Chapter VIII: Part 8

To die well and happily, we must, in the second place, fulfil our obligations to our neighbor. Scarcely a day of our life passes in which we do not find that our neighbor has had somewhat against us. Debts accumulate, disputes arise, the incautious word is spoken, the scandal is given, the character of our neighbor suffers from our folly or our spite, reconciliation is not made, forgiveness is neither asked nor given, friends are alienated, the sun goes down upon our wrath, and on the morrow we must die. Who is there who is able to say, when he comes to die--I owe no man anything; my debts are all paid; I never wronged any one to whom I did not make full restitution; I never lost a friend but I found him again; I have not an enemy on the face of the earth? {276} Happy is that man, for he will die a happy death. But how many there are who find themselves at the hour of death as they have always been, both unwilling and unable to pay their just debts! How many leave behind them an unsettled inheritance to their relatives, which becomes an inheritance of discord, law-suits, enmities, and deadly feuds! How often men die, and show no fear to go to God with unclean hands--hands stained by the contact of ill-gotten goods and stolen money! How many die unreconciled with their neighbor, and with no earnest wish to be so! How lightly the wrongs of a lifetime weigh upon their conscience! How many die and make no restitution of all the detraction and the calumny of which they have been guilty, and go to their grave amid the secret jeers and curses of their neighbors! "Blessed is he that is defended from a wicked tongue," says the Holy Scripture, "that hath not passed into the wrath thereof, and that hath not drawn the yoke thereof, and hath not been bound in its bands. For its yoke is a yoke of iron: and its bands are bands of brass. The death thereof is a most evil death: and hell is preferable to it." [Footnote 105]

[Footnote 105: Ecclus. xxviii. 23, 24.]
[USCCB: Sirach xxviii. 19-21.]

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Do you wish to escape such a lamentable end? Would you die the death of the just, leaving your name in benediction, your loss sincerely mourned, and your soul defended with prayers at the bar of judgment? Deal with thy neighbor now whilst thou art in the way with him. "Put thy house in order," and especially when you come to die. Let no worldly consideration, no thought of pride, hinder you from a perfect reconciliation with all men--a full payment of every debt--a free forgiveness for every wrong you have suffered. The few moments that remain to you, you will need to pray for God's forgiveness for your own sins. Remember the Lord's words: "For with what judgment you have judged, you shall be judged; and with what measure you have measured, it shall be measured to you again." [Footnote 106]

[Footnote 106: St. Matt. vii. 2.]

Lastly, to die well, we must fulfil the obligations we owe to ourselves. We are Christians, and should meet death like Christians. That is, we owe it to ourselves to show at that supreme moment some evidence that we are not being forced out of life as if there were no existence beyond it, but that we are ready to answer the call that God makes to us to come home; not that we are setting out upon a journey of darkness and lonely misery, but that we are following Jesus, who has overcome the sting of death and robbed the grave of its terrors. {278} That we may be encouraged in this, we should bring to mind the examples which the holy martyrs and the other saints of God have left us in their deaths. Death, in its very nature, is humiliating and degrading to human nature. It conquers us; it leaves us not a trace of our beauty nor a vestige of our power. No wonder that the flesh is weak and trembles before it; but the spirit, ennobled with Christian faith and hope, and strengthened with Christian charily, is willing and courageous. The Christian's death is then no longer an ignominious defeat, but a glorious sacrifice. The flesh goes, indeed, to the prison of the grave; but the spirit, set free from its mortal bonds, mounts to the skies to be crowned with power and immortality.

One thought alone should occupy our minds in our last hours--the thought of uniting our souls to God, whom we are so soon to meet. It is painful to see a dying person thinking of nothing but how to give some momentary relief to his body, each instant calling for some new comfort, as anxious and careful as if he were preparing for a long life, instead of employing the precious moments in prayer, in acts of contrition for the sins of his past life, and in acts of love to God. I know that many persons think it useless to try to pray at such a time, when the strength is failing and the senses are growing dull; but it is not so. {279} They can "pray in their soul," as a saintly woman told me on her death-bed. Seeing that I noticed the beads in her hands, she said to me: "I am not able to __say__ my beads, father; but, when I feel lonesome, I take them out to keep me company, and I pray in my soul." We may make all our acts acts of prayer, if we will. Our acceptance of sickness and death in the spirit of penance is prayer. Our resignation to the will of God--our patience in suffering--our gentleness and mildness with those who are tending and watching us--all these things are prayer, if we practise them with the thought that they are pleasing to God.

