Chapter XII: Part 12

He is preparing in heaven beautiful and glorious mansions for these friends of yours, who are also friends of his, to make up for the miserable ones in which they have lived on earth. There are others like them which he is preparing for us all. He has gone to get them ready. "In my Father's house," said our Lord, "there are many mansions. ... I go to prepare a place for you."

These mansions are being prepared for you, but whether you enter into their possession depends very much on how you treat the poor, to whom they more properly belong. Be charitable, then, to them, for they have the keys of the homes which you will shortly have to seek.

And in your charity to the poor remember one who is always poor, at least in this country of ours. I mean God's holy church. She is a very great beggar, and a very tiresome one, I know--always asking you for more; it seems as if she would never be satisfied, and I do not believe she ever will. {342} But then she is a good friend of yours, and what you give to her is, like what you give to other poor people, more for your own good than for hers. For it is chiefly by her help that you are to reach those everlasting dwellings which our Lord promises to you. If you did not do anything for her it certainly would be hard for you to be saved; for it is through her that the means of salvation come. The more liberal you are to her the more liberally will those means be given to you; and if you think you have enough of them, and are quite sure of heaven with what you have got, certainly that is not the case with everybody; and you know we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves.

These, then, God's poor and his church, are the best friends you can make with the temporal means that he has given you, for they are the ones who can provide for you in that eternity which is coming so soon. Imitate the prudence of the steward, and you will not only make friends as he did, but you will also please your Master, which he did not, and obtain from Him who is your best friend an eternal reward.

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Sermon CII.

_Give an account of thy stewardship._
--St. Luke xvi. 2.

There is nothing said against the ability of this steward. On the contrary, he gives every evidence of being a shrewd business man. His investments had probably been prudent, and his debtors reliable men. The fault for which he is held blamable is carelessness. He had not kept his accounts squared up. {343} If the master had waited for the regular time of enquiring into his accounts, or had given him a little notice of his intention to do so, he would, in all probability, have found everything in excellent order, and have praised his steward for his good management. But he came upon him unawares, when he had many debts outstanding and his books were in disorder. This, in a business man, is inexcusable; and whenever we hear of a similar case we always condemn the unfortunate man, and say, "It served him right; he should have attended to his business." Little do we think, indeed, how our own words may some day stand witness against us. The application of the Gospel is too plain to need any explanation, but there is one point I would impress upon you particularly this morning: our carelessness. We are all stewards of our own souls, and concerning the care we have taken of them, the use to which we have put the many opportunities of merit, the investment, as it were, we have made of the innumerable graces offered us, we shall have to render a strict account, and at what moment we know not. We know that we have many debts, and that it would go hard with us if we had to meet them at once; we know that we have not straightened up our accounts for a long time, and that everything is in disorder. Yet we go on in the same careless way day after day and month after month. Sometimes we get messages and warnings from our Lord; a mission is preached, we meet with temporal reverses, or we are thrown on a bed of sickness and think our Lord is about to ask us for the account of our stewardship, and we make a hurried compromise with our sins, the best we can do under the circumstances. {344} But no sooner do we find the account is not really required than we fall back into the former careless way of conducting the business of our soul. Indeed, it is strange that women who are such good housewives, and men who give such careful attention to the temporal things of this life, are so utterly negligent when it comes to that which is the most important of all--the business of their soul. One would think they had no faith. The foolish excuses they make!--they are too much mixed up with the world to be pious, they have to attend to their family, and the like. As though they were not to save their soul in this world; as though the attending to their soul and the care of their family were two separate and distinct things! And then, when God, seeing that prosperity is not good for them, sends them reverses, they neglect their soul more than ever, and fail to see that if they had looked after their soul they might have been even better off in this world's affairs. Take a warning, then, my brethren, from the lesson of to-day's Gospel; keep the accounts of your soul in order, for you know not the time when the Master will say: "Give an account of thy stewardship." And let not those who make their Easter duty think the lesson does not apply to them, but let not a single month pass by without rendering an account to God.

