Chapter V: Part 5

Now, the object of the Incarnation was briefly this: The establishment of a visible kingdom, in which the Creator should receive an adequate worship from the creature, and the creature be raised to the highest possible union with the Creator. We say, then, that the Church is this visible kingdom--to wit, an organic body, of which we are made members by Baptism (an outward and visible rite); and that the twofold end of worship and union is accomplished by the perpetual presence of the Incarnation here on earth, as at once a sacrifice and a sacrament. {162} A sacrifice in which the creature offers to God a divine victim--the only adequate worship He can receive, God being offered to God--and in a created nature. A sacrament, in which the assumed humanity in Christ, hypostatically united with the divinity, is made to blend with our humanity in a union so close as to render us, in turn, "partakers of the divine nature." [Footnote 64] Moreover, we say that the form of food, in which our Lord chose to impart to us His deified and deifying humanity, was (so to speak) the most natural form He could have chosen: since food becomes one substance with its recipient--the difference between ordinary food and this divine food being that the latter, instead of being changed into us, transforms us into itself.

[Footnote 64: 2 St. Peter i. 4.]

Therefore, to us, who, by the grace of faith, understand the Incarnation and its object, the doctrine of the Real Presence is simply the supplement to the doctrine of the Incarnation. The one is the consequence of the other. We behold in the Church, with the Blessed Sacrament on her altars, the mystical Mary with the Divine Babe on her lap: and when we kneel to her, that she may give Him to us, or bless us with Him, we have no more feeling of unreality than the Shepherds and the Magi had in the cave at Bethlehem.

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The feast of Corpus Christi, then, my brethren, is one of a blessed __reality__: a reality which ought to make us thank God every day of our lives that we are Catholics. For can anything be more dismal, more barren, more pointless, than a Christianity in which the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin have no place?

But, secondly, it is a feast of peculiar consolation. It is this which most endears the Blessed Sacrament to us. For as long as we are in exile from our true fatherland--the "patria" of the __O Salutaris__--we shall always be wanting consolation, and prize it as a foretaste of our rest. This consolation, then, this foretaste, is abundantly vouchsafed to us in the Blessed Sacrament. And, first, as regards our Lord Himself. It is impossible to love Him without sorrowing for all He once suffered; without grieving at the thought of the world's sins, and our own share of them, which drenched His soul with anguish, and steeped His heart in woe. And what pains us most is the melancholy fact that His love was thrown away on the majority of mankind, and is so at this hour. It is, therefore, indeed a consolation that now He dwells on earth without the condition of suffering--impassible for evermore; that, at last, He "comes unto His own, and His own __do__ receive Him"; that He is enthroned King of His elect in the kingdom He so dearly purchased; that He can now take unmixed "delight" in "being with the children of men"; that if His Sacramental Presence is still to the heretic "a stumbling-block," and to the sceptic "foolishness," yet to millions upon millions, who believe and love, it is "the power of God and the wisdom of God"; and, further, that whatever degeneracy may come upon Christ's kingdom, however widely the "love of many may wax cold," yet, even in the worst times, "those whom the Father hath given Him" will unfailingly confess Him their "Emmanuel."

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Again, the Blessed Sacrament is full of consolation as regards ourselves. In the first place, because it is our Emmanuel--God tabernacled with men; and because the veiled Presence here is an earnest of the unveiled hereafter. Also, because it is an abiding "propitiation for our sins," and the perpetual oblation of infinite merit to obtain us all good things. Again, it is the food in the strength of which we travel, like Elias, through the wilderness of this world "unto the mount of God": [Footnote 65] the medicine of our spiritual diseases, the balm of our sorrows, and, sweetest thought of all, perhaps, our viaticum in death.

[Footnote 65: 3 Kings xix. 8.]
[USCCB: 1 Kings xix. 8.]

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If God could thus address His people of old, how much more meaning have His words for __us__: "Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name: thou art mine. When thou shalt pass through the waters, I will be with thee, and the rivers shall not cover thee; ... for I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." [Footnote 66]

[Footnote 66: Is. xliii. 1-3]

But especially ought we to take comfort in the Blessed Sacrament in times of trial for the Church, such as that which is on us now. You remember how the ship of Peter was tossed one day on the lake of Galilee, and the disciples got terrified and awoke their Master, who was asleep on a pillow. [Footnote 67]

[Footnote 67: St. Mark iv. 36-38.]

And He rebuked them for their want of faith; because, let wind and sea rage as they might, could that vessel have perished with the Lord of the elements on board, though He __was__ "asleep on a pillow"? Now, that ship is a striking figure of the Church, with the Blessed Sacrament reposing on her altars. She has ridden out many a heavy gale as yet, and no matter how many more are in store for her, weather them she __must__ while she carries the Almighty Saviour. Instead of losing heart, then, our aspiration should be that of the sacred poet:

"Amid the howling wintry sea,
We are in port if we have Thee."