Then, there are the holy sacraments of the dying, full of grace, comfort, and strength to our souls. I know few Catholics wilfully neglect these, but it is a source of grief to the priest to be called, so often as he is, to administer the last sacraments to those who ought long ago have received the first ones they need. I think it is one of the most discouraging events in the ministry to go to a dying man and find that it is years since he confessed or received the Holy Communion. Confession! I tell you that it is very seldom that one on his sick-bed makes as good a confession as he would if he were well. He cannot do it. His mind is not as clear; his memory fails him; and, worst of all, he makes little or no effort to prepare himself for it. What is the consequence? {280} His contrition is as vague and indifferent as is his confession. With how much devotion does he receive the Holy Viaticum and the Extreme Unction? Alas! this man did not begin to pray or to think about either till an hour ago, when the doctor told him he had to die. The priest absolves him, and he and his friends are content. But did God absolve him? Tell me if he made a good confession, or was sincerely sorry for his sins, and then I will tell you whether God absolved him. Woe be to him if he did not, for it is the last chance he has to confess, and but too frequently it is the last appeal he makes to God for forgiveness. The priest gives him the Holy Communion. Does he receive it worthily? Not, of course, because he is going to die, or because this is his last Communion. Does he receive it in as good dispositions as would make it a worthy Communion if he were well, and had received it in the church at the altar? If not, he makes an unworthy Communion, and eats and drinks damnation to himself. The priest anoints him. Is he signed and consecrated to God, and are his senses purified, and his soul strengthened? Yes, if he be in the grace of God. If not, he is signed and delivered over to Satan by it, and his soul is prepared for hell. Oh! if one wishes to be able to fulfil these obligations well at the hour of death, he must not neglect the preparation for them in life.

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Beautiful is the happy death of a Christian! Death! He does not die. He enters into life; he rests from his labors; he falls asleep in the Lord. Not long ago, I received an invitation to attend the funeral of a priest. It was couched in these words: "You are invited to attend the funeral of the Very Rev. Patrick Moran, who entered into his rest at half-past eight on Wednesday morning last." Fitting sentence, indeed, to describe the death of that venerable and holy old man! Through a long life he lived and labored only for God. Full of years and of merit, ripe for heaven, and ready to begin his eternal life, he ceased from work at the call of his divine Master, and entered into his rest. Thus should every Christian die. It is what the Holy Church wishes for us all. When the solemn dirges are chanted over us, again and again she prays: "__Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine." "Requiescant in pace.__" "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord!" "May they rest in peace!"

My brethren, I have tried to-day to lay before you the duties of the dying Christian. Soon will some of you be called upon to put them in practice. Are you all ready for the last preparations? Is your life to-day such as you would like it to be, if to-morrow you are to die? Is your confession made for this year? Have you received the Easter Communion? Are you at peace with God and men? {282} These are questions which you will wish to be able to answer in the affirmative when you call upon the priest for your holy rites and his parting blessing. Prepare now, that you may be prepared then. Begin to-day, for the hour may come sooner than you imagine in which you shall hear this awful message from the Lord: "Put thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live."

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Sermon XIX.

The King's Marriage Feast.

(For The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost.)

St. Matt. xxii. 14.

"__For many are called,
but few are chosen.__"

There are some Catholics who, with the smallest quantity of the spirit of the Catholic religion, are very boastful of the name. They look down upon those who are out of the fold of the Church with scorn and contempt. Their whole demeanor indicates that they consider themselves immensely superior to these unfortunate creatures, who are all doomed necessarily to eternal destruction. As to themselves, they deem it impossible that they should incur the same doom, because they are Catholics. They are not members of the Church so much by a special divine favor, but rather they have conferred a favor on God by belonging to it. The Church belongs to them by the right of birth, and the fact of their parents having been Catholics gives them the privilege of sneering at all not born under similar circumstances. {284} I have even heard such persons call converts to the faith by the sweet and charitable epithet of "turncoats," and say they should have remained where they were, and that it is a disgraceful thing to abandon the religion of one's forefathers. Catholicity with such is a thing of descent and of family pride; not a thing of the heart and of the will.

