Chapter VI: Part 6

I think, brethren, one can hardly read the above account of the Transfiguration of our dear Lord without having suggested to our minds one of the most beautiful of the many services of the Catholic Church. I mean the rite of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. We ourselves are the three disciples. The mountain up into which our Lord brings us is the holy altar. His face, shining as the sun, is represented to us by the bright lights that cluster round his throne, and by the refulgence of the rays of the monstrance which contains him. Then his garments are indeed as white as snow; for he veils his divinity under the form of the purest wheaten bread, and hides himself beneath its appearances as though he should wrap his sacred Body in pure white raiment. Then the bright cloud is the floating incense, and the voice out of the cloud the tinkling bell, which seems to say to us as Jesus is held aloft and as we bend low in adoration: "This is God's beloved Son, in whom he is well pleased." {162} So then, the Gospel for to-day naturally suggests to our minds a few reflections on this great devotion of the church--Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Now, a great many persons seem to think that Benediction is only "tacked on," as it were, to the office of Vespers. This idea is all wrong. To be sure. Benediction is often given directly after Vespers, but it is an entirely separate and distinct service. Vespers end with the Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin; Benediction begins when the Holy Sacrament is taken from the tabernacle and placed in the costly metal frame called the monstrance, or ostensorium. So, then, Benediction is not part of Vespers, or of any function which may precede it; and I want to make this very clear, because I think the false notion that it is merely something supplementary is a reason why so many people neglect it. What, then, is Benediction? It is the solemn exposition of the same Jesus whose face shone so bright on Thabor. He stays there upon the altar for a little while, that we may kneel before him, adore him, praise him. Then he is lifted up in the hands of his priest, and he gives us his blessing. Remember, it is not the priest who blesses you at Benediction; it is Jesus himself who does so. Now, it is very true, dear friends, that people are not _bound_ to come to Benediction; yet surely, if each one realized what a blessed thing Benediction is, no one who could come would stay away. Jesus is there on the altar. He is waiting to hear your prayers, waiting to receive your acts of love and adoration, waiting to bless you. Oh! then come often to Benediction. Do not say, "There is nothing but Vespers this afternoon"; remember there is something more --Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. {163} There is a day fast approaching on which the Holy Sacrament will be carried in procession, and then placed in the most solemn manner in the repository. I mean Maundy Thursday. Now, that is also an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and, although Jesus is not held aloft by the priest as at ordinary Benedictions, who can doubt but that Jesus blesses us as he passes by? I pray you, then, when that day arrives to remember who it is who comes to you. Let us see the church full, not of gazers at the lights and flowers, but of faithful worshippers of their King and God. If you go from church to church on that day don't go to peer, don't go to see, but to to pray. So when the devotion of the Forty Hours is announced in your church--that devotion which is the most solemn of all the expositions and benedictions through the year--be devout; spend at least an hour in the day before the Lamb of God. Remember that the Holy Sacrament is Jesus Christ--the very same who was born in Bethlehem and died on Calvary. Lastly, come to Benediction always with a living faith and a burning love. Never let your place be vacant, if you can help it, when you know it is to be given. Set a great store by it. In the words of a living preacher: "Night by night the Son of God comes forth to you in his white raiment, wearing his golden crown; night by night his sweet voice is heard, and he looks for you with a wistful gaze; do not turn away from such blessedness as this; do not refuse to listen to his pleading words; do not let your places be empty before the altar when Jesus comes."

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

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Sermon XLV.

_And that no man over-reach,
nor deceive his brother in business;
because the Lord is the avenger of all such things._
--1 Thessalonians iv. 6.

These words are from the Epistle of to-day, my dear brethren, and are certainly suggestive, or at least should be so, at this season which the church has assigned as a time for examination of conscience and repentance for sin.

The sin which St. Paul warns us against goes, when it is practised in other ways, by worse names than the one which he gives it here. A man meets you on a lonely road and takes your money forcibly from you; what do you call it? You call it robbery. A man enters your house at dead of night and carries off your property; what do you call it? You call it burglary. A man picks your pocket on the street; what do you call it? You call it theft. Well, it is all one and the same thing. All these are various ways of breaking the Seventh Commandment; and what is that? _Thou shalt not steal._

And what is it to deceive or over-reach some one else in business? It is just the same thing as these; it is the breaking of this same commandment; it is stealing, just as much as robbery, burglary, and theft are, only it does not go by so bad a name, and is not so likely to be punished by the laws of the land. And what do I mean by this over-reaching or deceiving? I mean selling goods under false pretences for more than they are really worth; using false weights or measures; evading in one way and another the payment of one's just debts; taking advantage of one's neighbor's difficulties to make an undue profit for one's self; in short, all the many ways in which men turn a dishonest penny or dollar; in which they get rich by trickery and injustice. {165} All these are stealing, just as bad and a great deal more dishonorable than robbery, burglary, or theft, because not attended with so much risk to the person who is guilty of them.

