| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| spaxx |
Posted - 12/04/2008 : 12:55:52
THE following sermons, taken from the Epistles and Gospel read during the catholic Traditional Latin Mass (also known as the Tridentine Mass), make for excellent spiritual reading. The Epistles and Gospels at the Holy sacrifice of the Mass is the same through out the world, and this feat is one of the manifestations of the oness of the Catholic Church.
This is also an excellent opportunity for the protestant reader to compare the uniform interpretation and teaching of the Catholic Church, with the wildly differing personal interpretations of the same Bible verses, by the pastors of the ever increasing number of protestant denominations.
In each sermon, passages from Scripture and the holy Fathers are adduced as proof, supplimented by arguments from reason, as well as illustrations and examples.
Dear reader, dying a happy death is to be favoured with a foretaste of eternal salvation. Yet, it is exceedingly difficult to die a happy death after living a wicked life. For example: the person who is addicted to a bad habit is with difficulty saved, because the bad habit (1) darkens the understanding, (2) hardens the heart. So, he/she dies hardened in sin. We all know from experience that, it is well nigh impossible to convince someone to abandon fornication/adultery, sodomy, pornography, drunkenness, because their understanding has been darkened, and the heart has become harder than granite. One could mentin countless examples but one that immediately comes to mind is Hugh Hefner, that eighty-two year old king of pornography. How is it that he has persisted in pornography for so long? Dear reader, this is what is meant by being dark of understanding and hard of heart. Of course conversion is possible because with God all things are possible. But I ask you dear reader, what are the odds of that happening with modern men who are so esconsed in a life of riches, pleasure, and/or luxury?
Mortal sin is a great evil, because it is an injury done to God's infinite Majesty. The gravity of an offense is proportional to the greatness of the person against whom it is committed. It is a sin to murder your neighbour. The gravity of that sin changes, however, if that neighbour happens to be your parent. Imagine what it would be, if the person you murder, is your king. And what happens when that king is the Lord our God, Creator of the universe?
Yes, dear reader, there are countless men in this world, who would murder The Lord our God, if it were possible. These are they who advocate, and condone, abortion. For had Jesus been born in modern times, He would have most likely been aborted. These are they who would like to see religion banned, because they wish to freely and openly sin without restraint. These are they who hate God, because He forbids that which they will.
SERMON I.
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT - Spiritual Awakening
Sunday, 30th November 2008, the First Sunday of Advent, the very first day of the new Catholic Liturgical Year begins the one-year cycle anew picking up with the apocalyptic warning Christ echoed in the Last Sunday of Pentecost's Gospel and Epistle. With the world, especially America ignoring the Scriptures of "not rioting and drunknenness," "not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy" should we follow the PC police and policies or Christ? That is a no-brainer to those who take their Faith seriously. Unless we "put on Christ" in all we do, we had better be prepared to put on an asbestos suit for we're going to need it when "the powers of Heaven shall be moved" and many will realize it's too late. For those who have clothed themselves in the armor of Faith and grace, there will be nothing to fear for "the kingdom of God is at hand."
Have we not seen the signs? There have been signs and we fail to see what they mean as the rest of the world goes merrily on its way toward perdition. Today's Gospel and Epistle forewarns us and yet so many opt to be politicaly correct rather than Christ-correct!.
At Christmas, Jesus will be born in our hearts, for at that time the annivesary of His birth will be celebrated. He refuses nothing to the prayer (i.e Holy Mass) of the Church, His spouse, and thus He will grant to our souls the same graces which He gave the shepards and the wise Kings.
Christ will come again also, at the end of all time, to "condemn the guilty to the flames, and to call the just with a loving voice to Heaven"
Therefore, the whole of today's Mass is a preparation for this double advent of Mercy and Justice. The same welcome will be given to us by our Lord when He comes to judge us, as we give to Him now when coming to redeem us. Therefore, let us prepare for the Christmass feast by holy prayers and aspirations and by reforming our lives, that we may be ready for that last great assize upon which depends the fate of our soul for all eternity.
EPISTLE: Romans 13: 11-14
Brethren, knowing that it is now the hour for us to rise from our sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is past and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy:but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.
GOSPEL: Luke 21: 25-33
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves; Men withering away for fear, and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. For the powers of Heaven shall be moved; And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. 28 But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. And He spoke to them in a similtude. See the fig tree, and all the trees: When they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is nigh; So you also, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand. Amen, I say to you, this generation shall not pass away, till all things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
We read in the Epistle: "Your salvation is near", "the day is at hand"; and again in the Gospel, "Your redemption is at hand." "The kingdom of God is at hand." The Divine Judge will come soon, for death lies in wait for us and "a thousand years are as yesterday" in the sight of God. At this, His second Advent, Christ will come to render to each according to his works. The Jewish race will continue to the end of the world to witness to this fact and to be converted. Earthly kingdoms will then come to an end , while the Heavenly kingdom will begin, to last eternally.
The Epistle of St Paul to the Romans, is an admirable little sermon preached by St. Paul to the Romans. After showing them the evil he wishes them to correct, he proceeds to convince them with argument, and finally persuades them by a practical exhortation. The crying evil of those days, he says, and I may add, the crying evil of to-day is a forgetfulness of the main issue. " Brethren," he says, " it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep."
"From the heights of heaven", says St Ambrose, "Jesus comes. Let the sluggish soul at last arise, no longer stretched out upon the ground, for behold, the Divine Sun, already shines forth to banish all things hurtful to us. ST Leo adds: "It behooves all men to prepare for the saviours coming, lest they be found given up to greed, or entangles in the cares of the world".
Sleep of the body is not nearer akin to bodily death than is the callous indifference of mankind about things spiritual, to the eternal death of their souls. As in natural sleep the eyes see not, and all our bodily members lie listless and dead so in this spiritual sleep, this lethargy of the soul, the spiritual senses lie dormant; the eye of faith is closed and charity hath lost its strength, whereby we should be guided and moved to avoid evil and do good. And oh how true was then and how true is now the melancholy reflection of St. Paul when he sadly says: "and many there are who sleep."
Many, indeed, not merely the souls shrouded in the night of Paganism; not merely those slumbering in the darkness of infidelity and heresy but many Christians and Catholics, Catholics sunk in the deep sleep of mortal sin; Catholics given to the lighter slumbers of venial faults; in a word Catholics, awake, alive to the duties of this world, but asleep, dead to the main issue, the salvation of their immortal souls. Sleeping Christians! dead Catholics! they are like the five foolish virgins in the Gospel, who*, though faithful in starting out to meet the bridegroom, yet lacked the sustaining power of charity, and so slept and were late, and were driven away by their Lord in the words: "Amen, I know you not." Some day when you are on Washington Street, stand and look at the crowd surging up and down. The world commends them as a very intelligent, industrious people. But what does God think of them? He says of them as He said of His chosen people of old:
they have gone astray because there is not one of them who thinks thinks of the one thing worth thinking about.
The great heart of God as vainly yearns after them now as it did after the Israelites when He said:
Oh, that they would be wise and understand and provide for their last end.
In all that throng is there one single thought of God or heaven, of religion or the soul? You hear every topic discussed but these, and if perchance you hear them mentioned at all, it is only one poor old beggar who begs an alms for God's sake and invokes the blessing of Heaven on the giver; or, more frequently, a blasphemer who asks Christ to damn his brother's soul for jostling him. Talk to them of death and judgment, heaven or hell, and, if they do you no bodily injury, be assured they will laugh at you as a fanatic and a madman. Tell them of the saints who gave up all to follow Christ; of the martyrs who were consistent enough to purchase, with their temporal lives, life eternal and they will tell you that that doctrine was good enough for the Middle Ages those thoughts suited to Sunday only; but that the week-day cares of this practical age are very different and vastly more important.
There is a stringency in the money market, for example, and immediately the whole country is intensely interested; but the selfsame people look on with unruffled calmness at the daily spread of infidelity and the hourly ravages of immorality. A few shiploads of gold are sent abroad, and soon return in answer to a universal cry of protest, but though the gold of faith, the basis of religion, is fast dwindling away, scarce a single voice is raised in opposition. The lack of currency causes a widespread panic, but a falling off in the currency of good deeds, deeds of mercy and charity though never more general or more direful, causes no concern to any but the starving poor.
Men make wry faces at the files of bills that come in month after month and they strain every nerve to make ends meet, but they never reflect what would happen were God to hand down to each of us a monthly report, showing how much He paid out to us day by day and how little the nothing the worse than nothing we did for Him in return! The debit and credit column of day-book and ledger are carefully told up and squared day by day and month by month and year by year, but how hopelessly do the same men neglect their spiritual accounts how recklessly do they rush into spiritual bankruptcy and what a sorry tangle their accounts will present on the great reckoning day!
Again, cholera or smallpox threatens the country and we move heaven and earth to keep it off; our children are sick, we send for the doctor and give medicine; a friend dies, we lift up our voice and weep ; but the cholera of sin runs riot among us, and we let it pass quarantine, forgetting an ounce of pevention is worth a pound of cure; we dose our children's souls with the poison of bad example, and when our nearest and dearest dies by mortal sin, we shed never a tear. We take care to have our property and lives safely insured, but when that great Spiritual Insurance Company the Church sends her agent to insure us for eternity, we either neglect or refuse, though the policy she offers is infinitely desirable, her reliability infallible, and the premium ridiculously small.
There is something fairly ghastly in our indifference to the issue of the death and judgment that await us; as there is in the picture of a pleasure party on the St. Lawrence, carousing in their frail bark as it sweeps downward to the falls; or a criminal singing a ballad on his way to the gallows. If God were, in an instant, to petrify this age, and one man were left to go around and inspect the stony figures, how many, think you, would he find to have been engaged at the last moment in the service of the world, and how few in the service of God? The reason is because we are asleep to the main issue; we have forgotten the one thing to be remembered. And our folly is without excuse. For, as surely as the sun rises and sets, so sure are we that the evening of time is coming, and thereafter the dawn of eternity. The dreary rain prefigures the tears to be shed over us; the snow that mantles blighted Nature reminds us of the shroud that awaits us and the decay that is our common lot.
When the thunder booms we seem to hear the angel's trumpet calling the dead to judgment, and in the lightning's flash, which cometh out of the east and appeareth even unto the west, we are reminded of the coming of the Son of man. In the midst of life there is death; the grave is dug by the cradle's side, and the mother's lullaby is but the prelude to the funeral dirge. And when life shall have merged into death, time into eternity, then, as the Scripture says:
The worldlings shall have slept their sleep and awakening shall find nothing in their hands.
Then looking at those who, while here, were dead to the world but awake to God and the best interests of their souls, the worldlings shall say:
These are they whom we had sometime in derision and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness and their end without honor, and, behold, now they are numbered among the children of God.
Brethren, if the householder only knew when the thief would come, he would sit up and prevent his house being robbed. We know that the Lord will come like a thief in the night surely come, but when, we know not; and blessed is that servant whom He shall find watching. Therefore, St. Paul's first reason for our spiritual awakening is, that being vigilant in time, we may provide for our last end, lest awakening only in eternity we find the folly of our lives irreparable. " Now is the hour for rising," he says, " now is the day of salvation." Our age, the Christian era, is as it were the morning of God's own day midway between, the night of infidelity that preceded it, and the full noontime of the beatific vision that is to come. " Before Christ," as Isaias says, " darkness covered the earth and a shadow over the people," so that they saw and knew little or nothing of God's transcendent glory. The blessed in heaven, on the other hand, see God as He is in the full noonday of His splendor; while we, by the aurora of christian truth, as St. Paul says, see God in part only but hereafter face to face. Our time, therefore, is the morning, the time to rise from sleep. For all of us the night is past, and for many or all the day is at hand.
We should awake, therefore, spiritually, and even as the aurora develops into the brightness and warmth of the. perfect day, so should we advance from one light of virtue to another, from fervor to fervor, until we arrive even at the everlasting day of God's heavenly presence. Worldly Christians and bad Catholics, on the contrary, go down from the twilight, from darkness to darkness, until they are finally swallowed up in the everlasting darkness of hell. " The path of the just," says Solomon, " is like a radiant dawn that advances and increases to a perfect day, but the way of the wicked is dark and its end unknown." His second reason for our spiritual awakening, St. Paul takes from the nearness of the end: " For now," he says, " our salvation is nearer than when we believed."