The Holy Ghost understood this spirit, and, by the mouth of St. John the Baptist, rebuked it severely: "Bring forth fruits worthy of penance, and do not begin to say, We have Abraham for our father." [Footnote 107] These words, applied to the Jews of old, might well be translated for the benefit of many Catholics nowadays--Do not begin to say, We are born of Catholic parents, our forefathers have been Catholics for many generations, if you are living like the heathen; but bring forth fruits worthy of that holy and sacred name of Catholic; otherwise you will never come to enjoy the presence of God, but be everlastingly cast out.

[Footnote 107: St. Luke iii. 8.]

The parable of to-day gives us the most useful instruction on this very subject. A certain king made a marriage feast for his son. This king is the God of heaven and earth. The marriage feast He makes is the participation of the creature in His own glory; a boundless and inconceivable happiness, which shall never have end or diminution; a realization of more than we have dreamed of, or could possibly imagine.

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This is the marriage feast of His Eternal Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, because He, by taking our flesh upon Himself and becoming man, by suffering and dying upon the cross, has redeemed us from sin, elevated us far above the capacity of nature, and enabled us to aspire to this magnificent destiny. It is His marriage feast, because it is the celebration of the eternal nuptials of Himself with the soul. It is the marriage feast in which the Omnipotence of the Eternal Beauty is exercised to render the guests eternally and supremely happy, filling them with an ocean of unbounded joy and contentment.

The king sent out his servants into the highways and public streets, with directions to call or invite to his feast all they should meet, and urge them to come in.

This is what God does now every day. He calls, indiscriminately, the rich and the poor, the noble and the lowly, into the fold of His Church. It is no merit on their part which brings them the invitation. They are all ragged and dirty in the sight of God. Not one of them but would be a disgrace to the King's feast; but God does not look at that. He is moved only by His desire to do them a great favor, and confer upon them great happiness. {286} When He invites them, He intends to make them fit; to wash off the dirt, and put suitable clothing upon them, so that they may be made fit to enter His banqueting-hall. He has them brought to an outer room, where are baths and precious ointments, and splendid garments, and servants in abundance to put them on. They need not trouble themselves with the expense of providing anything, for the King provides all.

A child is brought to the priest for baptism. That child is of Catholic parents, and they bring it. The child knows nothing at all of what is done for it. It had no choice in the matter. It might have been born of another race and of another religion, but God, and not itself, has caused it to be born of Catholic parents, and to be brought by them to baptism. It is, as it were, met on the highway and called in, all stained by original sin, to be washed in baptism, endowed with the right to the sacraments, and invested with an immortal inheritance. So likewise Jesus Christ has commanded His ministers to go and preach the Gospel to every creature; to go and invite everybody who hears their voice to come in and enjoy the same privileges. Those who accept the invitation have as much right as those who are invited in the other way, by the accident of their birth; for no one has any other right than what comes from the pure bounty and goodness of the King. {287} Those who are born of Catholic parents, and those who are Catholics by their own free choice in later life, stand on the same footing. We are all a crowd of beggars, who were in the broad highway, and have heard the invitation of the King of kings, and have come in in obedience to it. We are now all standing in the outer hall of the eternal banquet, or rather in the banqueting-room itself, waiting for the King to come in, when the music will begin, and all its grandeur be lighted up by His presence.

It is a most solemn reflection, my friends. You and I have received this invitation. The King's messengers have met us on the highway, and they have forced us to come in. We have been compelled to come in, for ruin and death were the alternative of staying out. We have no longer the liberty of ranging the highways. We are no longer in the position of the heathen--without the knowledge of the true religion, and without baptism. The indelible mark, or character as it is termed, of baptism has been imprinted on our souls; all the ages of eternity will not suffice to wipe it out. Poor as this privilege was to be hungry and ragged and miserable, it is ours no longer, but we are in the banqueting-hall of the marriage feast.