Now, it seems to me that this sin of cheating--for that is the bad name such sharp practices ought to go by, though they often do not--is a most strange and unaccountable one; much more so than those other kinds of stealing. The man who breaks into your house or who picks your pocket is generally one who is pretty badly off, and who needs what he takes more than the people do from whom he takes it. You do not expect to find rich men setting up as burglars or pickpockets. It is true, sometimes you do find people who have a passion for stealing things when they have plenty of money to buy them; but that is commonly considered to be a special kind of insanity, and they have a name made on purpose for it; they call it "kleptomania." The people who do this are supposed to be crazy on this particular point; but is it not really just the same thing for a man who has enough and to spare to be trying to cheat his neighbor? Such a man, it would seem, must be crazy too.

And there is another way in which cheating is a strange thing, and especially in a Catholic. For every Catholic at least must know that if he tries to cheat he himself gets cheated worse than the people he is trying to impose on. For he gets himself into a very bad position. He has got to do one of two things. {166} One is to restore, as far as possible, what he has cheated other people out of; and that is a very hard thing to do sometimes--much harder than it would have been to have left cheating alone. But hard as this is, the other is much harder. For the other thing is to go to hell; to be banished from God for ever; to pay for all eternity the debt which he would not pay here.

Do not, then, my brethren, get yourselves into this position. But if you are in it do the first of these two things. Restore your ill-gotten goods. Do it now; not put it off till you come to die. It will cost you a struggle then as well as now; and even if you try to do it then, it is doubtful if those who come after you will carry out your wishes. A purpose to restore which is put off till a time when you cannot be sure of carrying it out is rather a weak bridge on which to pass to eternal life. Remember now what you will Wish at the hour of death to have remembered; remember those words of our Lord: "What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?"

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Sermon XLVI.

Those of you, my brethren, who are keeping Lent as it should be kept are beginning by this time, if I am not mistaken, to think that it is a pretty long and tedious season. Fasting and abstinence, giving up many worldly amusements, getting up early in the morning and going to Mass as so many of you do, and other such things, get to be rather tiresome to the natural man after a few days; and I have no doubt you are quite glad that Lent does not last the whole year, and are looking forward to the time when it will be over. I have always noticed that there were not many at Mass in Easter week, and there are very few, I imagine, who fast or abstain much then.

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And perhaps you are even inclined to say: "What ever did the church get up Lent for at all? Certainly we could be good Christians without it, or save our souls, at any rate." But when you come to think of it you know well enough why Lent was instituted. You know that we cannot save our souls without abstaining from sin, and that we shall not be likely to abstain from sin unless we abstain sometimes also from what is not sinful. You know also that we cannot get to heaven without doing penance for our sins, and that it is better to do penance here than in purgatory. And you know, too, that most people will not abstain much or do much penance beyond what the church commands; so you know why the church got up Lent.

She did it that we might get to heaven sooner and more surely. That ought to be our encouragement, then, in it, that every good Lent brings us a good deal nearer to heaven; that heaven is the reward of penance and mortification. And it is partly to keep this before our minds that the church tells us in to-day's Gospel the story of our Lord's transfiguration: how he took Peter and James and John up with him on Mount Thabor, and there appeared to them in his glory; and filled their hearts with renewed courage and confidence in him, and with a firm belief that it was worth their while to follow him, even if they had to sleep out at night, and not get much to eat, and suffer in many ways--that it was worth while for the sake of the good time coming, of which his glory was a promise, though they did not know just when or what it would be.

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They thought, perhaps, it would be in this world; that their Master would come out in the power and majesty that they could see that he had, put down all his enemies, and reign as a great king on the earth. We know better; we know, or ought to know, that it will not be in this world. But we know that the good time coming will be something a great deal better than anything that can be in this world.

