blessing to the just man, for it delivers him from all the afflictions of this life. Thus death is no harm to him; and although the malice of his enemies anticipates the order of nature by leading him to a sudden death, the good man thereby only pays a little sooner a debt which he had to pay in any case, and he goes to receive an eternal crown, as the reward of his sufferings and death."

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Upon this, one of the party named Germanns, raised a difficulty. "In that case," said he, "we should have no reason to blame the murderer, since he does no harm to the one he kills, but only speeds him the sooner on to his salvation."

"We are speaking of things as they are in themselves," said Abbot Theodore, "and not of the intention of those who do them. The patience and virtue of the just man in his sufferings and death, is a crown to himself, but no justification of his persecutor. The latter will be punished for his cruelty, and for the evil which he intended to do, while the good man has in reality suffered no harm, but by his patience has changed into a blessing the evil which was devised against him. For example: the wonderful patience of Job was of no service to Satan, but it was of inestimable value to Job himself, who endured his trials with so much courage and resignation. {183} So Judas is none the less subjected to eternal torments, because his treason contributed to the salvation of men; for in the eye of divine justice, an action is not so much to be judged by its results, as by the intention of the person who did it."

These high, and holy maxims of Christian philosophy being thus firmly established, our good hermit, growing warm with his subject, begins to rise to still loftier and more beautiful conceptions, like a bee coming out from its search in the flower, and shaking the golden pollen from its wings.

II. All Things Contribute To The Welfare Of The Just.

"We say of some men that they are born to good luck, and that every thing they put their hands to turns out well. We deceive ourselves when we say this; it is only true of the Saints, and in a spiritual sense. '_We know_,' says St. Paul, '_that all things work together for good to them that love God_.' [Footnote 68]

[Footnote 68: Rom. viii., 28.]

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Wonderful truth! Beautiful truth! And the Prophet David says the same thing of every man whose will is in the Law of God: _All, whatsoever he shall do, shall prosper._ [Footnote 69]

[Footnote 69: Ps. i., 3.]

Now, when the Apostle says that '_all things work together for good_,' he means not only prosperity, but also what is called adversity. And why? Why, because those who truly and perfectly love God remain unchanged in all the vicissitudes of life. They have but one end in view--eternal life, and only one means to attain to it, namely, to do the will of God. This they can do in all weathers, in rain or sunshine. Indeed, like the stormy petrel, they gather most in stormy weather. For what reflecting Christian does not know the sweet uses of adversity, which, by severing the hopes that bound us to the earth, and opening our eyes to the fact that we are but pilgrims here, with a right of passage only, teach us to fix our hopes on heaven alone, and labor to build up our fortunes there? The great Apostle, who himself had passed through the various paths of adversity, teaches us how to turn all the vicissitudes of life, both its joys and sorrows, into golden occasions of merit, fighting our way onward to heaven, as he says, '_with the strength which God gives us, by the arms of justice, on the right hand and on the left;_' that is, as he goes on to explain, '_through honor and dishonor, through infamy and good name, as dying and behold we live, as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing, as having nothing and yet possessing all things?_' [Footnote 70]

[Footnote 70: 2 Cor. vi., 8-10]

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"All therefore, that passes for prosperity, and is consequently _on the right hand_, such as glory, and good reputation, and success in temporal affairs, and all that passes for adversity, and thus, according to the language of St. Paul, is _on the left hand_, such as disgrace and evil report, and temporal disappointment;--all to the perfect Christian serve alike for arms of justice, holy weapons to win his crown with, because he receives every thing that comes with the same great heart, and allows himself to be cast down by nothing. And therefore the Prophet says of him: '_The holy man continues in wisdom like the sun_.'[Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: Ecclus. xxvii. 12.]

[Transcriber's note: Ecclesiastes ends at chapter 12. Text is similar to Sirach xxvii. 11.]

But for those who change every moment, and show different humors and different dispositions of heart, according to the different chances and changes of life--let them listen to these words of the same Prophet, which were spoken for their especial benefit: _The fool changes like the moon.'_ [Footnote 72]

[Footnote 72: Ecclus. xxvii. 12.]

[Transcriber's note: The USCCB citation is Sirach xxvii. 11; "the godless man, like the moon, is inconstant."]

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And, therefore, every thing turns to evil for them, according to the proverb: '_Every thing to the foolish man is contrary_,' [Footnote 73] because he does not improve in prosperity, nor correct his ways in adversity. It will not do for the Christian to be like wax, which takes any form that may be impressed upon it; but like a diamond seal, he should keep unchangeably the form impressed upon his heart by the hand of God, showing no change in the different events of life.