Before Christ's coming, belief in the future Messias was the key to salvation, but it was only hundreds and thousands of years after their death that heaven was opened to the patriarchal saints of God. Now, however, it is but a step from life through death into eternity, so that the world's salvation, now that it has seen Christ, is nearer than when men merely believed in His coming. And hence, just as the aerolite falls the faster the nearer it approaches its resting place on the earth; as the racer makes his supreme effort on the home stretch; as the eleven struggle all the more fiercely the nearer they come to their goal; so we, seeing the goal of our lives, our salvation, so much nearer and clearer, should be the more eager and vigilant in its attainment. To these reasons of St. Paul for our spiritual awakening, I would venture to add a third.
To-day is the first day the dawn of the Ecclesiastical Year. To-day we begin to prepare for Christ's spiritual coming at Christmas. Now is the hour for us to rise from the sleep of sin, and relight the lamp of God's grace in our souls and lovingly keep vigil against the coming of Our Lord. As at His first coming the tidings of great joy were told 'only to the watching shepherds, and the star of hope shone only on the wakeful seers; so now none but those vigilant in the service of God can realize the full benefit of Christ's spiritual coming. Never was this call to awake more appropriate, or neglect of it more culpable, than now. As the brightness and heat of the sun grow less age by age, so does faith grow dim and charity lose its ardor, and our souls, like ice-bound explorers benumbed with cold, sink into the fatal sleep of death. Hence, we are inclined even more than the people of St. Paul's time, to forget God in our devotion to the world, the flesh, and the devil. And our folly is more guilty than theirs. For, in the beginning of time and of Christianity, men did not know the world as they know it now; they had not, like us, a past history from which to learn its hollowness, nor had they, as we, learned from bitter personal experience that it is all vanity of vanities, and gives naught to its votaries but vexation of spirit.
In the beginning, man's animal passions were as a mighty fire just sprung and raging fiercely, but God subdued them by the waters of the Deluge and tempered them still more since by the waters of Baptism. The devil's powers, too, have been curtailed since the woman Mary crushed the serpent's head, and her divine Son placed at our disposal the means of repelling him. In fine, the way to heaven has been made so smooth by the feet of innumerable saints; so easily traced, deeply dyed as it is with the blood of Christ and the martyrs; and the end has been shown so clear to our view, that the wonder is how, how we can possibly stray from that path; how we can have a single thought but for God and the soul; a single aspiration but one to " dwell all our days in the house of the Lord." Brethren, know that it is now the hour for us to rise from the sleep of sin now, next week, this Advent. And first, you poor soul given to many and serious habits of sin, in God's name cast off now the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Walk honestly, as in the day; thinking nothing, desiring nothing, saying or doing nothing you would be ashamed to exhibit to the world in broad daylight.
Free your soul, for good and all, from those sins of drunkenness and impurity, contention and envy. Make it so pure against the coming of your Lord that it will not quail even before the search-light of God's omniscience. In short, in the words of St. Paul, strip yourselves of the old man with his deeds and put on the new; viz., the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, you who are given to the habit of only one mortal sin oh, remember! that as it is not necessary to have all diseases to die, so neither must one be wholly bad to be condemned. One tag on an article will bring it to its destination, and sin is the label of the soul expressed to hell, the label nothing can remove but the blood of Jesus Christ. And lastly, you who are given only to venial faults oh beware! Like St. Peter you follow Christ but afar off. Take care lest your next act be to deny your Lord. Because you are neither hot nor cold, the Lord will spit you out of His mouth as a loathsome thing, not to be taken back without an effort, without disgust. While the clouds of God's wrath are gathering above you, you, because of your one or two good qualities, send up the lightning-rod of self-conceit and feel perfectly secure. Your danger is greater than that of the out and out sinner; for often the very enormity of a sin will drive the sinner up to the highest virtue, while the mediocre remain in their mediocrity, thus verifying Our Lord's words " that the first shall be last and the last first."
Brethren, may we, one and all, spend the Advent so awake to our most important duties as to merit to receive Christ worthily at Christmas; and may we spend our lives so vigilant in God's service that, at His final coming, we may be among His blessed servants whom He shall find watching.
.....continues
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| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| spaxx |
Posted - 03/15/2010 : 10:21:27
SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTThe liturgy reminds us of the great commandment of charity towards God and our neighbor. "The precept is twofold," declares St. Augustine, "but charity is one." We love God above all and our neighbor for His sake. The unity of our faith, like the unity of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity is the message of the Epistle and the Gospel imposes on us the duty of being united in the bonds of charity.
The liturgy reminds us of the great commandment of charity towards God and our neighbor. "The precept is twofold," declares St. Augustine, "but charity is one." We love God above all and our neighbor for His sake. The unity of our faith, like the unity of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity is the message of the Epistle and the Gospel imposes on us the duty of being united in the bonds of charity.
EPISTLE: Ephesans 4:1-6 Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. Brethren, I, a prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation in which you are called. With all humility and mildness, with patience, sup-porting one another in charity, careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. One body and one spirit, as you are called in one hope of your calling, One Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, and through all, and in us all, who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Matthew 22: 34-36At that time the Pharisees came to Jesus, and one of them, a doctor of the law, asked Him, tempting Him: 'Master, which is the great commandment of the law?' Jesus said to him: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets:" And the Pharisees being gathered together, Jesus asked them, saying: "What think you of Christ, whose son is He?" They say to Him: 'David's.' He saith to them: "How then doth David, in spirit, call Him Lord, saying: The Lord said to My Lord: Sit on my right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool? If David then call Him Lord, how is He his son?" And no man was able to answer Him a word neither durst any man, from that day forth, ask Him any more questions.
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE LOVE OF GOD"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart." - MATT. xxii. 37
"BUT one thing is necessary." (Luke x. 42.) What is this one thing necessary? It is not necessary to acquire riches, nor to ohtain dignities, nor to gain a great name. The only thing necessary is to love God. Whatever is not done for the love of God is lost. This is the greatest and the first commandment of the divine law. To the Pharisee who asked what is the greatest commandment of the law, Jesus Christ answered: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart .... This is the greatest and first commandment." (Matt. xxii. 37, 38.) But this, which is the greatest of the commandments, is the most despised by men: there are few who fulfil it. The greater part of men love their relatives, their friends, and even brute animals, but do not love God. Of these St. John says that they have not life that they are dead. "He that loveth not, abideth in death." (I John iii. 14.) St. Bernard writes, that the reward of a soul is estimated by the measure of her love for God (Serm. xxvii., in Cant.) Let us consider today, in the first point, how dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us; and, in the second, what we ought to do in order to love God with our whole heart.
First Point. How dear this command of loving God with our whole heart ought to be to us.1. What object more noble, more magnificent, more powerful, more rich, more beautiful, more bountiful, more merciful, more grateful, more amiable, or more loving, than himself, could God give us to love? Who more noble than God? Some boast of the nobility of their family for five hundred or a thousand years. But the nobility of God is eternal. He is the Lord of all. Before God all the angels in heaven or all the nobles on earth are but as a drop of water or a grain of dust. "Behold the Gentiles are as a drop of a bucket behold the islands are as a little dust." (Isa. xl. 15.) Who more powerful than God? He can do whatsoever he wills. By an act of his will he has created this world, and by another act he can destroy it when he pleases. Who more wealthy? He possesses all the riches of heaven and earth. Who more beautiful? Before the beauty of God all the beauties of creatures disappear. Who more bountiful? St. Augustine says, that God has a greater desire to do good to us than we have to receive it. Who more merciful? If the most impious sinner on earth humble himself before God, and repent of his sins, God instantly pardons and embraces him. Who more grateful? He does not leave unrewarded the smallest act we perform for his sake. Who more amiable? God is so amiable that, by barely seeing and loving him in heaven, the saints feel a joy which makes them perfectly happy and content for all eternity. The greatest of the torments of the damned arise from knowing that this God is so amiable, and that they cannot love him.
2. Finally, who more loving than God? In the Old Law, men might doubt whether God loved them with a tender love. But, after seeing him die on a cross for us, how can we doubt of the tenderness and the ardent affection with which he loves us? Let us raise our eyes and look at Jesus, the true Son of God, fastened with nails to a gibbet, and let us consider the intensity of the love which he bears us. The cross, the wounds, says St. Bernard, cry out, and proclaim to us that he truly loves us. And what more could he do to convince us of his great love than to lead a life of sorrow for thirty-three years, and afterwards die in torments on the infamous tree of the cross, in order to wash away our sins with his own blood? "Christ also hath loved us, and hath delivered himself up for us." (Eph. v. 2.) "Who hath loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood." (Apoc. i. 5.) "How," says St. Philip Neri, "is it possible for him who believes in God to love anything but God ?" Contemplating Gods love towards men, St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi began one day to ring the bell, saying that she wished to invite all the nations of the earth to love so loving a God. St. Francis de Sales used to say with tears: "To love our God it would be necessary to have an infinite love; and we throw away our love on vain, contemptible things."
3. O! inestimable value of divine love, which makes us rich before God! It is the treasure by which we gain his friendship. "he is an infinite treasure to men, which they that use become the friends of God." (Wis. vii. 14.) The only thing we ought to fear, says St. Gregory of Nyssa (de Vita Moysis), is the loss of God's friendship; and the only object of our desires should be its attainment. It is love that obtains the friendship of God. Hence, according to St. Lawrence Justinian, by love the poor become rich, and without love the rich are poor. "No greater riches than to have charity. In charity the poor man is rich, and without charity the rich man is poor." (S. Laur. Just, in Matt. xiii. 44.) How great is the joy which a person feels in thinking that he is loved by a man of exalted rank! But how much greater must be the consolation which a soul derives from the conviction that God loves her! "I love them that love me." (Prov. viii. 17.) In a soul that loves God the Three Persons of the Adorable Trinity dwell. "If any one love me he will keep my word; and my Father will love him; and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him." (John xiv. 23.) St. Bernard writes, that among all the virtues charity is the one that unites us to God. St. Catherine of Bologna used to say, that love is the golden chain that binds the soul to God. St. Augustine says, that "love is a joint connecting the lover with the beloved." Hence, were God not immense, where should he be found? Find a soul that loves God, and there God is certainly found. Of this St. John assures us. "He that abideth in charity abideth in God, and God in him." (1 John iv. 16.) A poor man loves riches, but he does not therefore enjoy them; he may love a throne, but he does not therefore possess a kingdom. But the man that loves God possesses God. "He abideth in God, and God in him."
4. Besides, St. Thomas says (Tr. de Virt, art. 3), that love draws in its train all other virtues, and directs them all to unite us more closely to God. Hence, because from charity all virtues are born, St. Lawrence Justinian called it the mother of virtues. Hence, St. Augustine used to say: "Love, and do what you wish." He that loves God can only do what is good. If he does evil, he shows that he has ceased to love God. And when he ceases to love him, all things can profit him nothing. If, said the Apostle, I give all my possessions to the poor, and my body to the flames, and have not charity, I am nothing. "And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Cor. xiii. 3.)
5. Love also prevents us from feeling the pains of this life. St. Bonaventure says, that the love of God is like honey; it sweetens things the most bitter. And what more sweet to a soul that loves God than to suffer for him? She knows that by cheerfully embracing sufferings she pleases God, and that her pains shall be the brightest jewels in her crown in Paradise. And who is there that will not willingly suffer and die in imitation of Jesus Christ, who has gone before us, carrying his cross, to offer himself in sacrifice for the love of us, and inviting us to follow his example? "If any man will come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me." (Matt. xvi. 24.) For this purpose he has condescended to humble himself to death, and to the opprobrious death of the cross, for the love of us. "He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross." (Phil. ii. 8.)