So we ought to be a great deal more encouraged than they were, especially when we think how little, after all, we have to suffer compared with what was asked of our Lord's chosen apostles. We do not have to sleep on the ground, or live on grains of wheat picked off the stalk in the fields, as they sometimes had to do. We have not got to look forward, as they did after his death, to long and painful labors and journeyings, to being driven from one city to another, to being scourged and buffeted, and put at last to a cruel death. No; on the whole, we have got a pretty easy time. We probably will not starve; nobody will persecute us; we will most likely always have a house to live in, and die in our beds.

It is not much, then, is it, to eat fish instead of meat, to fast enough to have a good appetite, to lose a little sleep and get a little tired? Perhaps if we would think more of the reward for such little things, and think a little more of the good time coming in heaven, we might even wish that Lent was more than forty days long.

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_Third Sunday of Lent_

Epistle.
_Ephesians_ v. 1-9.

Brethren:
Be ye followers of God, as most dear children. And walk in love
as Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself for us
an oblation and a sacrifice to God for an odor of sweetness.
But fornication and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it
not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints: nor
obscenity, nor foolish talking, nor scurrility, which is to no
purpose: but rather giving of thanks. For know ye this, and
understand that no fornicator, nor unclean, nor covetous person
which is a serving of idols hath any inheritance in the kingdom
of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words.
For because of these things cometh the anger of God upon the
children of unbelief. Be ye not therefore partakers with them.
For you were heretofore darkness, but now light in the Lord.
Walk ye as children of the light: for the fruit of the light is
in all goodness, and justice, and truth.

Gospel.
_St. Luke_ xi. 14-28.

At that time:
Jesus was casting out a devil, and the same was dumb; and when
he had cast out the devil, the dumb spoke; and the multitude
admired: but some of them said: He casteth out devils in
Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. And others tempting, asked
of him a sign from heaven. But he, seeing their thoughts, said
to them: Every kingdom divided against itself shall be brought
to desolation, and a house upon a house shall fall. And if
Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom
stand? because you say, that in Beelzebub I cast out devils.
Now if I cast out devils in Beelzebub, in whom do your children
cast them out?
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Therefore they shall be your judges. But if I, in the finger of
God, cast out devils, doubtless the kingdom of God is come upon
you. When a strong man armed keepeth his court, those things
which he possesseth are in peace. But if a stronger than he
come upon him and overcome him, he will take away all his armor
wherein he trusted, and will distribute his spoils. He that is
not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me,
scattereth. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he
walketh through places without water, seeking rest: and not
finding, he saith: I will return into my house whence I came
out. And when he is come, he findeth it swept and garnished.
Then he goeth and taketh with him seven other spirits more
wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there. And the
last state of that man becometh worse than the first. And it
came to pass, as he spoke these things, a certain woman from
the crowd lifting up her voice, said to him: Blessed is the
womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee suck. But he
said: Yea, rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God
and keep it.

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Sermon XLVII.

_Every kingdom divided against itself
shall be brought to desolation._
--St. Luke xi. 17.