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And even if there should come a time, as many think, when "the daily sacrifice shall be taken away," when it shall be death to say Mass or to hear it, and the Church has to "fly into the wilderness"--if the final persecution thus exceed even those of the Cæsars, yet Mass __will__ be said and Communion __will__ be given; and still, at the words of the priest, "even as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth unto the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man" to His altar; and still, "wheresoever the Body shall be, there will the eagles be gathered together." [Footnote 68]

[Footnote 68: St. Matt. xxiv. 27, 28.]

In conclusion, my dear brethren, let me remind you how apt we are--we who are so favored with the faith--to neglect the Blessed Sacrament, to be irreverent in its presence, to show it ingratitude by receiving it too seldom, and to betray our forgetfulness of its presence by never coming to visit it. I would dwell a little on this last point. When we meet with misfortune or trouble of any kind, we often brood over it at home, and get impatient and fretful, and make mischief in consequence to others as well as to ourselves, instead of coming to tell the Sacred Heart all about it, and draw on an ever-ready help. So, again, we are constantly complaining how cold the world is, what a want there is of sympathy, how selfish and thankless people are. {167} And what are we but cold and unsympathizing, selfish and thankless, toward our best Friend? He is here "love's prisoner"--__our__ prisoner; and how few of us take any notice of Him as such! Were an earthly dear one in prison for our sake, we should move heaven and earth to get to him. But here is the Lover of all lovers, the infinite beauty, accessible all day long, and how many come to visit Him of those who are __not__ reasonably prevented? I wonder that more of us are not haunted by those words, "I was in prison, and ye visited Me not." [Footnote 69]

[Footnote 69: St. Matt. xxv. 43.]

Let us endeavor, then, my brethren, to realize more the treasure we possess in our Emmanuel, our __Gesù Sacramentato__ (Sacramented Jesus), our __Dios Sagramentado__ (Sacramented God), as the happy Italian and Spanish languages can word it. If we could only accustom ourselves to think a little more of the Blessed Sacrament, it would soon have a perceptible influence on our lives, on our domestic relations, on our intercourse with society, on our dealings with the world of business. And this influence would be anything but oppressive, as some of you may think. It would exercise a wholesome restraint, indeed, for which we should often be deeply thankful afterwards, but would give us a true cheerfulness and an abiding sense of calm. Oh! that all our words and actions might harmonize in one ceaseless chorus of praise--

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"Blessed and praised every moment
Be the most holy and most divine Sacrament!"

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Sermon XI.

St. Paul, The Divine Orator.

(For The Patronal Festival.)

2 Cor. xii. 9.

"__Gladly, therefore,
will I glory in my infirmities,
that the power of Christ may dwell in me.__"

The Church and the world are agreed in the estimate formed of St. Paul as a preacher. By a common judgment, the name of this great apostle has been inscribed at the head of the illustrious list of teachers of doctrine. His renown increases as time goes on, and in our own day his personal character, life, and writings have been made the subject of an extraordinary amount of discussion, and have elicited newer and higher eulogiums.

There is this difference, however, in the judgments formed by the Church and the world of the prince of Christian preachers. The world's panegyric is illogical, being made in direct contradiction to its principles and the lessons which it has ever inculcated as necessary to an orator's success. {170} The Church alone, by the aid of the supernatural principles of faith, is able to explain the true secret of the wonderful power he wielded in life, and the miraculous influence of his words upon the nations of the earth during the many centuries which have elapsed since he ceased to speak face to face with men.

What, indeed, are these words of his, "I will glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me," but foolishness to human wisdom, or, at best, an enigma without solution! But it is precisely these infirmities of which he boasts that gave him the power he possessed, and laid the foundation of all his glory. "When I am weak," he says again, "then am I powerful." Nonsense to human reason, but divine wisdom to faith.

If, therefore, I would praise St. Paul, as is befitting on this day, I must praise hid infirmities--weaknesses which the world calls misfortunes, and deficiencies upon which none but saints ever rest their hopes of success.

To judge after the manner of man, we would ordinarily expect to find in one who is an orator of great power certain personal qualifications which, in the very nature of things, would serve to impress and win his audience. We would seek for great polish in the style, and consummate art in the preparation and delivery of his discourses. {171} For one who aims at swaying not only a chance multitude who, for the moment, comes within the sound of his voice, but at conquering their souls, and winning them to the point of making most heroic sacrifices; who not only preaches to his hearers, but commands them with the air of one having authority, we would look for the favorable, popular verdict shown in honors and dignities showered upon him, in credit and influence, and his having reached that summit where men vie with one another in giving him place, and when even his enemies fear to gainsay or persecute him.

Such, indeed, are the orators whom the world crowns with its laurels. But in all these St. Paul was lacking; and yet, by the world's own confession, he has surpassed them all. To meditate upon this mystery of Divine Providence, which makes use of the weak things of this world to confound the strong, and the foolish to confound the wise, cannot fail to enlighten and edify us.