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Sermon CIII.

_Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of iniquity,
that when you shall fail
they may receive you into everlasting dwellings._
--St. Luke xvi. 9.

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Every Christian knows our Lord does not intend to encourage men to love that which is entirely worldly. In fact, his caution often repeated, his most important warning to men, is that they do not love too much the riches of this world. He even tells us it is impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven unless God himself keep that man from loving his money and possessions more than he ought to do. This is what too often makes riches a mammon of iniquity. The words can also be taken to mean riches gained by fraud, robbery, or unjust dealing of any kind. Men of the world will say this is all the words can mean. God, however, has more to say about it. In his mind these words include all that a man may gain from motives which are impure and mean in the sight of God. Now, the duty of every man is to look at everything as God looks at it. He must find out God's opinion of what is right or wrong, and make that opinion the law of his own life. The words "mammon of iniquity" mean, therefore, not only riches and possessions gained unjustly, but also that honor, esteem of men, that social position, or that high office gained by sinful actions or from bad motives. What, then, is a man to do who has offended God in this way? If he has gotten unjustly money or property he must restore it, be it much or little. But, one may say, "I will lose my reputation if I give it back. I shall be found out." This is not true in most cases. A man can restore privately. He can see that the one he has wronged gets back again that which belongs to him. He is not obliged to tell him who took it from him. If it cannot be done by himself without losing his good name, let him tell his confessor about it. He will manage it for him. The priest is ordained and instructed in order to help him in this as well as in other difficulties. {346} Moreover, what sort of a good name is that which that man knows is a false one? If not dead to sincerity of spirit that man must feel like a hypocrite. He must feel that he is not even the shadow of an honest man so long as he is called by a name he does not deserve. He must sometimes long to be again a truly honest man. Let him restore, and then he will be again an honest man. He will then have that peace which is more to him than wealth or honor of this world. At least let him tell the priest about it. He makes a great mistake who stays away from confession because he has done wrong. The confessor can help him when he cannot help himself. He can make it easy for him to do right when it seems hard. Another will say: "I have taken a little from this one and a little from that one. I do not know the people I have wronged." Then give what is gained unjustly to the poor. The law of the land, as well as God's law, will not permit a man to keep that which he has gained dishonestly. The one who restores in this manner adds good works to his act of restitution. He relieves God's poor; he clothes the naked and feeds the hungry; he gains the prayers of the poor, whom God has promised to hear always. These prayers bring blessings on his head, true sorrow for sin into his soul, and secure for him the grace of a happy death. Riches of injustice thus used will make friends who will get for him by their prayers an everlasting habitation in heaven. What other things are included in the riches of injustice? All that is valued by pride, ambition, self-love, vanity. All that man loves in this world because it makes him appear to be above his fellow-men. The proud, ambitious, selfish, and vain man has robbed God of the glory and honor due to him alone. {347} He has worked for himself alone, and forgotten God, except to use God for his own private benefit. This man will often make bad confessions and communions in order to appear to be good. But what riches of injustice has he gained? He has gotten a pleasant manner, a sweet smile, a habit of talking respectfully to every one whose praise is pleasing to him, who can bring him custom or give him a vote for office. These things, good in themselves, are made bad by the motive in his heart. Let this man change his motive and all will be right. He must use these same manners and smiles for God's sake. He must show that respect to every one, high or low, rich or poor. He must do this for the love of God and love of all men, for God's sake. This man, also, will then have gained the prayers of the poor by repairing in this way sins of pride, ambition, and self-love. He will find he has gained friends with the riches of injustice who will cause him to be received into everlasting habitations.

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{348}

_Ninth Sunday after Pentecost._

Epistle.
1 _Corinthians x._ 6-13.

Brethren:
We should not covet evil things, as they also coveted. Neither
become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written: "The
people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." Neither
let us commit fornication, as some of them committed
fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty
thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ: as some of them tempted,
and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur: as some of
them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all
these things happened to them in figure; and they are written
for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
Wherefore let him that thinketh himself to stand, take heed
lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as
is human. And God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be
tempted above that which you are able; but will make also with
temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.