We can see at once how true the sentence just read is; for if the head of a kingdom were to rise against the members, the king against his ministers, the people against both king and government, and the army and navy against their proper commanders--if all this should take place, then I say that kingdom would certainly be brought to desolation, and any enemy could easily come along and take possession of it. {171} Now, dear brethren, the Christian family is a little kingdom. The father and mother are the king and queen, the older and more experienced members of the family are the counsellors, the children the subjects of that kingdom. The Christian family ought to be most closely united, and this for many reasons. Each member has been baptized with the same baptism, been sanctified by the same Holy Spirit. They have all been pardoned for their sins through the same Precious Blood, do all eat of the same spiritual food, the Body and Blood of Christ. Then, to come to natural reasons, they are bound together by the tie of blood, by the tie of parental and filial affection; they live together, pray together, rejoice together, suffer together. So there is every reason why the Christian family should be united; and if it is to fulfil its mission properly it _must_ be united, or it will be brought to desolation. O my dear friends! how many of these little kingdoms which should go to make up the grand empire of Jesus Christ upon earth fall away from their allegiance to him, and all because they are divided against themselves. We see a father, for instance, given over to habits of drunkenness; he comes home either in a dull, heavy stupor or else in a perfect fury of rage; he worries his wife, scares his children, disgraces himself; all his family shrink from him. There you see at once the head divided against the members. Or there is in the family a cross, ill-tempered, scolding wife, and, as the Scripture says, "there is no anger above the anger of a woman: it will be more agreeable to abide with a lion and a dragon than to dwell with a wicked woman. As the climbing of a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of tongue to a quiet man." {172} Such a woman would divide any family; she destroys the unity thereof just as much as the drunken husband. What, also, must be thought of interfering relations, cousins, aunts, uncles, and last, but not least, mothers-in-law? How often do they make mischief and destroy the kingdom of the Christian family! So, too, rebellious children, quarrelsome brothers and sisters--they all destroy peace, they all help to divide the kingdom, they all help to bring it to desolation; and in the end, instead of a fair kingdom, strong and united, nothing remains but a wretched scene of strife and contention, and in comes the devil and takes possession of everything. Now, my dear friends, when by your drunkenness, your crossness, your mischief-making and party-spirit, by your rebellion against parental authority, you divide the kingdom of your family, not only you yourselves will suffer, not only will you and your family have to endure spiritual injury and perhaps loss of salvation, but the great kingdom of Christ, now militant here on earth, and one day to be triumphant in heaven, suffers also. Who make up the church on earth? Individuals, families. Who are to fill the ranks of the heavenly kingdom? The same. Oh! then, if you are divided against yourselves, if you are brought to desolation, you are part of the devil's kingdom on earth, and will form part of his empire of sin and death in hell. For God's sake, brethren, _stop this evil war_. Stop these things which make the family miserable. Have peace in your homes. Let men see that the peace of Christ and the union of Christ dwell there. Correct your faults; curb your tongues and your tempers; be obedient. {173} Remember, the first words the priest says when he comes to your homes on a sick-call are these: "Peace be to this house and all that dwell therein." Try to profit by that benediction. Try always to have the peace of God, which passeth all knowledge, and then shall your kingdom stand.

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

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Sermon XLVIII.

"Are you going to make your Easter duty?" This is an important question just now, my dear brethren. You should put it to yourselves, and your answer should be: "Yes, certainly." The church commands it; and you know very well that he who will not hear the church is to be held as a heathen and a publican; that he who despises the church despises our Lord, and he who despises the Lord despises his Father who is in heaven. Surely you will not make yourselves guilty of this frightful sin of contempt; surely you do not wish to be held as a heathen. But knowing, as you do, the precept of the church binding at this time, how can you expect, if you do not fulfil it, to escape from the consequences of your disobedience, as expressed in the words of our Lord which I have just recited?

To go against the church in one of her commands is to spurn her authority altogether. It is strange that people should make, of their own wits or fancy, distinctions between the precepts of the church, when the church makes and acknowledges no such distinctions. The authority in all cases is the same, and, therefore, the commands are all equally binding. Yet how many Catholics who would scruple to eat meat on Friday or miss Mass on Sunday think nothing at all of breaking, without reason, the fast and abstinence of Lent, and give no heed whatever to the obligation of going to confession and communion in Easter-time! {174} It really looks, to judge from their conduct, as if this Easter duty was not on an equal footing with the other commands of the church; as if the church did not mean what she prescribes. Now, the truth of it is, to this precept is attached a more severe sanction than to any other. The church makes any Catholic who violates it liable to excommunication, and deprivation of burial in consecrated ground. So you see the obligation is very strict and the church is terribly in earnest about it, if you are not.

To take matters in your own hands, as so many Catholics do on this point, and call little what she calls great, and slight an order that she is so anxious about, is to be a heathen, or, at any rate, a Protestant; it is to set your private judgment above her authority; it is to despise God, who commands through her. If you would only take this view of it--and this is the true view to take--you would think more than once before you would say: "O pshaw! any other time will do. Once a year? All right; I find it more convenient to go at Christmas." No, any other time will not do; once a year will not do, unless it be just now at this time. Christmas is a glorious feast, and Christmas-tide a joyful season, but it is not the season prescribed by the church for your annual communion; and, heathen that you are, your convenience is not the main point to be considered. The question is: has the church power from God to command me, and what does the church command?

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Oh! then, my brethren, let not the penances, the prayers, the instructions, the special graces of this holy season go to naught and be of no avail; but rather let them lead you up to the end for which they are intended--that is, to bring you to repentance for past sins, amendment for the future, to restore you to the friendship of your God, and strengthen you, for further battling in life, with the bread of heaven, his most precious Body and Blood.

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Sermon XLIX.

_He saith: I will return into my house
whence I came out._
--St. Luke xi. 24.