[Footnote 73: Prov. xiv. 7. So in the lxx. ]

"In Holy Scripture [Footnote 74] we read of one Aod, a great warrior, and a leader of the Israelites, who was what is called an _ambidexter_, that is, he could use the left hand as well as the right. This man," said Abbot Theodore, "is a type of the perfect Christian, who is always an ambidexter, making use of both prosperity and adversity to advance the salvation of his soul, and increase his merits, fighting the good fight of faith, '_with the arms of justice, on the right hand and on the left_.'

[Footnote 74: Judges ii.]

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It is the duty of us all to exercise ourselves in the use of this holy armor, that we may, like Aod, be dexterous warriors, able to carry our swords in either hand, and meet our foes on whatever side they may advance, temperate in prosperity, patient in adversity, never fainting, always rejoicing, seeking for nothing, hoping for nothing, knowing nothing in this world but "Jesus Christ and Him crucified," and thus, by this blessed alchemy of the Saints, turning all things into gold.

"You see, therefore, my dear friends," so concluded the good hermit, "that we have no occasion to deplore the death of these saintly solitaries, as if they had suffered some great misfortune, or as if their enemies had triumphed over them; and still less have we any right to complain of God, as if He had forsaken or forgotten his own. On the contrary, they have gone to their rest, like the laboring man at night-fall; they have been shaken from the tree where they grew, like ripe figs in the harvest time, and their Divine Master has gathered them in. Their death was cruel and miserable in the eyes of man, but precious in the sight of God, for so the Psalmist tells us: '_Precious in the sight of God is the death of his Saints_.' [Footnote 75]

[Footnote 75: Psalm cxv., 15.]

[Transcriber's note: The USCCB reference is Psalm cxvi., 15.]

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Do not believe that, even if it were left to their choice, they would wish to come back again to this world, to live longer in it, nor would they choose any other death than that by which they have quitted it. Indeed there was little room for choice in the matter, since, as the Apostle says, '_for them to live was Christ and to die was gain_,' [Footnote 76] it being the privilege of the Saints to prosper in all that befalls them."

[Footnote 76: Phil, i., 21.]

[Transcriber's note: Similarly, Phil., 1., 23, "I long to depart this life and be with Christ, (for) that is far better."]

See! my dear brethren, it is not I that have been speaking to you, but an ancient Father of the desert. I have preached to you an old sermon, and well nigh word for word as it was spoken fifteen hundred years ago in the Egyptian wilderness. I have done so purposely, in order that you may take notice that the Christians of those early times were subject to disasters and afflictions as you are now, and tried by the same temptations. You see also what kind of consolation they found in their religion, what kind of counsel they received from their spiritual advisers, and how they turned their sorrows and adversities to good account. {189} Their time of trial was over long ago; and now they are happy. No doubt, they look back with pleasure upon those very sorrows, as belonging to the sweetest and holiest days of their pilgrimage on earth--days of patient resignation, and childlike trust, and Christian courage--days when they wept much, but prayed all the more--days when the current of earthly joys was at its lowest ebb-tide, but the waters of heavenly grace were at their fullest flood-tide, and therefore, days of golden gain. Oh! let it be so with you, my brethren, in your afflictions! What would you have? The Christians of other ages have journeyed on cheerfully toward heaven bearing their cross. Would you ride thither at your ease? Would you wear your crown without winning it? Would you be saved by the sufferings of Christ, and refuse to take your share of suffering? No! arm yourselves with Christian fortitude. Meet adversities patiently, manfully, trustfully, as these good Christians did of old. Be like them in the trials of this world, and then, like them too in the recompense of the other, "_your sorrows shall be turned into joy_," and your joy will be all the greater for the sorrows you have endured.

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Sermon XII.

False Maxims.

"Lord, that I may see." --St. Luke xviii., 41.

(From the Gospel for Quinquagesima Sunday.)

Blindness is a very common thing, if we may judge by the many false maxims afloat. We find them everywhere and in every thing, in politics, in business, in the government of children, in religion. Wherever they are, they are pernicious and destructive. In business they lead to bankruptcy and ruin; in politics to disunion, revolution and anarchy; in the government of families to dissipation and worthlessness. But of all false maxims, the most pernicious and destructive are those relating to religion: because they involve the loss of the soul, of all our interests, hopes, and happiness in one great ruin.

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There are many such. One will say: "It's no matter what a man's faith may be. All religions are alike, they are different roads that lead to the same end. Let a man only act right, and he can throw all creeds over board; whether Jew, Turk, Heathen, Protestant or Catholic, it makes no difference." A man who speaks thus is no Catholic, nor is he ever like to be. He has put out the light of Jesus Christ, who holds up to us "one faith, one Lord, one baptism," and gropes along to his ruin in a darkness of his own creation. But I don't mean to speak of such. I would rather speak of the false maxims of certain Catholics by which they persuade themselves that all will be right, though the Lord and Savior says that all is wrong, and so rush blindly to their ruin.