We who, like the world in general, have known the great Apostle chiefly from the sublime picture which his unparalleled success presents, have doubtless imagined him to be a person of tall and majestic stature, of pleasing address and magisterial deportment; being, as we say, a man of fine presence, whose appearance was alone sufficient to bring forth plaudits from his auditory, and enforce at once a respectful and submissive hearing. {172} Such are, indeed, the ideal portraits of him with which we please ourselves, and such have the masters in art represented him. But from various allusions he makes in his writings to himself, it is certain that he was frail in body, of a diffident and submissive bearing, and altogether wanting in that air of decision and self-assertion which naturally overawes the multitude.

When he, with his companion apostle, St. Barnabas, healed the cripple at Lystra, the people imagined them to be gods; but in calling St. Barnabas, rather than St. Paul, Jupiter, it is evident that other apostle far surpassed St. Paul in the dignity and majesty of his person. He can write boldly, he says, but "in presence is lowly"; [Footnote 70] and, again, he affirms the truth of what people said of him, that "his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible;" and the frequent contrasts he draws between his personal infirmities and his spiritual power and graces, leave the fact beyond doubt that he was by no means a man of dignified aspect or commanding mien.

[Footnote 70: 2 Cor. x. 1]

We might be tempted to think he would feel this infirmity most keenly as a serious drawback to his success as an orator, as we ourselves would judge it to be. But no. He will rather glory in his infirmities as the source of his power; and here at the outset we get an insight into the whole spirit of this champion of the Gospel. {173} From the instant of his miraculous conversion, he appears to be wholly absorbed in the contemplation of the sublime mystery of the voluntary abasement of God in concealing the awful majesty and splendor of his Divine Being in human nature, that what he, with apostolic hardihood, calls the "foolishness of God" and the "weakness of God," might subdue and atone for the sinful pride and vainglory of men. He rejoices, therefore, that he has nothing in himself which might cause the admiration of men and make void the humility of Jesus and His cross--a thought which so fills his soul that he says he knows nothing else besides. The less he has in himself to glory in, the greater is his consciousness of the power of the Gospel of the Crucified, which he only lives to preach. "Power is made perfect in infirmity," was the revelation made to him when caught up to the third heaven. "I will glory, therefore," he exclaims, "in my infirmities." I am glad that I am weak in bodily presence and contemptible in speech. Freed from this temptation of human vanity, which in turn would divert the souls of my hearers from the Gospel to the preacher of the Gospel, the power of Christ will dwell more fully in me. "When I am weak, then am I powerful." {174} When I, Paul the Apostle, am nothing, then will the victory of grace be complete in the souls who, through me, believe and are converted--when I have nothing in me to please and attract the sight, men will see only the Cross which I hold up to their gaze.

So fearful was he of attracting to himself any personal affection, that he avoided baptizing his own converts and receiving them into the church, lest they should say--I am of Paul, I belong to the Church of St. Paul the Apostle, instead of acknowledging, as he was always doing himself, "By the grace of God, I am what I am--a Christian saved from hell by God's mercy."

Let us look now at his second and greater infirmity--his weakness as an orator. He had a strange, difficult, shocking, and what he terms a scandalous doctrine to preach--the redemption of the world by a crucified God. Surely, this man, who is so lacking in the external qualifications of an effective speaker, possesses at least the magic power of sublime eloquence. He who has such a repulsive truth to announce will seek the most polished phrases, and cover up the hard things which he has to say by flowers of rhetoric, and, with studied art in his tones of speech, will charm his unwilling audience to receive and obey the austere lessons of the Gospel. {175} By no means. Such was his infirmity in this respect that his disciples called his speech contemptible, and he acknowledged the truth of their judgment, and reminds his beloved Corinthians that he was "with them in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling," adding, "My speech and preaching was not in the persuasive words of human wisdom." [Footnote 71]

[Footnote 71: I Cor. ii. 4.]

Not only do we see in the discourses recorded of him the most simple and unadorned phraseology, but even his writings, full as they are of the most profound and heavenly doctrine, are the most inartificial, disconnected, and poor in imagery that could well be imagined. What a misfortune for an orator! cries the world. "What a glory is mine infirmity!" responds the Apostle of that Gospel which is wisdom hidden from the self-sufficient rich and the insolent magnates of a depraved world, but a revelation of divine truth to babes. And I, who praise St. Paul, will praise this infirmity of his as well, knowing that he has not rested his power as an apostle and his hopes of success upon it in vain.

If St. Paul be unable to use, or disdain in his preaching all rhetorical flourish and tricks of oratory, if his language is almost rude in its plainness and harsh from the total absence of brilliant metaphor or well-rounded period, it is because he has nothing to preach but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. {176} All those harmonious cadences which flatter the ear, all that fanciful imagery in which the orators of human doctrine and science deal so largely and are paid with clapping of hands, are at best but showy tinsel, unworthy of the Incarnate Wisdom, and a vain mockery of the lowly speech and simple words of the Man of Sorrows. What we adore in our Lord's person is His lowliness and humility, mingled with a certain divine and grand simplicity of character. So are all His words, plain and simple; spoken evidently without passionate gesture, and in no loud or clamorous tone. Simple, because all that is divine is simple; all else is human pride and sensuality. Such is what I may call the divine instinct of the Church, the Body of Christ, who also disdains, when she lifts her voice in prayer or praise, all the effeminate and meretricious ornaments of harmony or melody, which are the sources of attraction and admiration in worldly music, and adheres to what is simple in its enunciation, grave in movement, and moderate in tone, as one who reveals divine thoughts, and not the dreamy, overwrought imaginations of impassioned genius, which minister rather to the senses than to the soul.