The warning which our Lord gives us in this Gospel is certainly a most terrible one, my brethren, but it may not seem plain to whom it is addressed; who they are who, now and at all times, are in danger of having the devil come back to them in this way of which he speaks. For nowadays, thank God! it is not very often that we find people who are really possessed by the devil, in the proper sense of the word.

But, in a more general sense of it, there are plenty of people who are possessed by the devil. They are those who are in a state of mortal sin. In them Satan has regained the possession from which he was driven out in holy baptism--that is, the soul which was his at least by original, if not by actual, sin. And he is in them as a dumb devil, like the one which the Gospel tells us that our Lord cast out; that is, he makes the people dumb whom he possesses, by keeping them from telling their sins and getting rid of them by confession.

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But the dumb devil is often cast out, particularly at times of special grace and help from God, like this holy season of Lent through which we are now passing, or at the time of a mission or of a jubilee. At such times you will always find people, who have been away from the sacraments for years, coming back to them and making an effort to amend their lives and save their souls.

Now, this is very unpleasant to the devil, who has counted on these people as his own. He has a special liking for the souls which have been his so long. So when he is driven out of them he does not simply go off on other business, as we might expect; but he always has an eye on his old home. He says to himself, when he finds that he does not get along so well elsewhere: "I will return into my house whence I came out. I will see if I cannot get in again."

So he comes back to his old house, to the soul which has been his, and too often he finds it pretty easy to get in again. He finds it, in fact, "swept and garnished," as our Lord says, and all ready for his reception. So, of course, he goes in and takes his old place. The soul, which has escaped from sin by a good confession, relapses into it again.

What a pity this is! And yet how common it is! How many, how very many, there are who a month or so after a mission, or some other occasion when you would think they would really be converted in good earnest, are back again in their old sins just the same as if they had never confessed them at all!

It seems strange, perhaps. And yet it is not so strange when you come to think of it. The reason is not very hard to find. It is just the one that our Lord gives: it is that the house of the soul, from which the devil has been driven, is empty, "swept and garnished." Nothing has been put there in the place of the vices and bad habits that were there before.

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There is no habit of prayer; there is no remembrance of the good resolutions that were made at confession; there is no attempt to avoid the occasion of sin; and, above all, there is no grace coming from the sacraments. That is the great mistake these converted sinners have made. They have promised at confession to go every month for the future; but they have not kept that promise. Now, it is perfect folly and madness for one who has been in the habits of sin to hope to persevere by saying a few short prayers and going to confession once a year. Such a way of going on leaves the soul empty of grace, and without anything to prevent its enemy from coming in.

If you want to persevere after a good confession, go every month to the sacraments. This is not a practice of piety; it is only common prudence. This is the means which God has appointed in his church to fill the soul with grace, and leave no room for the devil in his old home from which he has once been driven away.

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_Fourth Sunday of Lent._

Epistle.
_Galatians iv._ 22-31.

Brethren:
It is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a
bond-woman, and the other by a free-woman: but he that was by
the bond-woman was born according to the flesh: but he by the
free-woman was by the promise. Which things are said by an
allegory: for these are the two testaments: the one indeed on
Mount Sina which bringeth forth unto bondage, which is Agar:
for Sina is a mountain in Arabia, which hath an affinity to
that which now is Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her
children. But that Jerusalem which is above, is free: which is
our mother. For it is written: "Rejoice, thou barren, that
bearest not: break forth and cry out, thou that travailest not;
for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her
that hath a husband"; now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the
children of promise. But as then he, that was born according to
the flesh, persecuted him that was according to the spirit: so
also now. But what saith the Scripture? "Cast out the
bond-woman and her son: for the son of the bond-woman shall not
be heir with the son of the free-woman." Therefore, brethren,
we are not the children of the bond-woman, but of the free: by
the freedom wherewith Christ has made us free.

Gospel.
_St. John vi_. 1-15.

At that time:
Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias:
and a great multitude followed him, because they saw the
miracles which he did on them that were infirm. And Jesus went
up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. Now
the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand.

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When Jesus therefore had lifted up his eyes, and seen that a
very great multitude cometh to him, he said to Philip: Whence
shall we buy bread that these may eat? And this he said to try
him, for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him:
Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them,
that every one may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew,
the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him: There is a boy here
that hath five barley loaves, and two fishes; but what are
these among so many? Then Jesus said: Make the men sit down.
Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in
number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves: and when
he had given thanks he distributed to them that were sat down.
In like manner also of the fishes as much as they would. And
when they were filled, he said to his disciples: Gather up the
fragments that remain, lest they be lost. So they gathered up,
and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley
loaves, which remained over and above to them that had eaten.
Then those men, when they had seen what a miracle Jesus had
done, said: This is the prophet indeed that is to come into the
world. When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and
take him by force and make him king, he fled again into the
mountain himself alone.