Second Point What we ought to do in order to love God with our whole heart6. St. Teresa used to say, that in calling a soul to his love, God bestows upon her an exceedingly great favour. Since, then, most beloved brethren, God calls us all to his love, let us thank and love him with our whole heart. Because he loves us intensely, he wishes to he tenderly loved by us. "When, " says St. Bernard, "God loves, he desires nothing else than to he loved; for he loves only that he may be loved." (Serm. lxiii., in Cant.) It was to inflame us with his divine love that the Eternal Word descended from heaven. So he himself has declared; adding, that he only desires to see this fire lighted up in our hearts. "I am come to cast fire on the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled?" (Luke xii. 49.) Let us now see what means we ought to adopt in order to love God.
7. In the first place, we ought to guard against every sin, whether mortal or venial. "If, " says Jesus Christ, "any one love me, he will keep my word." (John xiv. 23.) The first mark of love is to endeavour not to give the smallest displeasure to the beloved. How can he be said to love God with his whole heart, who is not afraid to commit deliberate venial offences against God? St. Teresa used to say to her spiritual children: "From deliberate sin, however small, may God deliver you." But some will say: Venial sin is a small evil. Is it a small evil to displease a God who is so good, and who loves us so tenderly?
8. In the second place, to love God with the whole heart, it is necessary to have a great desire to love him. Holy desires are the wings with which we fly to God; for, as St. Lawrence Justinian says, a good desire gives us strength to go forward, and lightens the labour of walking in the way of God. According to the spiritual masters, he that does not advance in the way of the Lord goes back; but, on the other hand, God cheerfully gives himself to those who seek after him. "The Lord is good to the soul that seeketh him." (Lamen. iii. 25.) He fills with his own good things all who desire him through love. "He hath filled the hungry with good things." (Luke i. 53.)
9. In the third place, it is necessary to resolve courageously, to arrive at the perfect love of God. Some persons desire to belong entirely to God, but do not resolve to adopt the means. It is of them the Wise Man says, "Desires kill the soul." (Prov. xxi. 25.) I would wish, they say, to become a saint; but still, with all their desires, they never advance a single step. St. Teresa used to say, that "of these irresolute souls the devil is never afraid." Because, if they do not resolve sincerely to give themselves to God without reserve, they shall always continue in the same imperfections. But, on the other hand, the saint says, that God wishes only from us a true resolution to become saints. He himself will do the rest. If, then, we wish to love God with our whole heart, we must resolve to do without reserve what is most pleasing to him, and to begin at once to put our hands to the work. "Whatsoever thy hand is able to do, do it earnestly." (Eccl. ix. 10.) What you can do Today do not put off till to-morrow; do it as soon as possible. A certain nun in the convent of Tori degli Speechi, in Rome, led a tepid life; but, being called by God, in a retreat, to his perfect love, she resolved to correspond immediately to the divine call, and said to her director, with a sincere resolution: "Father, I wish to become a saint, and to become one immediately." And from that moment, with the aid of Gods grace, she lived and died a saint. We must, then, resolve to acquire the perfect love of God, and must immediately adopt the means of becoming saints.
10. The first means is, to detach the heart from all creatures, and to banish from the soul every affection which is not for God. The first question which the ancient fathers of the desert put to every one who sought admission into their society was: "Do you bring an empty heart, that the Holy Ghost may be able to fill it ?" If the world be not expelled from the heart, God cannot enter it. St. Teresa used to say: "Detach the heart from creatures; seek God, and you shall find him." St. Augustine writes, that the Romans worshipped thirty thousand gods. But,among these gods the Roman Senate refused to admit Jesus Christ. Because, said they, he is a proud God, who requires that he alone should be adored. This they had reason to say; for our God wishes to possess our whole souls. He is, as St. Jerome says, a jealous God. And therefore He will have no rival in the affections of our heart. Hence, the Spouse in the Canticles is called "an enclosed garden." "My sister, my spouse is an enclosed garden." (Cant. iv. 12.) The soul, then, that wishes to belong entirely to God, must be shut against all love which is not for God.
11. Hence the Divine Spouse is said to be wounded by one of the eyes of his eyes. "Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast wounded my heart with one of thy eyes." (Cant. iv. 9.) One of her eyes signifies, that in all her thoughts and actions the only end of the spouse is to please God. While, in their devout exercises, worldlings propose to themselves different objects sometimes their own interest, sometimes to please their friends, and sometimes to please themselves. But the saints seek only to please God, to whom they turn, and say: "What have I in heaven? and, besides thee, what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever." (Ps. Ixxii. 25, 26.) We should do the same if we wished to be saints. If, says St. Chrysostom, we do some things pleasing to God, what else but his pleasure do we seek? (Lib. 2, de Compunct. Cord.) What greater reward can a creature obtain than to please its Creator? Hence, in all we desire or do, we should seek nothing but God. A certain solitary, called Zeno, walking through the desert, absorbed in thought, met the Emperor Macedonius going to hunt. The emperor asked him what he was doing. In answer, the solitary said: You go in quest of animals, and I seek God alone. St. Francis de Sales used to say, that the pure love of God consumes all that is not God.
12. Moreover, to love God with our whole heart, it is necessary tolove him without reserve. Hence we must love him with a love of preference. We must prefer him before every other good, and must be resolved to lose a thousand lives, rather than forfeit his friendship. We must say with St. Paul: Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God. (Rom. viii. 38, 39.) We must also love him with a love of benevolence, desiring to see him loved by all: and therefore, if we love God, we should seek as much as possible to kindle in others the fire of his love, or, at least, should pray for the conversion of all who do not love him. We must love him with a love of sorrow, regretting every offence offered to him more than every evil which we could suffer. We must love him with a love of conformity to the divine will. The principal office of love is to unite the will of lovers, and to make the soul say: "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" (Acts ix. 6.) Lord, tell me what thou dost wish from me; I desire to do it. I wish for nothing; I wish only what thou wiliest. Hence, we ought frequently to offer ourselves to God without reserve, that he may do with us, and with all we have, whatever he pleases. We must love God with a love of patience. This is that strong love by which true lovers are known. "Love is strong as death." (Cant. viii. 6.) "There is nothing too difficult," says St. Augustine, "to be conquered by the fire of love." (Lib. De Mor. Eccl, c. xxii.) For, adds the saint, in doing what we love, labour is not felt, or, if it be felt, the very labour is loved. St. Vincent de Paul used to say, that love is measured by the desire of the soul to suffer and be humbled, in order to please God. Let God be pleased, though it should cost us the loss of our life and of all things. To gain all, it is necessary to leave all. All for all, said Thomas a Kempis.
The reason we do not become saints is, as St. Teresa says, because, as we do not give God all our affections, so he does not give us his perfect love. We must then say with tbe spouse in the Canticles: "My beloved to me, and I to him." (Cant. ii. 1 6.) My beloved has given himself entirely to me: it is but just that I give myself without reserve to him. St. John Chrysostom says, that when a soul has given herself entirely to God, she no longer cares for ignominies and sufferings; she loses the desire of all things; and not finding repose in any creature, she is always in search cf her beloved; her sole concern is to find her beloved.
13. To obtain and to preserve divine love, three things are necessary: meditation, communion, and prayer. First, meditation is necessary. He who thinks but little on God, loves him but little. "In my meditation, " says David, "a fire shall flame out." (Ps. xxxviii. 4.)
Meditation, and particularly meditation on the passion of Jesus Christ, is the blessed furnace in which the love of God is kindled and fanned. "He brought me into the wine cellar; he set in order charity in me." (Cant. ii. 4.) The souls that are introduced into this heavenly cellar, by a single glance of Jesus Christ crucified and dying for the love of us, are wounded and inebriated with holy love. For St. Paul says, that Jesus Christ died for us all, that each of us may live only to love him. "And Christ died for all, that they also may not now live to themselves, but unto him who died for them." (2 Cor. v. 15.)
The communion is another holy furnace, in which we are inflamed with divine love. "The holy eucharist, " says St. Chrysostom, "is a fire which inflames us, that, like lions breathing fire, we may retire from the holy table, being made terrible to the devil." (Hom, xli., ad Pop.)
Above all, prayer (the prayer of petition) is necessary. It is by means of prayer that God dispenses all his favours, but particularly the great gift of divine love. To make us ask this love, meditation is a great help. "Without meditation we shall ask little or nothing from God." We must, then, always, every day, and several times in the day, ask God to give us the grace to love him with our whole heart. St. Gregory says, that God wishes to be compelled and importuned by our petitions to bestow upon us his graces. "God wishes to be entreated to be compelled: he wishes in a certain manner to be overcome by importunity." Let us, then, continually ask of Jesus Christ his holy love; and let us ask his divine mother Mary, who is the treasurer of all his graces, to obtain it for us. She is called by St. Bernardino, the dispensatrix of Gods graces. "All graces are dispensed through her hands." t is through her intercession that we must obtain the great gift of divine love.
Coming Next....EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON BAD THOUGHTS
"And Jesus seeing their thoughts, said: Why do you think evil in your hearts." - MATT. ix. 4
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Posted - 02/27/2010 : 12:44:05
SERMON FOR SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
In the Gospel for the Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost the supernatural life of our souls requires that the grace of God should always go before us and accompany us. To Him therefore be glory.
It is He (Christ) Who heals our infirmities, and Who is our support. Wherefore He teaches us in the Gospel the virtue of humility. In a short parable He shows that God raises whoever humiliates himself.
EPISTLE: Ephesans 3:13-21 Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. Brethren, I pray you not to faint at my tribulations for you, which are your glory. For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in Heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened by His Spirit with which might unto the inward man, That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts: that being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and the length, and height, and depth. To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us: to Him be glory in the Church, and in Christ Jesus, unto all generations, world without end. Amen.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 14: 1-11At that time, when Jesus went into the house of one of the chiefs of the Pharisees on the Sabbath day to eat bread, they watched Him. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had the dropsy: and Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and the Pharisees, saying: "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" But they held their peace: but He taking him, healed him, and sent him away. And answering them, He said: "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out on the sabbath day?" And they could not answer Him these things. And He spoke a parable also to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: "When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honorable than thou be invited by him and he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee: Give this man place: and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place: that when he who invited thee cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee: because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled and he that humbled himself shall be exalted." Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON IMPURITY "And behold, there was a certain man before him, who had the dropsy." - LUKE xiv. 2.
THE man who indulges in impurity is like a person labouring under the dropsy. The latter is so much tormented by thirst, that the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes. Such, too, is the nature of the accursed vice of impurity; it is never satiated. "As," says St. Thomas of Villanova , the more the dropsical man abounds in moisture, the more he thirsts; so, too, is it with the waves of eternal pleasures." I will speak Today of the vice of impurity, and will show, in the first point, the delusion of those who say that this vice is but a small evil. And, in the second, the delusion of those who say, that God takes pity on this sin, and that he does not punish it.
First Point. Delusion of those who say that sins against purity are not a great evil.1. The unchaste, then, say that sins contrary to purity are but a small evil. Like "the sow wallowing in the mire" (2 Pet. ii. 22), they are immersed in their own filth, so that they do not see the malice of their actions; and therefore they neither feel nor abhor the stench of their impurities, which excite disgust and horror in all others. Can you, who say that the vice of impurity is but a small evil can you, I ask, deny that it is a mortal sin? If you deny it, you are a heretic; for as St. Paul says: "Do not err. Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, etc., shall possess the kingdom of God." (1 Cor. vi. 9.) It is a mortal sin; it cannot be a small evil. It is more sinful than theft, or detraction, or the violation of the fast. How then can you say that it is not a great evil? Perhaps mortal sin appears to you to be a small evil? Is it a small evil to despise the grace of God, to turn your back upon him, and to lose his friendship, for a transitory, beastly pleasure?