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Behold, therefore, the great Apostle, inspired by this simplicity of Divine truth, going out upon his great mission to become the preacher of that truth to the whole world, but so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the meek and humble-hearted Jesus that he speaks in weakness, in much fear and trembling, yet with such power that even Greece, that mother of philosophers and orators, forgets the fervid eloquence of her Plato and Demosthenes to drink in the divine lessons of the Gospel from the lips of this unskilled orator; and Rome herself, the mistress of the world, at his word overthrows her idols and consecrates her majestic temples of glory to the worship of a Man crucified at Jerusalem. O glorious Apostle! well mayest thou glory in that which before men is thy weakness! Thine infirmity is thy power. Without human power, thou abandonest thyself wholly to the divine power of Christ, and that--that is more than enough power to conquer the world. That world in its pride will criticise you, and ridicule your want of polish and lack of rhetoric, and your trembling, hesitating gesture, but it will believe in Jesus Christ and Him crucified whom you preach. Its orators will not follow you as a model, but they themselves will beat their breasts, and confess their sins, and do penance at your bidding.

But, powerful as he is in the infirmity of his speech, to fully convince the world of the truth of his awful and austere doctrine, he has yet to measure his strength against a more obstinate and unyielding enemy to the Gospel of the Cross. {178} The mind of man cannot long blind its sight to the illumination of the truth; but who shall subdue and win the hardened heart? O wondrous science of the saints! O divine enigma which no one shall understand who does not write its solution in his own blood! "__Regnavit a ligno Deus!__" "God hath reigned from the wood of the cross." Even God cannot reign in the kingdom of the hearts of men until He is a crucified man, whose streaming blood cries aloud and pleads, with the irresistible torrent of the eloquence of suffering, to heaven. Yes; to heaven must the voice of suffering preach; for Paul may plant, and Apollos water, but God alone can give the increase. From God alone can come the grace that achieves the consummation of the triumph of the truth, and completes the labor of the Apostle. When was Jesus Christ the Master of the world? Where was it that He drew all things to Himself by the cords of Adam and the bands of love? Was it when He went about doing good, working miracles, preaching His divine doctrine? Ah no! It was when He was lifted up the pleading Victim, whose blood and wounds spoke better things than the blood of Abel, and whose requests could not be denied. {179} Well does the Church say, "__Regnavit a ligno Deus!__" And what shall we expect, if even Jesus is only powerful from His cross, but that His chosen vessel of election, who shall carry His Gospel to the whole world, first shall say: "I judge myself to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified"; and that afterwards his life should prove the truth of his same infirmity in himself: "With Christ I am nailed to the cross," [Footnote 72] "I die daily;" that he should be stoned and scourged, and imprisoned and persecuted, and driven from city to city, "in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from the Jews, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren, in labor and painfulness, in long watchings, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness;" [Footnote 73] and, added to all these sufferings, those interior trials and bitternesses of spirit with which God invariably purifies the souls of His elect. He must preach in the stead of Christ, and therefore he must suffer in His stead. Wherefore he says: "I fill up in my own flesh those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ." [Footnote 74]

[Footnote 72: Gal. ii. 19.]

[Footnote 73: 2 Cor. xi. 26, 27.]

[Footnote 74: Col. i. 24.]

Nor are we surprised, if the world be, that he should please himself in this life of constant suffering in what seems to be, as men judge, failures and losses, and disheartening, conflicting obstacles to his success. {180} The world, to whom the cross of Christ is foolishness, would demand for a preacher who could hope for a success equal to St. Paul's, invariable good health, a well-nourished body, a mind not overtaxed, popular applause, and a career of unvarying triumph. But I, who would praise St. Paul, will praise him for his life of suffering. When he is weak before men, then is he powerful with God. God and the whole court of heaven is the audience of the suffering man; and he who would sway the Divine Mercy must take counsel from the Crucified Incarnate Wisdom, and find an advocate in his own blood.

For thirty long years did this "Victim dear to heaven" suffer a daily death, yet rejoicing always that he was counted worthy to suffer for the name of the Lord Jesus; and as we follow him about from country to country, and from city to city, we can number his successes by the number of his adversities--adversities which had no power to subdue his exalted soul, or shake for one instant the constancy of his superhuman love for Christ and His cross. Hark to that outburst of generous love from his undaunted heart--"Who, then, shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or persecution, or the sword? I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Footnote 75]

[Footnote 75: Rom. viii. 35-39.]