Gospel.
_St. Luke xix._ 41-47.

At that time:
When Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the city, he wept over
it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day,
the things that are for thy peace; but now they are hidden from
thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee: and thy enemies
shall cast a trench about thee: and compass thee round, and
straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the ground,
and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in
thee a stone upon a stone: because thou hast not known the time
of thy visitation.
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And entering into the temple, he began to cast out them that
sold therein, and them that bought, saying to them: It is
written: "My house is the house of prayer"; but you have made
it a den of thieves. And he was teaching daily in the temple.

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Sermon CIV.

_My house is the house of prayer.
But you have made it a den of thieves._
--St. Luke xix. 46.

What made our Lord so severe with these people of whom the Gospel tells us, who were selling and buying in the temple? He was usually gentle and mild, not violent, as on this occasion. He was generally content with reproving what was wrong; here he resorted to force--that force which no one could resist, and which he could always have used if he had chosen; by which he could have destroyed all his enemies in a moment, if he had seen fit to do so. And he not only made these buyers and sellers leave the house of God, but he drove them out in confusion, and also, as we read elsewhere, overturned the tables and chairs which they had used.

Well, one reason for his severity probably was that those who sold were making an unjust profit out of the necessities of those who bought; for the things which they were selling were such as had to be offered by the people for the sacrifices of the temple, and could not well be obtained by them anywhere else. But I think his principal motive was to impress on his followers, and on us who were to come after them, a lesson which we are very apt to forget. He wanted to teach it to us in such a way that we could not forget it: and therefore he made use of this extraordinary means.

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This lesson is contained in the words which he quotes from his prophet Isaias: "My house is the house of prayer." These words were true of the temple in which he then was, but they have a more special reference to the temples in which he now dwells, in which he dwells continually, which he did not in that temple, magnificent as it was.

You know, or ought to know, what these temples are. They are our churches, where he is all the time, in his Real Presence, in the Blessed Sacrament. These are the temples of which that in Jerusalem was only a figure or type.

The church is the place for prayer. That is the lesson for us, and we were, as I have said, the ones whom he chiefly wanted to instruct. For prayer--that is, for acts of religion of all kinds--and for nothing else. It is the place to think of God and to speak to him, and not to do anything else, innocent though it be.

It is not a place to talk or laugh in. You know that well enough, and would not, I suppose, laugh or talk; at any rate not much in church, especially if Mass was being celebrated or if there were a good many people there. But perhaps that would be because you would be afraid of what these people would say or think of you; for there are persons who, sometimes when nobody seems to be looking, do not scruple to have quite a nice little conversation, which might just as well be put off till some other time, if, indeed, there was any need for it at all.

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The church is not a place to stare around in, or to see what is going on, except at the altar. And yet there are persons who come to it, especially if there is to be a wedding or some other event of general interest, simply for this purpose and for nothing else. Perhaps they will kneel down a little while for form's sake; but they did not enter God's house to pray for themselves or for anybody else, but only to gratify their worldly curiosity by seeing how people look or behave, and to have something to talk about, possibly to make fun about afterwards, if not, indeed, at the time.

And that reminds me of another thing. The church is not the place to see what kind of clothes people have on, or to show off one's own good clothes. It is a place to be well dressed in, as far as one's means will properly allow; but that is in order to give honor to God, not to win it from one another. It is the place to dress neatly, but not showily; not in such a way as to attract the eyes of others, and draw their thoughts from those things on which they should then be employed.

And this again suggests something else; that is, that our thoughts, as well as our words and actions, belong specially to our Lord when we are in his presence, before his altar. Let us take particular care about this. If we take care of our thoughts our words and actions will take care of themselves.