2. St. Thomas teaches, that mortal sin, because it is an insult offered to an infinite God, contains a certain infinitude of malice. "A sin committed against God has a certain infinitude, on account of the infinitude of the Divine Majesty." (S. Thom., 3 p., q. 1, art. 2, ad. 2.) Is mortal sin a small evil? It is so great an evil, that if all the angels and all the saints, the apostles, martyrs, and even the Mother of God, offered all their merits to atone for a single mortal sin, the oblation would not be sufficient. No; for that atonement or satisfaction would be finite; but the debt contracted by mortal sin is infinite, on account of the infinite Majesty of God which has been offended. The hatred which God bears to sins against purity is great beyond measure. If a lady find her plate soiled she is disgusted, and cannot eat. Now, with what disgust and indignation must God, who is Purity itself, behold the filthy impurities by which his law is violated? He loves purity with an infinite love; and consequently he has an infinite hatred for the sensuality which the lewd, voluptuous man calls a small evil. Even the devils who held a high rank in heaven before their fall disdain to tempt men to sins of the flesh.
3. St. Thomas says (lib. 5, de Erud. Princ., c. li.), that Lucifer, who is supposed to have been the devil that tempted Jesus Christ in the desert, tempted him to commit other sins, but scorned to tempt him to offend against chastity. Is this sin a small evil? Is it, then, a small evil to see a man endowed with a rational soul, and enriched with so many divine graces, bring himself by the sin of impurity to the level of a brute? "Fornication and pleasure," says St. Jerome, "pervert the understanding, and change men into beasts." (In Oseam., c. iv.) In the voluptuous and unchaste are literally verified the words of David: "And man, when he was in honour, did not understand: he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like to them." (Ps. xlviii. 13.) St. Jerome says, that there is nothing more vile or degrading than to allow oneself to be conquered by the flesh. Is it a small evil to forget God, and to banish him from the soul, for the sake of giving the body a vile satisfaction, of which, when it is over, you feel ashamed? Of this the Lord complains by the Prophet Ezechiel: "Thus saith the Lord God: Because thou hast forgotten me, and has cast me off behind thy back"(xxiii. 35.) St. Thomas says, that by every vice, but particularly by the vice of impurity, men are removed far from God. "Per luxuriant maxime recedit a Deo." (In Job cap. xxxi.)
4. Moreover, sins of impurity, on account of their great number, are an immense evil. A blasphemer does not always blaspheme, but only when he is drunk or provoked to anger. The assassin, whose trade is to murder others, does not, at the most, commit more than eight or ten homicides. But the unchaste are guilty of an unceasing torrent of sins, by thoughts, by words, by looks, by complacencies, and by touches. So that, when they go to confession they find it impossible to tell the number of the sins they have committed against purity. Even in their sleep the devil represents to them obscene objects, that, on awakening, they may take delight in them; and because they are made the slaves of the enemy, they obey and consent to his suggestions; for it is easy to contract a habit of this sin. To other sins, such as blasphemy, detraction, and murder, men are not prone; but to this vice nature inclines them. Hence St Thomas says, that there is no sinner so ready to offend God as the votary of lust is, on every occasion that occurs to him. The sin of impurity brings in its train the sins of defamation, of theft, hatred, and of boasting of its own filthy abominations. Besides, it ordinarily involves the malice of scandal. Other sins, such as blasphemy, perjury, and murder, excite horror in those who witness them; but this sin excites and draws others to commit it, or, at least, to commit it with less horror.
5. St. Cyprian says that, by lust the evil triumphs over the entire man, over his body and over his soul; over his memory, filling it with the remembrance of unchaste delights, in order to make him take complacency in them; over his intellect, to make him desire occasions of committing sin; over the will, by making it love its impurities as his last end, and as if there were no God. "I made," said Job, "a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin. For what part should God from above have in me?" (xxxi. 1, 2.) Job was afraid to look at a virgin, because he knew that if he consented to a bad thought God should have no part in him. According to St. Gregory, from impurity arises blindness of understanding, destruction, hatred of God, and despair of eternal life(S. Greg., Mor., lib. 13.). St. Augustine says, though the unchaste may grow old, the vice of impurity does not grow old in them. Hence St. Thomas says, that there is no sin in which the devil delights so much as in this sin; because there is no other sin to which nature clings with so much tenacity. To the vice of impurity it adheres so firmly, that the appetite for carnal pleasures becomes insatiable. Go now, and say that the sin of impurity is but a small evil. At the hour of death you shall not say so. Every sin of that kind shall then appear to you a monster of hell. Much less shall you say so before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, who will tell you what the Apostle has already told you: "No fornicator, or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God." (Eph. v. 5.) The man who has lived like a brute does not deserve to sit with the angels.
6. Most beloved brethren, let us continue to pray to God to deliver us from this vice: if we do not, we shall lose our souls. The sin of impurity brings with it blindness and obstinacy. Every vice produces darkness of understanding; but impurity produces it in a greater degree than all other sins. "Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the understanding." (Osee iv. 11.) Wine deprives us of understanding and reason; so does impurity. Hence St. Thomas says, that the man who indulges in unchaste pleasures, does not live according to reason. "In nullo procedit secundum judicium rationis." Now, if the unchaste are deprived of light, and no longer see the evil which they do, how can they abhor it and amend their lives? The Prophet Osee says, that being blinded by their own mire, they do not even think of returning to God. Because their impurities take away from them all knowledge of God. "They will not set their thought to return to their God; for the spirit of fornication is in the midst of them, and they have not known the Lord." (Osee v. 4.) Hence St. Lawrence Justinian writes, that this sin makes men forget God. "Delights of the flesh induced forgetfulness of God." And St. John Damascene teaches that "the carnal man cannot look at the light of truth." Thus, the lewd and voluptuous no longer understand what is meant by the grace of God, by judgment, hell, and eternity. "Fire hath fallen upon them, and they shall not see the sun." (Ps. Ivii. 9.)
Some of these blind miscreants go so far as to say, that fornication is not in itself sinful. They say, that it was not forbidden in the Old Law; and in support of this execrable doctrine they adduce the words of the Lord to Osee: "Go, take thee a wife of fornication, and have of her children of fornication." (Osee i. 2.) In answer I say, that God did not permit Osee to commit fornication; but wished him to take for his wife a woman who had been guilty of fornication: and the children of this marriage were called children of fornication, because the mother had been guilty of that crime. This is, according to St. Jerome, the meaning of the words of the Lord to Osee. But fornication was always forbidden, under pain of mortal sin, in the Old, as well as in the New Law. St. Paul says: "No fornicator or unclean, hath inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." (Eph. v. 5.) Behold the impiety to which the blindness of such sinners carry them! From this blindness it arises, that though they go to the sacraments, their confessions are null for want of true contrition; for how is it possible for them to have true sorrow, when they neither know nor abhor their sins?
7. The vice of impurity also brings with it obstinacy. To conquer temptations, particularly against chastity, continual prayer is necessary. "Watch ye, and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." (Mark xiv. 38.) But how will the unchaste, who are always seeking to be tempted, pray to God to deliver them from temptation? They sometimes, as St. Augustine confessed of himself, even abstain from prayer, through fear of being heard and cured of the disease, which they wish to continue. "I feared," said the saint, "that you would soon hear and heal the disease of concupiscence, which I wished to be satiated, rather than extinguished." (Conf., lib. 8, cap. vii.) St. Peter calls this vice an unceasing sin. "Having eyes full of adultery and sin that ceaseth not." (2 Pet. ii. 14.) Impurity is called an unceasing sin on account of the obstinacy which it induces. Some person addicted to this vice says: I always confess the sin. So much the worse; for since you always relapse into sin, these confessions serve to make you persevere in the sin. The fear of punishment is diminished by saying: I always confess the sin. If you felt that this sin certainly merits hell, you would scarcely say: I will not give it up; I do not care if I am damned. But the devil deceives you. Commit this sin, he says; for you afterwards confess it. But, to make a good confession of your sins, you must have true sorrow of the heart, and a firm purpose to sin no more. Where are this sorrow and this firm purpose of amendment, when you always return to the vomit? If you had had these dispositions, and had received sanctifying grace at your confessions, you should not have relapsed, or at least you should have abstained for a considerable time from relapsing. You have always fallen back into sin in eight or ten days, and perhaps in a shorter time, after confession. What sign is this? It is a sign that you were always in enmity with God. If a sick man instantly vomits the medicine which he takes, it is a sign that his disease is incurable.
8. St. Jerome says, that the vice of impurity, when habitual, will cease when the unhappy man who indulges in it is cast into the fire of hell. "infernal fire, lust, whose fuel is gluttony, whose sparks are brief conversations, whose end is hell." The unchaste become like the vulture that waits to be killed by the fowler, rather than abandon the rottenness of the dead bodies on which it feeds. This is what happened to a young female, who, after having lived in the habit of sin with a young man, fell sick, and appeared to be converted. At the hour of death she asked leave of her confessor to send for the young man, in order to exhort him to change his life at the sight of her death. The confessor very imprudently gave the permission, and taught her what she should say to her accomplice in sin. But listen to what happened. As soon as she saw him, she forgot her promise to the confessor and the exhortation she was to give to the young man. And what did she do? She raised herself up, sat in bed, stretched her arms to him, and said: Friend, I have always loved you, and even now, at the end of my life, I love you: I see that, on your account, I shall go to hell: but I do not care: I am willing, for the love of you, to be damned. After these words she fell back on the bed and expired. These facts are related by Father Segneri (Christ. Istr. Bag., xxiv., n. 10.) Oh! how difficult is it for a person who has contracted a habit of this vice, to amend his life and return sincerely to God! O how difficult is it for him not to terminate this habit in hell, like the unfortunate young woman of whom I have just spoken.
Second Point. Illusion of those who say that God takes pity on this sin.9. The votaries of lust say that God takes pity on this sin; but such is not the language of St. Thomas of Villanova . He says, that in the sacred Scriptures we do not read of any sin so severely chastised as the sin of impurity (Serm. iv., Dom. 1, Quadrag.) We find in the Scriptures, that in punishment of this sin, a deluge of fire descended from heaven on four cities, and, in an instant, consumed not only the inhabitants, but even the very stones. "And the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he destroyed these cities, and all things that spring from the earth." (Gen. xix. 24.) St. Peter Damian relates, that a man and a woman who had sinned against impurity, were found burnt and black as a cinder.
10. Salvian writes, that it was in punishment of the sin of impurity that God sent on the earth the universal deluge, which was caused by continued rain for forty days and forty nights. In this deluge the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mountains; and only eight persons along with Noah were saved in the ark. The rest of the inhabitants of the earth, who were more numerous then than at present, were punished with death in chastisement of the vice of impurity. Mark the words of the Lord in speaking of this chastisement which he inflicted on that sin: "My spirit shall not remain in man for ever; because he is flesh." (Gen. vi. 3.) "That is," says Liranus, "too deeply involved in carnal sins." The Lord added: "For it repenteth me that I made man." (Gen. vi. 7.) The indignation of God is not like ours, which clouds the mind, and drives us into excesses: his wrath is a judgment perfectly just and tranquil, by which God punishes and repairs the disorders of sin. But to make us understand the intensity of his hatred for the sin of impurity, he represents himself as if sorry for having created man, who offended him so grievously by this vice. We, at the present day, see more severe temporal punishment inflicted on this than on any other sin. Go into the hospitals, and listen to the shrieks of so many young men, who, in punishment of their impurities, are obliged to submit to the severest treatment and to the most painful operations, and who, if they escape death, are, according to the divine threat, feeble, and subject to the most excruciating pain for the remainder of their lives. "Thou hast cast me off behind thy back; bear thou also thy wickedness and thy fornications." (Ezec. xxiii. 35.)
11. St. Remigius writes that, if children be excepted, the number of adults that are saved is few, on account of the sins of the flesh. In conformity with this doctrine, it was revealed to a holy soul, that as pride has filled hell with devils, so impurity fills it with men. (Col., disp. ix., ex. 192.) St. Isidore assigns the reason. He says that there is no vice which so much enslaves men to the devil as impurity (S. Isid., lib. 2, c. xxxix.) Hence, St. Augustine says, that with regard to this sin, "the combat is common and the victory rare." Hence it is, that on account of this sin hell is filled with souls.