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There we are, and we cannot go out into the highway again. Once in, the door is shut behind us, and there is no key to unlock it. Once removed out of the state of our birth and made heirs of the kingdom of heaven by baptism, it is impossible to put us back again in our former relations. The mark of baptism, stamped upon our souls, will remain with us either in heaven or in hell. Elevated by God's goodness far above the condition of our nature, if we fall, it must be down, deeper far than the condition from which we were first taken.

A man may neglect his duty to God, and try to persuade himself that the end and object of his existence is to get money, or fame, or power, or pleasure, but he will find to his cost that it was no such thing. The end and object of his existence was to learn to love and serve God in this world, in order to be happy with Him in the next; to prepare to be a worthy guest at the marriage feast of the Lamb, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ.

And now we are all in at the feast, and the King comes around to see the guests. He discovers one without a suitable garment on; one who has had the brazen-faced shamelessness to intrude himself into the company all ragged and dirty, without the least pains to make himself look decent, and pay respect to the King and his guests. Could there be a more outrageous insult? {289} Could anything be more wanton and impudent than such conduct? The King had provided everything; all they needed was at hand; He had warned them to make themselves fit before going in: and here is this man, in spite of all this, deliberately walking into this splendid entertainment, with old tattered clothes and unwashed face and hands. The King is justly indignant, and commands him to be bound hand and foot, and cast into a dismal prison.

Is it not so? Has not God provided the Holy Sacrament of Penance, where, with little trouble, the soul can be washed and cleansed from all its defilements? The Holy Sacrament of the altar, where the soul is nourished, and strengthened, and adorned by feeding on the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ? Are not innumerable graces and virtues waiting for us, ready to be given, if we will only take the trouble to ask for them?

Yes, the King of Glory will come around to see the guests at the eternal feast. He will inspect each one of us. When will He come around? When we die. Then it is the Judge of the whole human race will come around to see if we are in the banqueting-hall of the eternal feast with the marriage garment on.

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We came up to the door of the church, and we received a ticket of admission. All right so far. We entered the door, and we remained within among the rest. Still all is right, and no doubt we felt pleased to be in such good company, and no one turned us out. But what good will all this do if we have not the wedding garment on? What good will it do us to have gone to the church and heard the sermons, if we have not on the wedding garment? What good to have had the sacraments in life, or even at the hour of death, if we have not on the wedding garment?

What is this wedding garment? The grace of God. If we are in mortal sin, we have not the wedding garment on. We pulled it off when we committed sin, and rendered ourselves utterly unfit for the company of heaven. If we are in mortal sin at this moment, we are now in the marriage feast of the King's Son without the wedding garment, and woe be to us if the King should happen to come around. At any moment His eye may fall upon us, and we may hear the words, "Friend, why camest thou in hither with out having on a wedding garment?" You will be struck dumb with confusion and have nothing to reply; and then will go forth the irrevocable sentence, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

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Oh! who can comprehend the folly of the human race--a race of beings so feeble and miserable, and limited by its nature, and yet so unlimited and unbounded in its cravings for happiness-- who can make so little of that offer which lifts them out of all this misery and exceeds their highest expectations? One would think this offer would fill them with delight and a noble enthusiasm to avail themselves of it. And yet, what do we see? God's offer is despised. An immortal destiny is thrown away. Man, created to the image and likeness of God, makes himself like the beasts that perish. He boasts and prides himself on the fact that he lives for the body, and despises eternity and God.

Many are called. Many are placed in the way of salvation. Many have an abundance of means in their hands to attain to it. With a little attention, with light exertion, many would be saved who are lost. What inexcusable folly! Let us not be guilty of it. Let us live for our immortal souls. Let us put on the wedding garment of truth, and sincerity, and justice--that white garment that we received at baptism--and see that we keep it unspotted until the end.

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Sermon XX.

Good Use Of Sickness.

(For The Twentieth Sunday After Pentecost.)

Ecclesiasticus xxxviii. 9.
[USCCB: Sirach xxxviii. 9.]