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Sermon L.

_When, therefore, Jesus had lifted up his eyes
and seen that a very great multitude cometh to him,
he said to Philip:
"Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?"_
--St. John vi. 5.

To-day is mid-Lent Sunday, dear brethren. Half of the holy season has passed away, and the Pasch is near at hand. All through Lent the church has been praying, fasting, and preaching, making extra efforts to bring in the sinners who have so long stayed without the fold.

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Like the Divine Master, she looks down upon the crowd and she has pity on them. She wants to heal the sick; they will not be healed. She wants to feed the hungry; they will not be fed. The church looks round upon the vast crowd of her children and wants them to make their Easter duty; alas! how many neglect it. Why should you make the Easter duty? First, because it is a strict law of the church. If you fail to make it by your own fault you commit a grievous mortal sin and put yourself in a position to be excommunicated from God's church. Secondly, for your own spiritual good. What kind of a Christian can he be who does not go to confession or communion at least once in a year? How shall you make it? First go to confession, and then, when you have received absolution, go to communion. That is all simple and plain enough. Why, then, do some people stay away from their Easter duty? Let us tell the truth. Confession must come first, and confession is the difficulty. A man has been engaged for years in an unlawful business, or he has stolen a sum of money, or he has been the receiver of stolen goods, or in some way or other cheated in trade. Such a man is a thief. He knows it, and he is also aware that if he goes to confession the priest will say: "Give up the ill-gotten money, sell your fine house and your gilded furniture, and make restitution; you must restore or you will damn your soul." They won't do that, won't give up the dishonest gains, and so they won't make the Easter duty. Or there are some who have committed sins of impurity; they have been unfaithful husbands, dissolute wives. {181} They won't give up their bad habits or won't tell their shameful sins, and so they won't make the Easter duty. There are others on whom the fiend of drunkenness has settled; they are always on a spree, always pouring the liquor which stupefies them down their throats; they won't repent and they won't make the Easter duty. Ah! then, if there be any such sinners here--if there be any thieves, if there be any who are living upon dishonest gains, if there be any who are wallowing in impurity and drunkenness--tell me, how long is this going to last? How many more years will you slink away from your Easter duty like cowards and cravens? Will you go on so to the end of your lives? Oh! then you will go down to hell, and your blood be upon your own heads. No one stays away from Easter duty except for disgraceful reasons. There is always something bad behind that fear of the confessional, and such a man deserves to be pointed at by every honorable Catholic. Suppose you _have stolen_, or been an adulterer, or a fornicator, or a drunkard, or what not. Now is the time to repent, and amend, and make reparation. Don't you see the church looking down with eyes of mercy upon you? Why, then, stay? There can be only one reason, and that reason is because you want to go on being thieves, adulterers, and drunkards. O brethren! do not, I pray you, so wickedly. The church is kind. The blood of Christ is still flowing. The confessionals are still open. Go in there with your heavy sins and your black secrets. Go in there with your long story of sin. Go in, even if your hands are red with blood--go in, I say, and if you are truly penitent you will be cleansed and consoled. Let there not be a single man or woman in this church who can have it said of them this year: "You missed your Easter duty." {182} And you that have been away for years and years, don't add another sin to your already long list of crimes. You are sick, you are fainting with hunger, you are a poor wandering sheep; but never mind, remember Jesus looks with pity upon you, and he will heal your sickness in the sacrament of penance, and feed you with his own Body and Blood.

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

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Sermon LI.

_Gather up the fragments that remain,
lest they he lost._
--St. John vi. 12.

It seems rather odd, does it not, my brethren, that our Divine Lord should have been so particular about saving all the broken bits of those loaves and fishes? He had just worked a wonderful miracle, and he could have repeated it the next day without any difficulty. When he or his apostles or the crowd who came to hear him were hungry, he had nothing to do but to say the word, and they could all have as much to eat as they wanted. Why, then, be so particular about hunting up all the crusts of bread and bits of fish that were lying round in the grass?