And let us remember that when we spend our time in church unworthily we are stealing something from God. What is this that we are stealing? It is the time and the honor that he has a right to expect from us. It is because of these thefts that he can truly say to us: "My house is the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves." This seems strong language; but do we not deserve it if we take from our Lord the little that he claims as his own? {352} He may have called those who sold in the temple thieves, because they were cheating their neighbors; but is it not as bad to cheat him? Let us, then, be sorry for this cheating of ours, and try to make restitution in the time that is to come.

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Sermon CV.

_God is faithful, who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that which you are able._
--1 Corinthians x. 13.

Some people seem to think that their sins are principally God's fault. A great many of you, my dear friends, who are listening to me now have frequently, I have no doubt, said as much. Of course you will say, and very rightly too, that such a charge against the good God is a horrible blasphemy; but, for all that, you have often been guilty of it.

You will, I think, want me to prove this before you will fully believe it. Well, it is very easy to do so. Have you never, when you accused yourself of some sin, said that you could not help it? You got in a passion, for instance, perhaps quite frequently, and spoke angry words, which of course you were sorry for afterwards; but you say that at the time you could not help it.

What follows, then, if what you say is true? Why, in the first place, it follows, of course, that it was not your fault that you sinned; that in fact it was no sin for you at all, for if a person really cannot help doing a thing he is not to blame for it. But it was a sin; you acknowledge that; so if it was not your sin it must have been somebody else's. {353} And that somebody else must have been Almighty God. He was answerable for the sin by not giving you the grace to avoid it. That is what it amounts to when you say that you could not help committing sin.

This horrible blasphemy, which then certainly is implied by the words, "I could not help it"--this blasphemy, which makes God the author of sin and responsible for it, is what St. Paul denies in the words from the Epistle of to-day which I have read to you. He says: "God is faithful"; he does give you enough grace. "He will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able"; he will not let you have a temptation so strong that, with the grace which he gives you, you cannot resist it.

There are some things which one cannot help, but sin is not one of them. If a hot coal falls on one's hand one cannot help feeling pain from it; and in the same way one cannot help feeling the fire of temptation with which God is sometimes pleased that we should be tried. But sin, which is the giving way of the will to temptation, one can always help. Sin, the giving way to temptation, is like holding the hot coal in your hand after it has fallen there.

You do not want to hold the coal in your hand; but you do want to give way to temptation, because there is something pleasant in that. It is more pleasant to give way than to resist it; if it were not it would not be a temptation. It relieves your mind to say that angry word when you are provoked. It is hard often to resist temptation; that is the amount of it. But it is not impossible.

{354}

Never say, then, when you accuse yourself of anything with which your conscience really reproaches you, that you could not help it. Do not say it, unless you wish to blaspheme God and throw the blame of your sin upon him. Remember that he is faithful, and does not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; and say, rather, "It was hard to help it; I was very much tempted, but I could have resisted, and I am very sorry that I did not."

I know that is what you mean very often when you say, "I could not help it." Say, then, what you mean, for it will help you very much the next time. It will put you in mind of what you must know to be the truth--that is, that you could have kept from sin; and when you are convinced of this you will, if you are in earnest, use all the means you have to do so. Above all you will see that one great reason why it was so hard to resist temptation was that, though you had grace enough to do so, you did not have enough to make it easy; and you will pray hard to get that abundant help which God will give to all who continually ask it from him.

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{355}

_Tenth Sunday after Pentecost._

Epistle.
1 _Corinthians xii._ 2-11.

Brethren:
You know that when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols,
according as you were led. Wherefore I give you to understand,
that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith Anathema to
Jesus. And no man can say, The Lord Jesus, but by the Holy
Ghost. Now there are diversities of graces, but the same
Spirit: and there are diversities of ministries, but the same
Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but the same
God, who worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the
Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one, indeed, by
the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom: to another, the word
of knowledge according to the same Spirit: to another, faith in
the same Spirit; to another, the grace of healing in one
Spirit: to another, the working of miracles: to another,
prophecy: to another, the discerning of spirits: to another,
divers kinds of tongues: to another, interpretation of
speeches: but all these things one and the same Spirit worketh,
dividing to every one according as he will.