"__My son, in thy sickness neglect not thyself,
but pray to the Lord, and he shall heal thee.__"

The Gospel of the day relates the miracle of the healing of the ruler's son. That this man had the right kind of faith which pleases God, and obtains extraordinary favors from His hand, is shown by the promptitude of his belief in what our Lord said to him. Although he had urged and insisted upon our Lord's going down to Capharnaum with him, yet, no sooner did he hear the words, "Go thy way, thy son liveth," than he immediately returned home alone without further doubt or remonstrance.

I do not think, my brethren, that we exercise enough of this faith in God in our sicknesses; not, understand me, that we are to look for miraculous cures of our ailments and diseases, or that we are to condemn ourselves for want of faith if our prayers for relief are not answered on a sudden; but what I mean is, that we too often misapprehend the cause of our sicknesses, and do not make the good use of them we might. Let me say a few words which may be for our instruction and edification on these points.

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In any event, whatever may be the direct cause of our sickness, it is, after all, the will of God. If we fall sick through our own culpable neglect or criminal excesses, it is still the will of God. We have, in this, disturbed the good order of His Providence, and suffer the natural consequences of it. There are, besides, those countless forms of disease and phases of ill health which afflict us, and which we are not able to trace to any fault of ours. We fall sick, and cannot tell how or why. An invisible hand has touched us at a moment we knew not, and our strength is gone, the light has fled from our eyes, and the color from our cheek. A secret poison has insinuated itself into our blood, and dried up the fountains of health and vigor. Fierce and rapid in its destruction, a week, a day, or even a few hours suffice to bring us to the point of death, and shatter the boasted glory of our strength. Then, if the danger passes and the prospect of returning health smiles upon us, we have yet to pass through the long and tedious days and nights of convalescence, gathering but slowly, and with great labor and suffering, that which we lost so quickly and so easily.

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The first and most necessary truth for a Christian to reflect upon in the time of sickness is that, in some way or other, God's hand is in it, and that the stroke falls either in chastisement, in mercy, or as a special favor and blessing. We must never forget that life is given to us with all its vicissitudes of joy and sorrow, of prosperity and adversity, of pains and pleasures, more because of eternity than on its own account. Sickness comes in its proper turn at fitting times as a part of the life that we are to lead here below; and when it is good for us, then God sends it. He has ends in view that we may be wholly ignorant of. He knows our souls well and watches over them, and a Christian ought to believe that he is never sick in body but for the sake of the health of his soul.

But some one may say that is bringing sickness, health, and the like within the pale of religion. "O ye sons of men! how long will ye be dull of heart? Why do you love vanity, and seek after lying?" We are cunning enough in the ways of the world, but why so slow to understand the ways of God? Is there anything that we are, or have, or can be that is not of God? Why forever trying to lie to ourselves, and leave Him out of account? Are we sick or well, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, honored or despised, that God does not know it, has not so appointed it, and has not good reasons for it? And is not the referring of any or all of the states of our being to Him an act of religion?

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The truth is, my brethren, that the manner in which one receives and bears an attack of illness is a good test of one's religion. You will see some giving away to inordinate fear and anxiety upon the approach of the first symptoms of disease. They are not in the habit of referring even their health to God, or of thanking Him for it. They imagine they live of themselves. So, when they feel their own strength leaving them, and are forced to say--I can hold up myself no longer, then terror seizes upon them, as if all aid, human or divine, was wanting, because they can no longer help themselves.

See, too, how the positively irreligious and wicked man generally acts in the commencement of sickness. He talks about his fate, his ill-luck, and curses it. He utters incoherent cries of impatience, and is full of anxiety to discover the act of indiscretion on his own part, or the fault of others, through which he has fallen ill.

But the true Christian, whose soul is prepared for tribulation, with whom God is no stranger in the time of health, recognizes instantly the hand of God when that health is threatened. With holy Job, he exclaims: "If we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil?" [Footnote 108]

[Footnote 108: Job ii. 10.]

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He may be surprised, as all are, at the unlooked-for blow, but there is no sign of angry complaint or of envious repining. It is all right, he says, God knows best. This one thought satisfies his heart, God knows about it. He knows why He sends it. He knows how long it will last; how much I shall suffer, and how it will end. May His holy will be done!