Perhaps you will say: "It was to show what a great miracle he had worked; to show that, in spite of their all having dined heartily, there were twelve basketfuls of scraps left over--much more than they had to start with."

I do not think that was it. The greatness of the miracle in feeding five thousand men on five loaves and two fishes was plain enough. At any rate, that was not the reason that he himself gave.

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He said: "Gather them up, _lest they be lost_." "Well, then," a prudent housekeeper would say, "the reason is plain enough. It was to teach us economy--not to let anything go to waste; to save the scraps, and make them up into bread-puddings and fish-balls."

I know you do not think that was it. Most people who are not forced to this kind of economy are apt to turn up their noses at it, and connect it in their minds with a stingy disposition, which they very rightly think is not pleasing to God.

But, after all, I don't see what it could very well have been but economy that our Lord meant to teach. I don't see what other meaning you can get out of his command to gather up the fragments, that they might not be lost. If that does not mean economy, what does it mean?

No, my brethren, economy, or a saving spirit, is not such a contemptible thing when rightly understood. There may be stinginess with it, but stinginess is not a part of it. Economy, rightly understood, is setting a proper value on the gifts of God.

Yes; what comes from him--and everything does--is too valuable to be thrown away. To despise his gifts is very much like despising him.

And besides, there is not, in fact, an unlimited supply of them, though there might be. He might have fed his followers in that miraculous way every day; but he only did so twice in his life.

Our Lord, then, did mean, I think, to set us an example of economy. Practise it as he did, my brethren. Prize God's gifts, whatever they may be; do not waste them. But especially his spiritual gifts; for they are infinitely more precious than the material ones. Don't count on having a future extraordinary supply of them.

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You have got enough to save your souls now, and to sanctify them, if you will only make use of it. You have got the faith, the sacraments, and the word of God. You don't need to have any one rise from the dead to convert you. Our Lord tells us that a certain rich man who was in hell wanted to go back to earth and appear to his brothers, that they might take warning by his example. He was told that it was not necessary; that they had Moses and the prophets. Well, you have got a great deal more. You know just as well what you must do to save your souls, and even to become saints, as if you had been beyond the grave yourselves. Don't expect more yet.

Save up your spiritual gifts, my brethren; you have got plenty now, but you do not know how much more you will get. When God gives you any grace make the most of it; perhaps it will be the last you will have. Bring back to your minds what you have heard, and the good thoughts and purposes which the Holy Ghost has given you; serve up the spiritual feasts you have had, not only a second time, but over and over again. Make what you have got go as far as possible, and your souls will grow stout and strong. Wait for unusual graces like a mission or a jubilee, and they will be thin and weak all the time. Be economical, especially in spiritual things; that is a very important lesson of the Gospel of to-day.

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_Passion Sunday_.

Epistle.
_Hebrews ix_. 11-15.

Brethren:
Christ being come a high-priest of the good things to come, by
a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that
is, not of this creation: neither by the blood of goats, nor of
calves, but by his own blood, entered once into the Holies,
having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats
and of oxen, and the ashes of a heifer being sprinkled,
sanctify such as are defiled, to the cleansing of the flesh:
how much more shall the blood of Christ, who by the Holy Ghost
offered himself unspotted unto God, cleanse our conscience from
dead works, to serve the living God? And therefore he is the
mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death, for
the redemption of those transgressions, which were under the
former testament, they that are called may receive the promise
of eternal inheritance in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Gospel.
_St. John viii_. 46-59.

At that time:
Jesus said to the multitude of the Jews: Which of you shall
convince me of sin? If I say the truth to you, why do you not
believe me? He that is of God, heareth the words of God.
Therefore you hear them not, because you are not of God. The
Jews, therefore, answered and said to him: Do not we say well
that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered: I
have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and you have
dishonored me. But I seek not my own glory: there is one that
seeketh and judgeth. Amen, amen, I say to you: if any man keep
my word, he shall not see death for ever. The Jews therefore
said: Now we know that thou hast a devil.
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Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest: If any man
keep my word, he shall not taste death for ever. Are thou
greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets
are dead. Whom dost thou make thyself? Jesus answered: If I
glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that
glorifieth me, of whom you say that he is your God. And you
have not known him, but I know him. And if I shall say that I
know him not, I shall be like to you, a liar. But I do know
him, and do keep his word. Abraham your father rejoiced that he
might see my day: he saw it, and was glad. The Jews therefore
said to him: Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou
seen Abraham? Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham was made, I am. They took up stones therefore to
cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

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Sermon LII.