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Thirty years of restless labor and fatigues, and now this aged and worn-out Apostle, to whom we would fain grant some days of sweet repose for his declining years, must gird up his loins and prepare to meet the crowning suffering of his life--a martyr's death.

Rome, imperial Rome, palace of pride and sensuality, thou boastest that thou art the mistress of the world; that thy name and power is honored and feared by every nation, and none dare refuse thee tribute! Proud throne of the world, tremble! for there is coming into thy gates a conqueror who will humble thee in the dust, who will take away all thine armor in which thou trustest, and compel thee to pay tribute to him; and, through him, constrain thee to bring the world under another Ruler, whose kingdom shall be without end, and whose principality no man shall take away. Go, O captain of many victories! __Prospere procede, et regna__. Rome will laugh at thy apostolic folly, but thou shalt make her weep. Rome is the world's citadel of error; thou shalt make her the ever-enduring and infallible chair of truth. Rome will bring thee into her as a prisoner in chains, but thou shalt prove her liberator.

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Rome will put thee to death, but the voice of thy martyr's blood shall cry to heaven and give her eternal life. Take glory to thyself, O holy Paul! and rejoice and exult in thine infirmities, for now is the hour when thy strength shall be divine!

Though dead, he yet speaketh. From his tomb St. Paul is still the preacher of the truth to the whole world. Still he announces the truth as it is in Christ Jesus and Him crucified. Still he confounds the Gentile philosophies of every age, still draws with irresistible eloquence the hearts of men to the sacrifices of an heroic love for Christ. The text of St. Paul living and suffering was, "Jesus Christ and Him crucified." He who to-day approaches the vast temple beneath whose majestic dome repose the sacred ashes of the divine preacher, descries upon the base of a lofty obelisk that confronts the portals of the Apostle's world-renowned sepulchre the text of St. Paul dead and triumphant:

"Ecce crucem Domini!
Fugite partes adversæ."

"Behold the Cross of the Lord!
Let all its adversaries be put to flight."

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Sermon XII.

The Value Of Faith.

(For The Feast Of St. Peter's Chains.)

I Cor. xvi. 13.

"__Watch ye; stand fast in the faith;
do manfully, and be strengthened.__"

We celebrate to-day the feast called "St. Peter's Chains," to commemorate the miraculous union which took place between the two chains that had bound St. Peter in prison--the one under King Herod, and the other at Rome, under Nero--when they were brought together.

Why was St. Peter willing to be bound and imprisoned for the faith of Christ? Because he esteemed it more precious than liberty, or any thing else that the world prizes; as he says when he writes to others suffering for the same cause, "That the trial of your faith (much more precious than gold which is tried in the fire) may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the appearing of Jesus Christ." [Footnote 76]

[Footnote 76: I Ep. St. Peter i. 7.]

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What is it that gives to faith its priceless value? Why is it to be esteemed above liberty, the possession of wealth, more than friends, parents, the whole world, and even more than life itself? There are those who do not possess this gift, and who, to all appearances, are as happy as those who do. Nations have existed, and now exist, strong and prosperous, and are without faith. What is there in faith that makes it worthy of being praised as the "pearl of great price," as "more precious than fire-refined gold," as something better to be desired by men--yes, even by nations--than power, rank, or glory? The value of things may be got at in two ways. The first is by estimating them according to their real qualities; the second, according to what men are willing to give or sacrifice for their possession. Let us consider the value of faith weighed in each of these balances.

There are many things which men prize highly. At certain seasons they cross the seas, endure fatigue, spend a great deal of time and money--and what for? To gaze on beautiful scenery, view works of art, and visit great men and places renowned in history. They are charmed with the aspect of the mountains, the trees, the flowers, the streams, the glowing sunsets, and are filled with admiration. These moments of joy outweigh with them all the fatigue, expense, and time expended in reaching these favored spots of nature. {185} It is the same at home. We leave our busy cities in the summer, and hasten to our mountains, our lakes, and the sea-shores. And why do men prize these beautiful scenes? There must be, there is something valuable in them. Their charms, the joy and pleasure derived from nature, spring not from ourselves. What attracts us in creation is the traces of God's beauty, and in contemplating these the soul is drawn nearer to God, and its joy increased. It is God in nature who dilates the soul.

Why do men love poetry, music, architecture, painting, and sculpture? Why have the verses of a Homer, a Dante, a Shakespeare, been the delight of ages? Why is it that a whole nation feels honored in the possession of a work from the chisel of Michael Angelo, or a Madonna of Raphael, or a Cathedral of Cologne, or in having given birth to Dante or Shakespeare? Why are our souls enlarged and raised above the senses in listening to strains of music composed by a Palestrina or a Beethoven or a Mozart? It is because art is a higher expression of the Divine, and brings us nearer to the All-True, Holy, and Fair.