You see, my brethren, that what I desire to impress upon your minds is that, in all sickness, from whatever cause, the will of God is to be acknowledged. It is not every Christian, I regret to say, who does so look upon it. Too often you will find it regarded as a grievous misfortune, having no good reason why it should be, and without any compensation for the loss of worldly enjoyment and advantages which it necessarily entails; and, even if they do agree that God has sent it, then it is because God is angry with them. He is taking vengeance upon them. There appears to be no other possible reason that can be given for it.

As I said before, we are afflicted with sickness not only as a chastisement for sin, but sometimes also in mercy, as an act of loving-kindness and forethought on the part of God; and again very frequently, as in the case of holy Job, as an opportunity to try our faith, to enable us to show our constancy and love to God, and is therefore to be looked upon as a mark of predilection, and a positive blessing and grace.

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Certainly, sickness is sometimes sent as a punishment for sin. It comes as a natural and just consequence of sinful excesses. Look at the drunkard and the debauchee. They have gone on for awhile in seeming impunity, but every debauch was a blow struck upon the citadel of life and health. Soon it is shattered, and totters and falls into ruin. Go into the streets, and you may meet them, with haggard faces and trembling limbs. Go to the hospitals and the insane asylums, and see those wrecks of humanity, almost soulless men and women, drivelling idiots, and sickening masses of corruption. Go to many a sick bedside, in palace or in hovel, in this great city, and you may see how sin is punished by an outraged God. And, though you yourself could not trace the fever that blighted you for many long weeks to any natural cause, you know that you deserved it all. Your alarmed conscience did not fail to tell you that there were crimes of your life that demanded retribution. Your overweening pride, your ungovernable anger, has been humbled in the dust. Your days are shortened because of your disobedience and cruelty to your parents. {298} The money you have stolen and would not restore has been wrested from you by the heavy charges of your illness. Your disorderly appetites and lusts are now punished with compulsory and exhausting fasts from all food. "He hath struck you as being wicked, in open sight; who as it were on purpose hath revolted from Him, and would not understand His ways: so that you have caused the cry of the needy to come up before Him, and He has heard the voice of the poor." [Footnote 109]

[Footnote 109: Job xxxiv. 26, 28.]

You thought in your sin that you were stronger than God. Now He has rebuked you by sorrow on the sick bed, and has made all your bones to wither. Bread is become abominable to you, and to your soul the meat which before you desired. You have trampled on God's holy law; you would not go to Mass to worship Him. Now, though you would gladly go any distance, and suffer any pain to be present at it, you are denied that joy and consolation. You are as one upon whom the church doors are closed, for whom the altar is thrown down, and the priest departed. "In whatsoever a man sins," says the Holy Scripture, "in that also shall he be punished."

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Sickness has come upon you. Why? In mercy, God sees how indifferent you have become to Him. He sees how your soul has become absorbed in worldly things. Your heart is following after strange gods, and your footsteps are leading down to hell. As Eliu said to Job, "Your guardian angel has spoken to God for you, and said, Deliver him, that he may not go down to corruption." and God in mercy has heard his prayers, and your way is stopped. It is because God loves you, and would save you, that this has come upon you. In the days of pain, and during the long, feverish nights, you will remember God. In your anguish you will turn to Him for comfort, and in your fear you will put your trust in Him. This world has had too much of your heart. On a sick bed you will be able to judge how much it is worth. You will condemn the vanity of your life. The past will be repented of. New resolutions will be made. You will come back to health with a refreshed and chastened spirit. What the friend of Job said to him, you will say of yourself: "My flesh is consumed with punishments, that I may return to the days of my youth. I will pray to God, and He will be gracious to me: and I shall see His face with joy. When I look upon men, I shall say, I have sinned, and indeed I have offended, and I have not received what I deserved, hath delivered my soul from going into destruction, that it may live and see the light." [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: Job xxxiii. 25-28.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Sermon XXI.

Thoughts For Advent.

(For The Third Sunday Of Advent.)

Philippians iv. 8.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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