12. All that I have said on this subject has been said, not that any one present, who has been addicted to the vice of impurity, may be driven to despair, but that such persons may be cured. Let us, then, come to the remedies. These are two great remedies prayer, and the flight of dangerous occasions. Prayer, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the safeguard of chastity (De Orat.) And before him, Solomon, speaking of himself, said the same. "And as I knew that I could not otherwise be continent, except God gave it... I went to the Lord, and besought him." (Wis. viii. 21.) Thus, it is impossible for us to conquer this vice without Gods assistance. Hence, as soon as temptation against chastity presents itself, the remedy is, to turn instantly to God for help, and to repeat several times the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, which have a special virtue to banish bad thoughts of that kind. I have said immediately, without listening to, or beginning to argue with the temptation. When a bad thought occurs to the mind, it is necessary to shake it off instantly, as you would a spark that flies from the fire, and instantly to invoke aid from Jesus and Mary.
13. As to the flight of dangerous occasions, St. Philip Neri used to say that cowards, that is they who fly from the occasions, gain the victory. Hence you must, in the first place, keep a restraint on the eyes, and must abstain from looking at young females. Otherwise, says St. Thomas, you can scarcely avoid the sin (S. Thom. 1, 2, qu. 167, a. 2.) Hence Job said: "I made a covenant with my eyes, that I would not so much as think upon a virgin" (xxxi. 1). He was afraid to look at a virgin; because from looks it is easy to pass to desires, and from desires to acts. St. Francis de Sales used to say, that to look at a woman does not do so much evil as to look at her a second time. If the devil has not gained a victory the first, he will gain the second time. And if it be necessary to abstain from looking at females, it is much more necessary to avoid conversation with them. "Tarry not among women." (Eccl. xlii. 12.) We should be persuaded that, in avoiding occasions of this sin, no caution can be too great. Hence we must be always fearful, and fly from them. "A wise man feareth and declineth from evil; a fool is confident." (Prov. xiv. 16.) A wise man is timid, and flies away; a fool is confident, and falls. |
| spaxx |
Posted - 02/13/2010 : 14:51:46
FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
In todays Epistle, St. Paul admonishes the Galatians to the performance of good works. You now live, he tells them, in the Spirit, that is, the Holy Ghost animates your heart by His grace, enlightens, confirms, and inflames you, admonishes and teaches you, impels your heart to do good. We must, therefore, also regulate our external conduct accordingly, and in particular devote ourselves to the practice of humility and charity, as the foundations of a truly spiritual life. Humility teaches and moves us to think little of ourselves, to avoid vain glory, and not to confide in our own strength. But charity impel us to be meek and compassionate to all, even sinners, to correct them charitably, and lead them back to the path of virtue; since he who is harsh to the erring, despises and treats them roughly, is often permitted by God to fall into the same, nay, even into greater sins.
Particularly we must show charity one for another, that one bears the burdens of the other: that we bear the faults and imperfections of others just as patiently as we wish others to bear with our own imperfections. Thus shall we fulfil the law of Christ, which commands us to love our neighbor; we will prevent many sins which are occasioned by considering ourselves perfect, raising ourselves above others, criticising their failings, and causing disturbance. True glory consists in knowing ourselves, our faults and evil inclinations, and in eradicating them. Be grateful to those who instruct you in the word of God, and give to them willingly of your earthly possessions. What you sow, you shall reap; if you only follow the dictates of the flesh, do not mortify yourself, do not correct your failings, and indulge your sinful appetites, you will one day reap death, destruction and damnation, whereas, on the contrary, if you follow the dictates of the Holy Ghost, you will reap of the Spirit of life.
In the gospel, Christ shows compassion to the widow in order to convince us that God takes sorrowful and destitute widows under His protection; and is to them a consoler and helper; and to teach us to do the same. Woe, therefore, to those who oppress them and cause them to weep. The tears and cries of widows will ascend to God, who will terribly punish the injuries inflicted upon them. (Exod xxii. 22. 23.)
But Christ had still other reasons for compassion, for He saw in this deceased youth the death of sinners, and in the afflicted mother the pain which the Church experiences at the spiritual loss of so many of her children. Should this not also awaken our sympathy since it wad the principal cause which moved our Saviour to compassion. I we are faithful children of our mother, the Church, it is impossible for us not to share her sorrow, and we would surely not be her children, if we could contemplate without sorrow the multitude who daily die the death of sin, and thus separated from the living body of Christ, hasten to eternal destruction. O let us with the Church unceasingly, ask Jesus, that He raise sinners from their spiritual death, enlighten those in error so that all recognize the truth, find, and walk the path Which leads to life !
EPISTLE: Galatians 5: 25, 26; 6: 1-10Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Galatians. Brethren, if we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit. Let us not be made desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. Brethren, and if a man be overtaken in any fault, you, who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye another's burdens, and so you shall fulfill the law of Christ. For if any man think himself to be something, whereas he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let everyone prove his own work, and so he shall have glory in himself only, and not in another. For every-one shall bear his own burden. And let him that is instructed in the word, communicate to him that instructeth him, in all good things. Be not deceived God is not mocked for what things a man shall sow, those also will he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption but he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting. And in doing good, let us not fail for in due time we shall reap, not failing. Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men, but especially to those who are of the household of the faith.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 7: 11-16At that time, Jesus went into a city called Naim: and there went with Him His disciples, and a great multitude. And when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and much people of the city were with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said to her: "Weep not." And He came near and touched the bier. And they that carried it stood still. And He said: "Young man, I say to thee, Arise." And he that was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on them all: and they glorified God, saying: A great Prophet is risen up amongst us, and God has visited His people."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE PRACTICAL DEATH, OR ON WHAT ORDINARILY HAPPENS AT THE DEATH OF MEN OF THE WORLD."Behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother." - LUKE vii. 12
IT is related in this days gospel that, going to the city of Naim, Jesus Christ met a dead man, the only son of his mother, who was carried out to be buried. "Behold, a dead man was carried out." Before we proceed further, let us stop at these words and remember death. The holy Church directs her ministers to say to Christians every year, on Ash Wednesday: "Remember man, thou art but dust, and into dust thou shalt return. Oh! would to God that men had death always before their eyes; if they had, they certainly should not lead such bad lives. Now, beloved brethren, that the remembrance of death may be impressed upon you, I will this day place before your eyes the practical death, or a description of what ordinarily happens at the death of men of the world, and of all the circumstances attending it. Hence we shall consider, in the first point, what happens at the time of the last illness: in the second point, what happens when the last sacraments are received; and, in the third, what happens at the time of death.
First Point. What happens at the time of the last illness1. I do not intend in this discourse to speak of a sinner who had always lived in habitual sin; but of a worldling, who is careless about his salvation, and always entangled in the affairs of the world, in contracts, enmities, courtships, and gaming. He has frequently fallen into mortal sins, and after a considerable time has confessed them. In a word, he has been a relapsing sinner, and has generally lived in enmity with God, or, at least, has been generally perplexed with grievous doubts of conscience. Let us consider the death of such persons, and what ordinarily happens at their death.
2. Let us commence at the time at which his last illness appears. He rises in the morning, he goes out to look after his temporal affairs. But while he is engaged in business, he is assailed by a violent pain in the head, his legs totter, he feels a cold shivering, which runs through every member, a sickness of the stomach, and great debility over the whole body. He immediately returns home and throws himself on the bed. His relatives, his wife and sisters, run to him, and say: "Why have you retired so early? Are you unwell ?" He answers: "I feel sick. I am scarcely able to stand; I have a great headache." "Perhaps" they say, "you have got a fever." "It must be so," he replies, "send for a physician." The physician is immediately sent for. In the meantime the sick man is put to bed, and there he is seized with a cold fit, which makes him shiver from head to foot. He is loaded with covering, but the cold continues for an hour or two, and is succeeded by a burning heat. The physician arrives, asks the sick man how he feels. He examines the pulse, and find he has a severe attack of fever. But, not to alarm him, the physician says: You have fever: but it is trifling. Have you given any occasion to it? The sick man replies: I went out by night a few days ago, and caught cold; or, I dined with a friend, and indulged my appetite to excess. It is worth nothing, the physician says: it is a fulness of stomach, or more probably one of these attacks which occur at the change of season. Eat nothing today: take a cup of tea; be not uneasy; be cheerful; there is no danger. I will see you tomorrow. Oh! that there was an angel, who, on the part of God, would say to the physician: What do you say? Do you tell me that there is no danger in this disease? Ah! the trumpet of the divine justice has, by the first symptoms of his illness, given the signal of the death of this man: for him the time of Gods vengeance has already arrived.
3. The night comes, and the poor invalid gets no rest. The difficulty of breathing and headache increase. The night appears to him a thousand years. The light scarcely dawns when he calls for some of the family. His relatives come, and say to him: Have you rested well? Ah! I have not been able to close my eyes during the entire night. O God! how much do I feel oppressed! Oh! how violent are the spasms in my head! I feel my temples pierced by two nails. Send immediately for the physician; tell him to come as soon as possible. The physician comes, and finds the fever increased; but still he continues to say: "Have courage; there is no danger. The disease must take its course. The fever which accompanies it will make it disappear." He comes the third day, and finds the sick man worse. He comes on the fourth day, and symptoms of malignant fever appear. The taste on the mouth is disagreeable; the tongue is black; every part of the body is restless; and delirium has commenced. The physician, finding that the fever is acute, prescribes purging, bloodletting, and iced water. He says to the relatives: Ah! the sickness is most severe; I do not wish to be alone. Let other physicians be called in, that we may have a consultation. This he says in secret to the relatives, but not to the sick man on the contrary, not to frighten him, he continues to say: "Be cheerful; there is no danger."
4. Thus, they speak of remedies, of more physicians, and of a consultation. But not a word about confession or the last sacraments. I know not how such physicians can be saved. Where the Bull of Pope Pius V is in force, they expressly swear, when they receive the diploma, that, after the third day of his illness, they will pay no more visits to any sick man until he has made his confession. But some physicians do not observe this oath, and thus so many poor souls are damned. For, when a sick man has lost his reason, of what use is confession to him? He is lost. Brethren, when you fall sick, do not wait till the physician tells you to send for a confessor. Send for him of your own accord; for physicians, through fear of displeasing a patient, do not warn him of his danger until they despair, or nearly despair of his recovery. Thus, brethren, send first for your confessor call first for the physician of the soul, and afterwards for the physician of the body. Your soul is at stake, eternity is at stake; if you err then you have erred for ever; your mistake shall be for ever irreparable.
5. The physician, then, conceals from the sick man his danger. His relatives do what is still worse they deceive him by lies. They tell him that he is better, and that the physicians give strong hopes of his recovery. Treacherous relatives! barbarous relatives, who are the worst of enemies! Instead of warning the sick man of his danger (as is their duty, particularly if they are parents, children, or brothers), that he may settle the accounts of his soul, they flatter him, they deceive him, and cause him to die in the state of damnation. But, from the pains, oppression, and restlessness which he feels, from the studied silence of friends who visit him, and from the tears which he sees in the eyes of his relatives, the poor invalid perceives that his disease is mortal. Alas! he says, the hour of death is come. But, through fear of giving me annoyance, they do not warn me of it.#61472;
6. No; his relatives do not let him know that he is in danger of death. But because they attend to their own interest, about which they are more solicitous than they are about anything else, they bring in a scrivener, in the hope that the dying man will leave them a large portion of his property. The scrivener arrives. Who is this? asks the sick man. The relatives answer: He is a scrivener. Perhaps, for your own satisfaction, you would like to make your will. Then is my sickness mortal? Am I near my end? No, father, or brother, they say: we know that there is no necessity for making a will. But you must one day make it, and it would be better to do it now, while you have the full use of all your faculties. Very well, he replies, since the scrivener is come, and since you wish me to do it, I will make my last will. The scrivener first asks the sick man in what church he wishes to be buried, in case he should die. Oh! what a painful question! After choosing the place of his interment, he begins to dispose of all his goods. I bequeath such an estate or farm to my children; such a house to my brother; such a sum of money to a friend; and such an article of furniture to an acquaintance. O miserable man, what have you done? You have submitted to so much fatigue, you have burdened your conscience with so many sins, in order to acquire these goods; and now you leave them for ever, and bequeath them to such and such persons. But there is no remedy; when death comes we must leave all things. This separation from all worldly possessions is very painful to the sick man, whose heart was attached to his property, his house, his garden, his money, and his amusements. Death comes, gives the stroke, and separates the heart from all the objects of its love. This stroke tortures the sick man with excruciating pain. Ah, brethren! let us detach our hearts from the things of this world before death separates us from them with so much pain, and with such great danger to our salvation.