We know how men are devoted to science, to philosophy; how they rival the severest ascetic in their self-denial, in order to advance knowledge. The astronomer, gazing on the heavens, discovers new planets, and finds out the great laws which govern all material things. {186} The geologist digs deep down into the bowels of the earth, and reveals to us its secrets and its ages of growth. The philosopher analyzes thought and the secret folds of the soul, and teaches us its laws and dignity. Why all these studies--why so much time, energy, patience, and devotion to the sciences? What sustains these men of science? What pays them for all their trouble? What is it that stimulates them in their pursuits? Is it pride and love of fame, or selfishness? No! it is the hope of the discovery of unknown truths. What is Truth? God is Truth. Then, at last account, these men are seeking God.

You perceive that nature, art, science, are only different channels of arriving at the one source of all truth and beauty--God; for all truth is in harmony. The truth, whether in nature or art or science, is derived from the same source, as is also the truth in our souls or in the sacred Scriptures, which the Holy Church infallibly teaches. If men sometimes fancy there is a discrepancy between religion and science, it "arises chiefly from this, that either the doctrines of faith are not understood and set forth as the Church holds them, or that the vain devices and opinions of men are mistaken for the dictates of reason." [Footnote 77]

[Footnote 77: Vatican Council.]

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This capacity to perceive the true and beautiful in nature, in art, and from the discoveries of science, belongs to our natural reason, and cannot be esteemed too highly. It is a sin against its Giver not to improve it. It is the glory of the Holy Church that, by her institutions of learning and her encouragement and fostering care, she has ever been the promoter of science and of the fine arts.

But what unaided reason can know in nature of God does not satisfy man. The soul seeks to know more of God, to come nearer to God. Nature, art, and science do not suffice to satisfy its aspirations--aspirations after the real, of which nature, art, and science are only imperfect images or limited conceptions. It is to meet this want that the divine light of faith is given to the soul. It gives to the soul a greater knowledge of God, by revealing to it truths above nature and beyond the utmost reach of man's reason. The strength which faith imparts brings the soul nearer to and in closer union with God.

If, therefore, men value things because they give a clearer knowledge of God, and bring them closer to Him, how much more ought they to value the light of Christian faith? If men love nature, art, and science, that is the reason why they should be Christians, and all the better Christians, because Christianity brings us nearer to the object of all our seeking than reason, art, and science can ever possibly do.

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Reason brings us to God as His creatures, and makes Him known to us as Providence. Faith brings us to God as His children, and leads us to cry to Him with the inmost affections of our hearts, "Abba, Father!" Reason, by science, art, and philosophy, leads the mind to the contemplation of God as the great First Cause and the Archetype of all beauty. But faith makes us participators in the Divine nature, "heirs of God," and, when perfected by the light of glory, enables the soul to gaze on the Divine Essence, fills it with torrents of delight, and bathes it in the sea of God's own beatitude. Is not everything else as nothing compared with the Divine light of faith! O inestimable faith! the crown and glory of human reason! the best of God's gifts to man!

Having learned that faith is inestimable on account of its inherent qualities, now let us test its value by what men have done and suffered to keep so great a possession.

Look upon the crucifix above the altar, that tells you what the God-Man suffered to bestow this gift upon man. His wounds, His blood, His life, is the price He paid in our stead for it. If a thing can be estimated by what __men__ pay to suffer or do for it, look at Calvary, at what God has paid and suffered for it, and tell us what is comparable with faith. {189} The Apostles, before they obtained it, were weak and timid; but when they had received it, they suffered and gloried therein. They lived, labored, suffered, and in turn laid down their lives in testimony of the priceless value of that gift of all gifts.

And when the faith was preached in pagan Rome and throughout its Empire, honors, riches, and all earthly joys and ties were, by all classes of men, renounced for its sake, so highly did they prize it. For it Stephen, Ignatius, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, Anastasia, and the millions of martyrs, "full of faith," poured out their blood like water, and cheerfully laid down their lives.

It was the wish to communicate this rare gift to others that stimulated the zeal of the apostles of the nations--a St. Patrick in Ireland, a St. Augustine in England, a St. Boniface in Germany, a St. Francis Xavier in the Indies, and led the saintly Father Jogues to our land, who was martyred by the Indians on the banks of the Mohawk. Columbus prized so highly the gift of faith, that, to bring its light to the benighted savages whom he supposed existed on this hemisphere, he encountered unknown dangers, and sustained heroic sufferings, in the enterprise of its discovery.

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Most of you, my dear brethren, are from the old country, and have come to this strange land--and why? Did your native hills lose their charms for you? Did the ruins of your land and the graves of your ancestors awaken in your bosoms no longer any feelings of attachment and veneration? Have you no affection left for those parents, those brothers and sisters and kindred, left in the old home? Have you forgotten the glories of your history, and think it nothing to lose your nationality, and see your children after you grow up the sons and daughters of another soil?

Why, then, have you renounced all that men hold so dear? It is because you loved your faith above every consideration in life. You counted all else as nothing compared with it, and so that you might keep it, you were ready to endure suffering, poverty, and persecutions, and abandon all that men hold dear. This is why you are here to-day and not in Ireland. Had your forefathers, or you, chosen to apostatize from your Catholic faith, and deny the truth of Christ, you could be this moment prosperous and smiling under the favor of kings and princes in your native country.