Gospel.
_St. Luke xviii._ 9-14.

At that time:
To some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others,
Jesus spoke this parable: Two men went up into the temple to
pray: the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The
Pharisee, standing, prayed thus with himself: O God! I give
thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners,
unjust, adulterers, nor such as this publican. I fast twice in
the week: I give tithes of all that I possess.
{356}
And the publican, standing afar off, would not so much as lift
up his eyes towards heaven; but struck his breast, saying: O
God! be merciful to me a sinner! I say to you, this man went
down to his house justified rather than the other; because
every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that
humbleth himself shall be exalted.

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Sermon CVI.

_Two men went up into the temple to pray:
the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican._
--St. Luke xviii, 10.

There are not supposed to be any Pharisees nowadays, and the word "publican" is getting rather old-fashioned; so perhaps, before applying this parable to our own times, we had better understand who the Pharisees and the publicans were.

The Pharisees, in our Lord's time, were a very religious class among the Jews, very strict and correct in their belief, and with very strict consciences, too--strict, at least, about some things, particularly about such things as concerned their reputation for piety. About other matters they were sometimes rather too easy and charitable--easy and charitable, that is, to themselves; for it is quite possible that they might have criticised others for faults not very different from their own, as when this Pharisee in the Gospel called the poor publican standing in the corner an extortioner, or robber, as perhaps the word is better rendered; forgetting, it may be, some little transactions which, if rightly understood, might have fixed as bad a name on himself.

{357}

These publicans, on the other hand, were not in any way a religious set of people; they did not pretend, like the Pharisees, to be so, nor were they in point of fact. They were called publicans because they collected the public taxes; they were blamed by the people, and with good reason, for extorting money unjustly from the poor. Their business was really, in those times, a proximate occasion of sin; this was the reason why St. Matthew, who was a publican before our Lord called him to be an apostle, never went back to his business again, as St. Peter did to his innocent occupation as a fisherman. The publican of this parable also, no doubt, had either made up his mind to give up his sinful life or was endeavoring to do so.

Both of these men, the Pharisee and the publican, were sinners. In that they were alike; the difference between them was that the publican acknowledged that he was a sinner and was trying to amend his life, while the Pharisee thought that he was perfect, or that, if he had any faults, they were such as no one could avoid, and which his Maker would readily overlook, especially in a person of his exalted piety.

Now, I said in the beginning that there were not supposed to be any Pharisees nowadays: but I think that we shall find that there are some people of this kind, even among us Christians; and perhaps, if we go down very deep into our own consciences, we shall even find that we are Pharisees ourselves.

Some of these Pharisees make excellent confessions. They show a care in their examination of conscience equal to that of the saints; they have the most accurate knowledge of every fault, and are willing to go into every detail, if they are permitted to do so. This delicacy of perception of sin is a quality which certainly commands our admiration; but there is a circumstance which prevents this admiration from being quite unlimited. {358} This circumstance is that the faults which they are so keenly alive to are not their own. They are those of other people with whom they live, or of whom they hear through some person of the same sort of sensitive conscience that they themselves have.

The world, in the eyes of these sensitive people, certainly has a melancholy aspect. Everybody is doing wrong, and nobody is doing right--nobody, that is, except themselves. They, thank God! are not so bad. They are innocent sufferers, enduring a continual martyrdom at the hands of these wicked people who live in the same house or close by. Their only consolation here below is to tell their friends how much they suffer, and how much others suffer, from these sinners. Others, it is true, may deserve it, but they themselves certainly never have. They wish that they were dead and out of reach of their persecutors. The most curious thing is that one of their great causes of annoyance is the way that other people will carry stories; this is the story that they spend their lives in carrying.

Perhaps you think this picture is overdrawn. I hope it is. And I do not believe that many people are such thorough Pharisees as these whom I have described. But there is too much, a great deal too much, of the Pharisaic spirit about us all.

And not nearly enough of the spirit of the publican--of humility, 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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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_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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.