Second Point. What happens at the time in which the sacraments are received7. Behold! the dying man has made his will. After the eighth or tenth day of his illness, seeing that he is daily growing worse, and that he is near his end, one of his relatives asks: "When shall we send for his confessor? He has been a man of the world. We know that he has not been a saint." They all agree that the confessor should be sent for. But all refuse to speak to the sick man on the subject. Hence they send for the parish priest, or for some other confessor, to make known to the dying man his danger, and the necessity of receiving the last sacraments. But this is done only when he has nearly lost the use of his faculties. The confessor comes. He inquires from the family about the state of the sick man, and the sort of life which he led. He finds that he has been careless about the duties of religion, and, from the circumstances which he hears, he trembles for the salvation of the poor soul. Understanding that the dying man has but a short time to live, the confessor, first of all, orders the relatives to leave the room, and to return to it no more. He then approaches and salutes the sick man. The latter asks: Who are you? I am, replies the confessor, the parish priest, Father Such-a-one. Do you wish me to do anything for you? Having heard that you had a severe attack of illness, I have come to reconcile you with your Creator. Father, I am obliged to you; but I beg of you for the present to let me take a little rest; for I have got no sleep for several nights, and I am scarcely able to speak. Recommend me to God.
8. Knowing the dangerous state of the soul and body of the sick man, the confessor says: We hope that the Lord and the most Holy Virgin will deliver you from this illness. But, sooner or later, you must die. Your illness is very severe. You would do well to make your confession, and to adjust the affairs of your soul. Perhaps you have scruples of conscience. I have come on purpose to calm the troubles of your mind. Father, I should have to make a long confession; for my conscience is perplexed and burdened with sin. At present I am not able to do it. I feel a lightness in my head, and I can scarcely breathe. Father, we will see about it tomorrow, at present I am not able. But who knows what may happen? Some attack may come on, which will not leave you time to make your confession. Father, do not torment me any longer. I have said that I am not able; it is impossible for me to do it.
But the confessor, who knows that there is no hope of recovery, feels himself obliged to speak more plainly, and says: I think it is my duty to inform you that your life is about to close. I entreat you to make your confession: for, perhaps, tomorrow you shall be dead. Why, father, do you say so? Because, replies the confessor, so the physicians have said. The poor dying man then begins to rage against the physicians, and against his friends. Ah! the traitors have deceived me. They knew my danger, and have not informed me of it. Ah! unhappy me! The confessor rejoins, and says: Be not alarmed at the difficulties of making your confession: it is enough to mention the most grievous sins which you remember. I will assist you. Be not afraid. Begin at once to tell your sins. The dying man forces himself to commence his confession; but his mind is all confusion; he knows not where to begin; he tries to tell his sins, but is not able to explain himself. He feels but little, and understands still less, what the confessor says to him. O God! At such a time, and in such a state, worldlings are obliged to attend to the most important of all affairs the affair of eternal salvation! The confessor hears, perhaps, many sins, bad habits, injuries done to the property and character of others, confessions made with little sorrow and with little purpose of amendment. He assists the dying man as well as he can, and, after a short exhortation, tells him to make an act of contrition. But, God grant that he may not be as insensible to sorrow as the sick man who was attended by Cardinal Bellarmine. When the Cardinal exhorted him to make an act of contrition, he said: Father, do not trouble yourself; these things are too high for me; I do not understand them. In the end, the confessor absolves the dying man; but who knows if God absolves him?
9. After giving him absolution, the confessor says: Prepare yourself, now, to receive Jesus Christ for your viaticum. It is now, replies the sick man, four or five hours after night. I will communicate in the morning. No: perhaps in the morning time shall be no more for you; you must at present receive the viaticum and extreme unction. Ah, unhappy me! the dying man says; am I then at the point of death? He has reason to say so; for the practice of some physicians is, to put off the viaticum till the patient is near his last, and till he has lost, or nearly lost, his senses. This is a common delusion. According to the common opinion of theologians, the viaticum ought always to be administered when there is danger of death. It would be useful here to observe, that Pope Benedict XIV, in his fifty-third Bull (in Euchol. Grace., . 46, ap. Bullar, tom. 4), says, that extreme unction may be given whenever the sick man "labours under a grievous illness." Hence, whenever the sick can receive the viaticum, they can also receive the sacrament of extreme unction. It is not necessary to wait, as some physicians recommend, till they are near the agony, or till they lose their senses.
10. Behold! the viaticum arrives, the sick man hears the bell. Oh! how he trembles! The trembling and terror increase when he sees the priest coming into the room with the holy sacrament, and when he beholds around his bed the torches of those who assisted at the procession. The priest recites the words of the ritual: "Accipe frater viaticum corporis Domini nostri Jesu Christi qui te custodiat ab hoste maligno, et perducat in vitam ternum. Amen." Brother, receive the viaticum of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he may preserve you from the wicked enemy, and that he may bring you to eternal life. He receives the consecrated host upon his tongue: the priest then gives him a little water to enable him to swallow it; for his throat is dry and parched.
11. The priest afterwards gives the extreme unction, and begins by anointing the eyes while he says the following words: "Per istam sanctam unctionem, et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Deus, quidquid per visum deliquisti." He then anoints the other senses the ears, the nostrils, the mouth, the hands, the feet, and the loins, saying: "Quidquid per aditum deliquisti per odoratum, per gustum et locutionem, per tactum, per gressum, et lumborum delectationem." And, during the administration of the extreme unction, the devil is employed in reminding the sick man of all the sins he committed by the senses by the eyes, the ears, the tongue, the hands; and says to him: After so many sins can you expect to be saved? Oh! what terror is then caused by every one of those mortal sins, which are now called human frailties, and which, worldlings say, God will not punish! Now they are disregarded. But then every mortal sin shall be a sword that will pierce the soul with terror. But let us come to what happens at death.
Third Point. What happens at the time of death.12. After having administered the sacraments the priest departs, and leaves the dying man alone. He feels more terror and alarm after the sacraments than before he received them; for he knows that his entire preparation for them was made in the midst of great confusion of mind and great uneasiness of conscience. But the signs of approaching death appear: the sick man falls into a cold sweat; the sight grows dim, and he no longer knows the persons that attend him: he has lost his speech, and can scarcely breathe. In the midst of this darkness of death he continues to say: "Oh! that I had time, that I had another day, with the use of my faculties, to make a good confession!" For, the unhappy man has great doubts about the confession which he has made: he feels that he was not able to excite himself to make a true act of sorrow. But, what time? what day? "Time shall be no longer." (Apoc. x. 6.) The confessor has the book open to announce to him his departure from this world. "Profiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc mundo." Depart, Christian soul, from this world. The dying man continues to say within himself: "O lost years of my life! fool that I have been!" But when does he say this? When the scene is about to close for him; when the oil in the lamp is just consumed; and when the great moment has arrived on which his eternal happiness or misery depends.
13. But behold! his eyes are petrified; his body takes the posture of a corpse; the extremities, the hands and feet, have become cold. The agony commences; the priest begins to recite the prayers for the recommendation of a departing soul. After having read the recommendation, he feels the pulse of the dying man, and feels that it has ceased to beat. Light, he says, immediately the blessed candle. O candle! O candle! show us light, now that we have health; for, at the hour of death, thy light shall serve only to terrify us the more. But already the breathing of the sick man is not so frequent; it has begun to fail This is a sign that death is very near. The assisting priest raises his voice, and says to the poor man in his agony: Say after me O God, come to my aid; have mercy on me. My crucified Jesus, save me through thy passion. Mother of God, intercede for me. St. Joseph, St. Michael, the archangel, my holy angel-guardian, and all ye saints in Paradise, pray to God for me. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and Mary, I give you my heart and my soul. But behold the last signs of death; the phlegm is confined in the throat; the dying man sends forth feeble moans; the tears rush from his eyes; finally he twists the mouth, he distorts the eyes, he makes a few pauses, and at the last opening of the mouth, he expires and dies.
14. The priest then brings a candle to the mouth of the dead man, to try if he be still alive: he sees that the flame is not moved, and thence infers that life is extinct. He says: May he rest in peace. And turning to the bystanders, announces that he is dead. "I hope," he adds, "he is gone to heaven." He is dead, and how has he died? No one knows whether he is saved or damned; but he has died in a great tempest. Such is the death of those unfortunate men who, during life, have cared little about God. "Their souls shall die in a storm." (Job xxxvi. 14.) Of every one that dies it is usual to say that "he is gone to heaven." He is gone to heaven if he deserved heaven. But, if he merited hell, he has gone to hell. Do all go to heaven? Oh! how few enter into that abode of bliss!
15. Before the body is cold he is covered with a worn out garment; because it must soon rot with him in the grave. Two lighted candles are placed in the chamber; the curtain of the bed on which the dead man lies is let down, and he is left alone. The parish priest is sent for, and requested to come in the morning and take away the corpse. The priest comes; the deceased is carried to the church; and this is his last journey on this earth. The priests begin to sing the "De profundis clamavi ad te Domine," etc. The spectators, who look at the funeral as it passes, speak of the deceased. One says: "He was a proud man." Another: "Oh! that he had died ten years ago!" A third: "He was fortunate in the world; he made a great deal of money! he had a fine house, but now he takes nothing with him." And while they speak of him in this manner he is burning in hell. He arrives at the church, and is placed in the middle, surrounded by six candles. Tho bystanders look at him, but suddenly turn away their eyes, because his appearance excites horror. The Mass is sung for his repose, and after Mass, the "Libera," and the function is concluded with these words: Requiescat in pace May he rest in peace. May he rest in peace, if he died in peace with God; but, if he has died in enmity with God, what peace what peace can he enjoy? He shall have no peace as long as God shall be God. The sepulchre is then opened, the corpse is thrown into it. The grave is covered with a tombstone, and he is left there to rot and to be the food of worms. It is thus that the scene of this world ends for each of us. His relatives put on mourning; but they first divide among themselves the property which he has left. They shed an occasional tear for two or three days, and afterwards forget him. And what shall become of him? If he be saved, he shall be happy for ever; if damned, he must be miserable for eternity.
Coming next.....SIXTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON IMPURITY
"And behold, there was a certain man before him, who had the dropsy." - LUKE xiv. 2. |
| spaxx |
Posted - 01/23/2010 : 14:28:40
FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
The Epistle and the Gospel for the Traditional liturgy for the Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost focuses on the fact that we cannot serve two masters. Those two masters this week are namely the flesh and the spirit. The spirit, or grace, given to us by the Holy Ghost, inclines us to supernatural and holy things. The flesh, or man with his bad and carnal instincts, make us commit all manner of sins.
The Epistle and Gospel teach Christian people to attend to their temporal interests without exaggerated preoccupation, for such anxiety offends God Who is our Father in Heaven.
EPISTLE: Galatians 5: 16-24Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Galatians. Brethren, Walk in the spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh: for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh for these are contrary one to another: so that you do not the things that you would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like of which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things, shall not obtain the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Matthew 6: 24-33At that time Jesus said to His disciples: "No man can serve two masters for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more than the raiment? Behold the birds of the air for they neither sow nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are you not of much more value than they? And which of you, by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit? And for raiment, why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they labor not, neither do they spin but I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. Now if God so clothe the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast in the oven, how much more you, O ye of little faith! Be not solicitous therefore saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? for after all these things do the heathen seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice and all these things shall be added unto you."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ALL ENDS, AND SOON ENDS.
" The grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven." - MATT. vii. 30.