Look, again, at the throng of converts who have cast aside position, wealth, and fame for that holy faith, and in turn become the heralds of truth to the world. A Prince Gallitzin chose banishment and the sacrifice of a princely fortune in becoming a Catholic; and when a priest, hiding even his rank and name, lived and toiled like an apostle in the wilds of the Alleghany Mountains.

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Look at an Ives, who esteemed it greater to possess the faith in the humble position of a Catholic layman, than to hold the rank of Bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church without it. Thousands have given up parents, brothers, and sisters, and kindred, become poor and outcasts, to gain this pearl of great price, the gift of faith, thus fulfilling the words of our Lord, "He that loveth father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me." [Footnote 78]

[Footnote 78: St. Matt. x. 37.]

O holy faith for which the martyrs died, the missionaries and saints toiled, and for which houses, lands, parents, and friends, and all things, are counted as nothing! Do we prize thee, O divine gift, as these have done? Art thou to us above all price? If so, then to us the words of the apostle have a true and living meaning:--

"__Watch ye__," or else this gift will be stolen from you. Nations to which the Church gave birth, and under whose fostering care they have grown great, have lost the faith. There is not a people upon earth to-day, as a nation, to whom the Holy Church can look for defence against persecution, spoliation, and downright robbery. {192} As in the days of paganism, she is surrounded by enemies, and has no one to rely on but her Divine Founder. Why has the faith been stolen from the nations? Because it has first been stolen from the people. It will be stolen from each one of us, unless we keep a constant watch over ourselves.

Watch over what we read. The literature of our time is filled with misrepresentations, calumnies, and falsehoods concerning our holy faith. The press, the most powerful engine of modern times, is on the side of the enemies of our faith. The very atmosphere we breathe is poisoned with scepticism, infidelity, and atheism.

"__Stand fast in the faith__." Claim our rights. To claim these, we shall be charged with stirring up strife. But this must not disturb us. The same charge was made against our Lord. "He stirreth up the people," said the envious priests.

As to our rights, they are equal, if not prior, to all others. Catholics discovered this continent. The feet of Catholics first trod the native soil of these United States. Catholic missionaries first reddened it with their blood for the Christian faith. Catholics fought and bled for our independence, and for its maintenance. Our right to breathe freely the air of heaven, to religious liberty, to equal political rights, and equal privileges with all other American citizens, is indisputable. We ask for these--no more; and with no less will we be content.

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"__Do manfully__." Can men say what they please against our holy faith, and we not lift up our voices in its defence! It is our joy that our holy faith can never be opposed except by ignorance or calumny. Shall all we hold sacred be caricatured, calumniated, and we sit with folded arms in silence? Shall the literature of the day undermine the faith of our people, and the press caricature and falsify it, and we not employ this most efficient weapon in its defence and for its propagation? A Catholic invented the printing-press. Catholics first used it. Are the children of darkness always to be wiser than the children of light? Shall we not turn their own weapons against them? Let us be up and do manfully.

"__Be strengthened__." Our faith is our force. Our forefathers knew how to die for the faith. Can we not live for it? Be strong in our convictions of its truth! Defend it publicly, politically, and privately! We cannot suffer by so doing, for no man is esteemed who is false to his own convictions. Acting thus, we shall be strengthened, and though every one of the enemies of our holy faith were ten thousand, we shall be victors. The hour of death will then be the crowning point of our lives. {194} We shall be able to say, with our great patron St. Paul, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: and, as to the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord the just judge will render to me in that day." [Footnote 79]

[Footnote 79: 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8.]

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Sermon XIII.

The Supremacy Of St. Peter.

(Feast Of Ss. Peter And Paul.)

St. Matt. xvi. 18.

"__And I say to thee: That thou art Peter;
and upon this Rock I will build My Church__."

The shortest, most direct, most conclusive, and most intelligible method of proving the truth of any system is to find its principle, its fundamental idea, and to establish the reality and certainty of this idea. When this is done, the whole system which is logically and justly built on this foundation is already proved. In the case of the Christian religion, we have only one thing to establish, in order to convince all pagans, Mohammedans, modern Jews, and unbelievers, who are truly rational, of its divine truth. That one thing is the divine mission of Jesus Christ. When that is established, there is but one question which can be reasonably asked--What is the authentic doctrine and law promulgated by Jesus Christ? {196} In the same manner, in order to convince all rational men that the Catholic religion is entirely true, and the real Christianity established by the Apostles, it is only necessary to prove its fundamental principle, the Supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, the Roman Pontiffs. This doctrine, held and understood in its strict and complete Catholic sense, distinguishes the Catholic religion from every other. This once established in the conviction and belief of the mind, the truth of the whole Catholic religion, in all its parts, follows as a necessary consequence. It follows that the communion of which the Pope is the Supreme Head, is the true Church established by Jesus Christ--One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic, incapable of falling away, and infallible in doctrine. The foundation of this great and world-wide Church is the Papal Supremacy of St. Peter and his successors, and its principal portion is the Roman See. If I prove that this foundation was laid by Jesus Christ, it will be evident that the Church founded upon it is the true Catholic Church, and the faith of that Church the true Christian and Catholic faith. I will then endeavor to prove, first, that Jesus Christ appointed St. Peter as Prince of the Apostles, His Vicar, and the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church; and, second, that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peter's successor.