_But Jesus hid himself_.
--St. John viii. 59.

Thick and fast, dear brethren, the shadows of the Great Week begin to fall upon us. Only a few more days and it will be Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. To-day we are left, as it were, alone. The crucifix, with its figure of the dead, white Christ, is veiled; the dear, familiar faces of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph are veiled also; and even the saints before whom we were wont to kneel are all hidden behind the purple veil of Passion-tide. Not till Good Friday will Jesus look upon us again, not till Holy Saturday will the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, and the saints once more come forth to our view. We are, then, alone by ourselves. God wants us to stand up before him just as we are. Jesus has hidden his face for a while. {187} The crucifix has bidden you good-by. In what state were you last night when devout hands veiled the figure of Christ? Will you ever look upon the old, familiar crucifix again? It may be, before the purple veil is lifted from this cross, you will have looked upon the face of Christ in judgment. O brethren! to-day the face of Jesus is hidden. May be the last time you looked upon it you were in mortal sin, and are so still. When and how shall you look upon it again? If you live till Good Friday you will see it then held aloft by the priest, and afterwards kissed by all the faithful. If you die before then, and die, as you may, without warning or preparation, then you will look upon the face of Christ upon the judgment seat, then you will hear the awful words: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire." Or perhaps--and may God grant it!--you will next see the face of Jesus in the person of his priest in the confessional, and there it will be turned upon you in mercy and forgiveness. There are some of you, I know, who are as _dead men_. There are some of you who, even up to this late hour, are holding out against grace. Still in mortal sin! I point you to the veiled Christ. I ask you, here in the sacred presence of God, I ask you in the most solemn manner, when and how will you look upon his face again? He has bidden you good-by to-day, he has said farewell, and as he said it he saw that you were a blasphemer, a drunkard, an adulterer, a slanderer, a creature full of pride, full of sloth, full of all kinds of sin. Oh! say, shall he still find you so when he returns? Say, when he is uncovered on Good Friday can you, dare you add to his grief by still being what you are now? And to us all, even the most devout, this lesson of the veiled crucifix ought not to pass unheeded. {188} Christ has gone from us to-day! How will he come back to us? All torn and bloody, all thorn-scarred, all spear-pierced, nailed to the cross, and all for love of us! We, too, brethren, who are trying to walk strictly in the narrow path--we, too, may ask ourselves. When and how shall we see him again? Perhaps before Good Friday, ay, perhaps even before our hands can grasp the green palm-branch of next Sunday, we may see the unveiled face of our Beloved. Are we afraid of that? Oh! no. We have loved the face of suffering too well to dread the face of glory. We only expect to hear from his lips words of love and welcome. Brethren, there is a day coming when all veils shall be lifted. There is a time nearing us when all must look upon the face that died on Calvary's Mount. On that day and at that time will take place the great unveiling of the face of Christ: I mean the day of general judgment. O solemn, O awful thought for us to-day before the veiled image of our Lord! May be the judgment day will come before that light veil is lifted from the well-known crucifix. Great God! our next Good Friday may be spent either in heaven or in hell. Go home, brethren, with these thoughts fixed deeply in your hearts. Come here often to pray. If you have sins come here and confess them; and often and often as we turn to the veiled Christ, let us most devoutly cry: "Jesus, when and how shall we look upon thy face again?"

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

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Sermon LIII.

Under the false accusations of the Jews how calm and self-possessed our Lord remains! {189} He does not return passion for passion, anger for anger, accusations for accusations, violence for violence; but he meets calumny with the assertion of truth, and confounds his enemies by humility and meekness. They accuse him of sin; with the sublime simplicity of a pure conscience he dares them to convince him of sin. They call him names: "Thou art a Samaritan"; to so evident a falsehood he deigns no reply. Blinded by anger, they accuse him of being possessed: "Thou hast a devil"; a simple denial, "I have not a devil," the leaving of his own glory to his Father, the assertion of his divine mission, is the answer to the blasphemous calumny. "Now we know thou hast a devil," repeat they, waxing more passionate; but, unimpassioned, Jesus rises above their rage to the calm heights of the Godhead, and affirms his eternal generation. Finally, losing all control of themselves, they take up stones to cast at him; but he quietly goes out of the temple and hides himself, for his hour--the hour when he would bear in silence the accusations and indignities of man, and allow himself to be led to slaughter--had not yet come.