BEHOLD! all the goods of the earth are like the grass of the field, which Today is blooming and beautiful, but in the evening it withers and loses its flowers, and the next day is cast into the fire. This is what God commanded the Prophet Isaias to preach, when he said to him: "Cry" And I said: "What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field." (Isa. xl. 6.) Hence St. James compares the rich of this world to the flower of grass: at the end of their journey through life they rot, along with all their riches and pomps. "The rich....because as the flower of the grass shall he pass away. For the sun rose with a burning heat, and parched the grass, and the flower thereof fell off, and the beauty of the shape thereof perished: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways." (St. James i. 10, 11.) They fade away and are cast into the fire, like the rich glutton, who made a splendid appearance in this life, but afterwards "was buried in hell." (Luke xvi. 22.) Let us, then, dearly beloved Christians, attend to the salvation of our souls, and to the acquisition of riches for eternity, which never ends; for everything in this world ends, and ends very soon
First Point. Everything ends.
1. When one of the great of this world is in the full enjoyment of the riches and honours which he has acquired, death shall come, and he shall he told: "Take order with thy house; for thou shalt die, and not live." (Isa. xxxviii. 1.) Oh! what doleful tidings! The unhappy man must then say: Farewell, world! farewell, O villa! farewell, grotto! farewell, relatives! farewell, friends! farewell, sports! farewell, balls! farewell, comedies! farewell, banquets! farewell, honours! all is over for me. There is no remedy: whether he will or not, he must leave all. "For when he shall die, he shall take nothing away; nor shall his glory descend with him." (Ps. xlviii. 18.) St. Bernard says, that death produces a horrible separation of the soul from the body, and from all the things of this earth. "Opus mortis horrendum divortium." (Serm. xxvi., in Cant.)
To the great of this world, whom worldlings regard as the most fortunate of mortals, the bare name of death is so full of bitterness, that they are unwilling even to hear it mentioned. For their entire concern is to find peace in their earthly goods. "O death!" says Ecclesiasticus, "how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that hath peace in his possessions." (Eccl. xli. 1.) But how much greater bitterness shall death itself cause when it actually comes miserable the man who is attached to the goods of this world! Every separation produces pain. Hence, when the soul shall be separated by the stroke of death from the goods on which she had fixed all her affections, the pain must be excruciating. It was this that made king Agag exclaim, when the news of approaching death was announced to him: "Doth bitter death separate me in this manner?" (I Kings xv. 32.) The great misfortune of worldlings is, that when they are on the point of being summoned to judgment, instead of endeavouring to adjust the accounts of their souls, they direct all their attention to earthly things. But, says St. John Chrysostom, the punishment which awaits sinners, on account of having forgotten God during life, is that they forget themselves at the hour of death.
2. But how great soever a mans attachment to the things of this world may be, he must take leave of them at death. Naked he has entered into this world, and naked he shall depart from it. "Naked," says Job, "I came out of my mother#8223;s womb, and naked shall I return thither." (Job i. 21.) In a word, they who have spent their whole life, have lost their sleep, their health, and their soul, in accumulating riches and possessions shall take nothing with them at the hour of death: their eyes shall then be opened; and of all they had so dearly acquired, they shall find nothing in their hands. Hence, on that night of confusion, they shall be overwhelmed in a tempest of pains and sadness. "The rich man, when he shall sleep, shall take away nothing with him! He shall open his eyes and find nothing... a tempest shall oppress him in the night." (Job xxvii. 19, 20.) St. Antonine relates that Saladin, king of the Saracens, gave orders at the hour of death, that the winding sheet in which he was to be buried should be carried before him to the grave, and that a person should cry out: "Of all his possessions, this only shall Saladin bring with him." The saint also relates that a certain philosopher, speaking of Alexander the Great after his death, said: Behold the man that made the earth tremble. "The earth," as the Scripture says, "was quiet before him." (1 Mach. i. 3.) He is now under the earth. Behold the man whom the dominion of the whole world could not satisfy: now four palms of ground are sufficient for him. St. Augustine, says, that having gone to see the tomb of Caesar, he exclaimed: "Princes feared thee; cities worshipped thee; all trembled before thee; where is thy magnificence gone ?" (Serm. xxxviii. ad Fratr.) Listen to what David says: "I have seen the wicked highly exalted and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. And I passed by, and lo! he was not." (Ps. xxxvi. 35, 36.) Oh! how many such spectacles are seen every day in the world! A sinner who had been born in lowliness and poverty, afterwards acquires wealth and honours, so as to excite the envy of all. When he dies, every one says: He made a fortune in the world. But now he is dead, and with death all is over for him.
3. "Why is earth and ashes proud ?" (Eccl. x. 9.) Such the language which the Lord addresses to the man who is puffed up by earthly honours and earthly riches. Miserable creature, he says, whence comes such pride? If you enjoy honours and riches, remember that you are dust. "For dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return." (Gen. iii. 19.) You must die, and after death what advantage shall you derive from the honours and possessions which now inflate you with pride? "Go," says St. Ambrose, "to a cemetery, in which are buried the rich and poor, and see if you can discern among them who has been rich and who has been poor; all are naked, and nothing remains of the richest among them but a few withered bones." (lib. vi. exam., cap. viii). How profitable would the remembrance of death be to the man who lives in the world! "He shall be brought to the grave, and shall watch in the heap of the dead." (Job xxi. 32.) At the sight of these dead bodies he would remember death, and that he shall one day be like them. Thus, he should be awakened from the deadly sleep in which perhaps he lives in a state of perdition. But the misfortune is, that worldlings are unwilling to think of death until the hour comes when they must depart from this earth to go into eternity; and therefore they live as attached to the world, as if they were never to be separated from it. But our life is short, and shall soon end: thus all things must end, and must soon end.
Second Point. All soon ends.
4. Men know well, and believe firmly, that they shall die. But they imagine death is far off as if it were never to arrive. But Job tells us that the life of man is short. "Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries. Who cometh forth like a flower and is destroyed." (Job xiv. 2.) At present the health of men is so much impaired, that, as we see by experience, the greater number of them die before they attain the age of seventy. And what, says St. James, is our life but a vapour, which a blast of wind, a fever, a stroke of apoplexy, a puncture, an attack of the chest, causes to disappear, and which is seen no more? "For what is your life? It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while." (St. James iv. 15.) "We all die," said the woman of Thecua to David, "and like waters that return no more, we fall down into the earth." (2 Kings xiv. 14.) She spoke the truth; as all rivers and streams run to the sea, and as the gliding waters return no more, so our days pass away, and we approach to death.
5. They pass; they pass quickly. "My days, " says Job, "have been swifter than a post." (Job ix. 25.) Death comes to meet us, and runs more swiftly than a post. So that every step we make, every breath we draw, we approach to death. St. Jerome felt that even while he was writing he was drawing nearer to death. Hence he said: "What I write is taken away from my life." Let us, then, say with Job: Years passed by, and with them pleasures, honours, pomps, and all things in this world pass away, "and only the grave remaineth for me." (Job xviii. 1.) In a word, all the glory of the labours we have undergone in this world, in order to acquire a large income, a high character for valour, for learning and genius, shall end in our being thrown into a pit to become the food of worms. The miserable worldling then shall say at death: My house, my garden, my fashionable furniture, my pictures and rich apparel, shall, in a short time, belong no more to me; "and only the grave remaineth for me."
6. But how much soever the worldling may be distracted by his worldly affairs and by his pleasures how much soever he may be entangled in them, St. Chrysostom says, that when the fear of death, which sets fire to all things of the present life, begins to enter the soul, it will compel him to think and to be solicitous about his lot after death. (Serm. in 2 Tim.) Alas! at the hour of death "the eyes of the blind shall be opened." (Is xxxv. 5.) Then indeed shall he opened the eyes of those blind worldlings who have employed their whole life in acquiring earthly goods, and have paid but little attention to the interests of the soul. In all these shall be verified what Jesus Christ has told them that death shall come when they least expect it. "At what hour you think not the Son of Man will come." (Luke xii. 40.) Thus, on these unhappy men death comes unexpectedly. Hence, because the lovers of the world are not usually warned of their approaching dissolution till it is very near, they must, in the last few days of life, adjust the accounts of their soul for the fifty or sixty years which they lived on this earth. They will then desire another month, or another week, to settle their accounts or to tranquillize their conscience. But "they will seek for peace, and there shall he none." (Ezec. vii. 25.) The time which they desire is refused. The assistant priest reads the divine command to depart instantly from this world. "Depart, Christian soul, from this world." Oh! how dangerous the entrance of worldlings into eternity, dying, as they do, amid so much darkness and confusion, in consequence of the disorderly state of the accounts of their souls.
7. "Weight and balance are the judgments of the Lord." (Prov. xvi. 11.) At the tribunal of God, nobility, dignities, and riches have no weight. Two things only our sins, and the graces bestowed on us by God make the scales ascend or descend. They who shall be found faithful in corresponding with the lights and calls which they have received, shall be rewarded; and they who shall be found unfaithful, shall be condemned. We do not keep an account of Gods graces; but the Lord keeps an account of them; he measures them; and when he sees them despised to a certain degree, he leaves the soul in her sins, and takes her out of life in that miserable state. "For what things a man shall sow those also shall he reap." (Gal. vi. 8.) From labours undertaken for the attainment of posts of honour and emolument, for the acquisition of property and of worldly applause, we reap nothing at the hour of death: all are then lost. We gather fruits of eternal life only from works performed, and tribulations suffered for God.
8. Hence, St. Paul exhorts us to attend to our own business. "But we must entreat you, brethren.... that you do your own business." (1 Thess. iv. 10, 11.) Of what business, I ask, does the Apostle speak? Is it of acquiring riches, or a great name in the world? No; he speaks of the business of the soul, of which Jesus Christ spoke, when he said: "Trade till I come." (Luke xix. 13.) The business for which the Lord has placed, and for which he keeps us on this earth, is to save our souls, and by good works to gain eternal life. This is the end for which we have been created. "And the end eternal life." (Rom. vi. 22.) The business of the soul is for us not only the most important, but also the principal and only affair; for, if the soul be saved, all is safe; but if the soul be lost, all is lost. Hence, we ought, as the Scripture says, to strive for the salvation of our souls, and to combat to death for justice that is, for the observance of the divine law. "Strive for justice for thy soul, and even unto death fight for justice." (Eccl. iv. 33.) The business which our Saviour recommends to us, saying: Trade till I come, is, to have always before our eyes the day on which he shall come to demand an account of our whole life.
9. All things in this world acquisitions, applause, grandeur must, as we have said, all end, and end very soon. "The fashion of this world passeth away." (1 Cor. vii. 31.) The scene of this life passes away. Happy they who, in this scene, act their part well, and save their souls, preferring the eternal interests of the soul to all the temporal interests of the body. "He that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal." (John xii. 26.) Worldlings say: Happy the man who hoards up money! happy they who acquire the esteem of the world, and enjoy the pleasures of this life! folly! Happy he who loves God and saves his soul! The salvation of his soul was the only favour which king David asked of God. One thing have I asked of the Lord, this will I seek after." (Ps. xxvi. 4.) And St. Paul said, that to acquire the grace of Jesus Christ which contains eternal life, he despised as dung all worldly goods. "I count all things as loss and I count them as dung, that I may gain Christ." (Phil, iii. 8.)
10. But certain fathers of families will say: I do not labour so much for myself as for my children, whom I wish to leave in comfortable circumstances. But I answer: If you dissipate the goods which you possess, and leave your children in poverty, you do wrong, and are guilty of sin. But will you lose your soul in order to leave your children comfortable? If you fall into hell, perhaps they will come and release you from it? O folly! Listen to what David said: "I have not seen the just man forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread." (Ps. xxxvi. 25.) Attend to the service of God; act according to justice; the Lord will provide for the wants of your children. And you shall save your souls, and shall lay up that eternal treasure of happiness which can never be taken from you a treasure not like earthly possessions, of which you may be deprived by robbers, and which you shall certainly lose at death. This is the advice which the Lord gives you: "But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." (Matt. vi. 20.) In conclusion, attend to the beautiful admonition which St. Gregory gives to all who wish to live well and to gain eternal life.
Let the end of all our actions in this life be, the acquisition of eternal goods; and let us use temporal things only to preserve life for the little time we have to remain on this earth. As there is an infinite distance between eternity and the time of our life, so there ought to be, according to our mode of understanding, an infinite distance between the attention which we should pay to the goods of eternity, which shall be enjoyed for ever, and the care we take of the goods of this life, which death shall soon take away from us.