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First, Jesus Christ appointed St. Peter as Prince of the Apostles, His Vicar, and the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church. This will be the theme of the present discourse.

The title, Prince of the Apostles, signifies that St. Peter was the chief and head of the Apostolic college, and enjoyed a pre-eminence of honor and authority over the other Apostles. This preeminence of St. Peter is everywhere manifest in the New Testament. He was not the first called, for St. Andrew was before him, yet he is always placed first in the catalogue of Apostles, and is expressly called the "First" by St. Matthew. He generally appears as the leader and spokesman of the other Apostles, and is always mentioned as the first of the three Apostles who enjoyed the peculiar confidence of Jesus Christ, were witnesses of His transfiguration and agony, and in other ways were preferred before the rest, the other two being James and John. He was the first of the apostles who saw the Lord after His resurrection, and the angel at the sepulchre sent him a special message by name, "Go, tell the disciples, __and Peter__." He was the first who pronounced in the Council of the Apostles his judgment that they must elect another Apostle in the place of Judas--the first who preached Christ to the Jews, and the first who admitted the Gentiles to baptism. He pronounced sentence in the Council of Jerusalem. {198} While the other Apostles confined themselves within a particular circle, he visited the Church everywhere--"__pertransivit universos__." He approved the writings of St. Paul, and the same St. Paul went expressly to Jerusalem, as he says, "to see Peter," commanded by "a revelation"; that he might submit his gospel to the judgment of the Prince of the Apostles, of St. James the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the other Apostles there, in order to obtain the approbation of St. Peter and his fellow-bishops--"lest perhaps," as he writes to the Galatians, "I should run, or had run in vain." Perhaps the most striking proof that St. Peter had a real oversight over the other Apostles, as the pastor of pastors, is found in the fact that Jesus Christ, immediately before His passion, committed the other Apostles to his care, and offered up a special prayer for him, to obtain the grace necessary for this high trust. He said to all the Apostles, speaking to St. Peter by name as their representative, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have __you__ [in the plural number, designating the eleven], that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for __thee__ [in the singular number], that __thy__ faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren"--"__Aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos__." A remarkable passage! Our Lord, at this awful moment, disclosed a portion of His divine knowledge, and gave His Apostles a glimpse into futurity. {199} He showed them Satan, exerting his utmost to destroy them as the guardians of the faith, and the custodians of all the hopes of the human race. He intimates very plainly that but for Him they would be inevitably swept away. But He had prayed for them, and, when He prayed with an unconditional will that His prayer should be heard, its effect must be infallible. His prayer was especially for St. Peter, that __his__ faith should not fail, in order that he might confirm his brethren. So that it was by a special grace conferred on St. Peter, by which he was enabled to watch over them, that they were to be confirmed in faith. Who does not see here that pre-eminence of St. Peter over his colleagues which is expressed by the title, Prince of the Apostles? [Footnote 80]

[Footnote 80: Matt. x. 2; Mark iii. 16; Luke vi. 14; John i.
33-41; Luke xxiv. 34; Acts i. 15 et seq.; ii. 14 __et
seq__.; x. 34; xv. 7; ix. 32; 2 Pet. iii. 15, 16; Gal. ii.
2; Luke xxii. 32. __Conf. Perrone Loc. Theol__. De
Primatu.]

I cannot sum up all this testimony of Scripture better than in the grand, concise language of Bossuet, in his sermon on the __Unity of the Church__:

"Peter appears in every respect as the first: the first to confess the faith; the first in the manifestation of love; the first of all the Apostles who saw the Saviour raised from the dead, as he was the first witness of the fact before all the people; the first, when it was necessary to fill up the number of the Apostles; the first who confirmed the faith by a miracle; the first to convert the Jews; the first to receive the Gentiles; the first everywhere. {200} It is impossible for me to mention every proof. Everything concurs to establish his primacy; yes, even his very faults. When power is given to several, the exercise of the power by each one is restricted by the fact that others share it with him. But power given to a single individual over all, and without exception, necessarily implies the plenitude of power. ... All the apostles receive the same power, but not in the same degree, or with the same extent. Jesus Christ commences by the first, and in this first one He develops the whole, in order that we may learn that the ecclesiastical authority which was originally constituted in the person of one man is not imparted to others, except on the condition of remaining always subordinate to the principle from which its unity is derived, and that all those who shall be charged with its exercise are found to remain inseparably united to the same chair."

This is enough to show what some of the most eminent Protestant writers even have acknowledged, that St. Peter was the first, the chief, the most pre-eminent, the Prince of the Apostles. St. Peter was also the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Supreme Pastor and Ruler of the Church.

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