Coming next.......FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE PRACTICAL DEATH, OR ON WHAT ORDINARILY HAPPENS AT THE DEATH OF MEN OF THE WORLD.
" Behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son of his mother." LUKE vii. 12
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Posted - 01/02/2010 : 14:42:45
THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTThe liturgy for the Thirteenth Sunday After Pentecost shows us that by faith we put all our hope in Jesus, for He is our Refuge and we ask for the virtue of charity, which renders us lovers of the divine law and practitioners of it. Let us pray for an increase of faith, hope and charity.
The prayers for an increase of this - faith, hope and charity - re-echo the teaching of the Apostle in the Epistle and that of the Master in the Gospel. The Jews wanted to impose the Mosaic law on Christians; St Paul shows to the Galatians that it is not this law which gives holiness to souls, since, before the law, Abraham, father of the Jewish people, was sanctified by his faith in Jesus. All those, therefore, Jews or pagans, who enter into the Church and put their faith in the merits of the Passion of Christ will be saved.
Our Divine Savior indeed heals all the lepers, Jews or Samaritans, who have recourse to Him. " Arise," said Jesus to the latter, " thy faith hath made thee whole." It is He Who, through His Church, gives back health to the souls of those, whether Jews or Gentiles, who come to Him, By faith we put in Jesus all our hope for He is our refuge (Alleluia) and we ask for the virtue of charity which makes us love the divine law and makes us practice it
EPISTLE: Galatians 3: 16-22
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Brethren, To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed. He saith not:" And to his seeds, "as of many but as of one: "And to Thy seed," which is Christ. Now this I say, that the testament which was confirmed by God, the law which was made after four hundred and thirty years, doth not disannul to make the promise of no effect.For if the inheritance be of the law it is no more of promise. But God gave it to Abraham by promise. Why then was the law? It was set because of transgressions until the seed should come, to whom He made the promise, being ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one: but God is one. Was the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given, which could give life, verily justice should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 17: 11-19
At that time, as Jesus was going to Jerusalem, He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee: and as He entered into a certain town, there met Him ten men that were lepers, who stood afar off, and lifted up their voice, saying: Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. Whom when He saw, He said: "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were made clean. And one of them, when he saw that he was made clean, went back, with a loud voice glorifying God: and he fell on his face before His feet, giving thanks: and this was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said: "Were not ten made clean? And where are the nine? There is no one found to return, and give glory to God, but this stranger." And He said to him: "Arise, go thy way for thy faith hath made thee whole."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON AVOIDING BAD COMPANY"There met him ten men that were lepers... As they went, they were made clean." - LUKE xvii. 12, 14
IN this days gospel it is related, that ten lepers of a certain town met Jesus Christ, and entreated him to heal the leprosy under which they labored. The Lord bid them go and present themselves to the priests of the temple; but before they reached the temple they were cured. Now it may be asked why our Savior, who could heal them in an instant, wished them to go to the priests, and healed them on the way. A certain author (Anthony of Lisbon) says that Jesus Christ foresaw that, had he cured them on the spot, they, by remaining in the place and conversing with the other lepers, from whom they took the leprosy, should easily relapse into the same disease. Therefore, he first wished them to depart from the place and then healed them. Whatever may be thought of this reason, let us come to the moral sense which may be deduced from it. The leprosy resembles sin. As the leprosy is a contagious disease, so the bad habits of the wicked infect others who associate with them. Hence, the leper who wishes to be cured shall never be healed unless he separates from bad companions. He that keeps company with robbers soon becomes a thief. In this discourse I shall show, that, to lead a good life, it is necessary to avoid bad companions.
1. "A friend of fools," says the Holy Ghost, "shall become like them." (Prov. xiii. 20.) Christians who live in enmity with God are, Father M. Avila used to say, all fools, who deserve to be shut up in a mad-house. For, what greater madness can be conceived than to believe in hell and to live in sin? But the man who contracts an intimacy with these fools shall soon be come like them. Although he should hear all the sermons of the sacred orators, lie will continue in vice, according to the celebrated maxim: "Examples make greater impressions than words." Hence the Royal Prophet has said: "With the elect thou wilt be elect, and with the perverse thou wilt be perverted." (Ps. xvii. 27.) St. Augustine says, that familiarity with sinners is as it were a hook which draws us to communicate in their vices. Let us, said the saint, avoid wicked friends, "lest by their company we may be drawn to a communion of vice." St. Thomas teaches, that to know whom we should avoid is a great means of saving our souls.
2. "Let their way become dark and slippery, and let the angel of the Lord pursue them." (Ps. xxxiv. 6.) All men in this life walk in the midst of darkness and in a slippery way. If, then, a bad angel that is, a wicked companion, who is worse than any devil pursue them, and endeavor to drive them into an abyss, who shall be able to escape death? St. John Chrysostom said, that if we wish to know a man#8223;s moral habits, we have only to observe the character of the friends with whom he associates; because friendship finds or makes him like his friends. First, because, to please his friends, a man will endeavor to imitate them; secondly, because, as Seneca says, nature inclines men to do what they see others do. And the Scripture says: "They were mingled among the heathens, and learned their works." (Ps. cv. 35.) According to St. Basil, as air which comes from pestilential places causes infection, so, by conversation with bad companions, we almost imperceptibly contract their vices (St. Bas., Hom, ix., ex var. quod Deus, etc.). And St. Bernard says that St. Peter, in consequence of associating with the enemies of Jesus Christ, denied his Master.
3. But how, asks St. Ambrose, can bad companions give you the odor of chastity, when they exhale the stench of impurity? How can they infuse into you sentiments of devotion when they themselves fly from it? How can they impart to you a shame of offending God, when they cast it away?
St. Augustine writes of himself, that when he associated with bad companions, who boasted of their wickedness, he felt himself impelled to sin without shame; and to appear like them, he gloried in his evil actions. Hence Isaias admonishes you to "touch no unclean thing." (Isa. lii. 11.) Touch not what is unclean: if you do, you too shall be polluted. He that handles pitch, says Ecclesiasticus, shall certainly be denied with it; and they who keep company with the proud shall be clothed with pride. The same holds for other vices: "He that toucheth pitch shall be denied with it; and he that hath fellowship with the proud shall put on pride." (Eccl. xiii. 1.)
4. What then must we do? The Wise Man tells us that we ought not only to avoid the vices of the wicked, but also to beware of treading in the ways in which they walk. "Restrain thy foot from their paths." (Prov. i. 15.) That is, we should avoid their conversations, their discourses, their feasts, and all the allurements and presents with which they will seek to entice us into their net. "My son," says Solomon, "if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them." (Prov. i. 10.) Without the decoy, birds are not enticed into the fowlers net. "Will the bird fall into the snare upon the earth if there be no fowler?" (Amos iii. 5.) The devil employs vicious friends as decoys, to draw so many souls into the snare of sin. "My enemies," says Jeremias, "have chased me, and have caught me like a bird without cause." (Lamen. iii. 52.) He says, without cause. Ask the wicked why they have made a certain innocent young man fall into sin, and they will answer: We have done it without cause; we only wish to see him do what we ourselves do. This, says St. Ephrem, is one of the artifices of the devil: when he has caught a soul in his net, he makes him a snare, or a decoy, to deceive others.
5. Hence, it is necessary to avoid, as you would a plague, all familiarity with those scorpions of hell. I have said that you must avoid familiarity with them that is, all fellowship in their banquets or conversation. For never to meet them is, as the Apostle says, impossible. "Otherwise you must needs go out of this world." (1 Cor. v. 10.) But, it is in our power to abstain from familiar intercourse with them. "But now I have written to you not to keep company, etc. with such a one, not so much as to eat." (Ibid. v. 11.) I have called them scorpions: so they have been called by the Prophet Ezechiel. "Thou art among unbelievers and destroyers, and thou dwellest among scorpions." (Ezec. ii. 6 ) Would you live in the midst of scorpions? You must, then, fly from scandalous friends, who, by their bad examples and words, poison your soul. "A man's enemies shall be they of his own household." (Matt. x. 36.) Wicked friends, that are very familiar and intimate with us, become the most pernicious enemies of our souls. "Who," says Ecclesiasticus, "will pity an enchanter struck by a serpent, or any that come near wild beasts? So it is with him that keepeth company with a wicked man." (Eccl. xii. 13.) If the man that makes free with serpents, or with ferocious wild beasts, be bitten or devoured by them, who will take pity on him? And so it is with him who associates with scandalous companions. If, by their bad example he be contaminated and lost, neither God nor man will have compassion on him; because he was cautioned to fly from their society.
6. One scandalous companion is enough to corrupt all who treat him as a friend. "Know you not," says St. Paul, "that a little leaven corrupts the whole lump ?" (1 Cor. v. 7.) One of these scandalous sinners is able, by a perverse maxim, to infect all his companions. They are the false prophets whom Jesus Christ warns us to avoid. "Beware of false prophets." (Matt. vii. 15 ) False prophets deceive, not only by false predictions, but also by false maxims or doctrines, which are productive of the greatest mischief. For, as Seneca says, they leave in the soul certain seeds of iniquity which lead to evil. It is too true that scandalous language, as experience proves, corrupts the morals of those who hear it. "Evil communications," says the Apostle, "corrupt good manners." (1 Cor xv 63.) A young man refuses, through the fear of God, to commit a certain sin: an incarnate devil, a bad companion comes and says to him what the serpent said to Eve: "No; you shall not die the death." (Gen. iii. 4.) What are you afraid of? How many others commit this sin? You are young; God will have pity on your youth. They will as is written in the book of Wisdom, say Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present-let us everywhere leave tokens of joy (ii 6 9) Come with us; let us spend our time in amusement and in joy. O cruel friendship of those who say let us go and do etc.: it is a shame not to be shameless. He who hears such language is ashamed not to yield to it and not be as shameless as they who utter it.
7. When any passion is kindled within us, we must be particularly careful in selecting the persons whom we will consult. For, then the passion itself will incline us to seek counsel from those who will probably give the advice which is most agreeable to the passion. But from such evil counselors, who do not speak according to God, we should fly with greater horror than from an enemy; for their evil counsel, along with the passion which is excited, may precipitate us into horrible excesses. As soon as the passion shall subside we shall see the error committed, and the delusion into which we have been led by false friends. But the good advice of a friend, who speaks according to Christian truth and meekness preserves us from every disorder, and restores calm to the soul.
8. "Depart from the unjust," says the Lord, "and evils shall depart from thee." (Eccl. vii. 2.) Fly, separate from wicked companions, and you shall cease to commit sin. "Neither let the way of evil men please thee. Flee from it: pass not by it: go aside and forsake it." (Prov. iv. 14, 15.) Avoid the ways in which these vicious friends walk, that you may not even meet them. "Forsake not an old friend; for the new will not be like to him." (Eccl. ix. 14.) Do not leave your first friend, who loved you before you came into the world. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." (Jer. xxxi. 3.) Your new friends do not love you; they hate you more than your greatest enemy: they seek not your welfare, as God, does, but their own pleasures, and the satisfaction of having companions of their wickedness and perdition. You will, perhaps, say: I feel a repugnance to separate from such a friend, who has been solicitous for my welfare; to break off from him would appear to be an act of ingratitude. What welfare? What ingratitude? God alone wishes your welfare, because he desires your eternal salvation. Your friend wishes your eternal ruin; he wishes you to follow him, but cares not if you be damned. It is not ingratitude to abandon a friend who leads you to hell; but it is ingratitude to forsake God, who has created you, who has died for you on the cross, and who desires your salvation.
9. Fly then from the conversation of these wicked friends. "Hedge in thy ears with thorns, hear not a wicked tongue." (Eccl. xxviii. 28.) Beware of listening to the language of such friends; their words may bring you to perdition. And when you hear them speak improperly arm yourself with thorns, and reprove them, not only for the purpose of rebuking, but also of converting them. says St. Augustine, repellantur sed etiam compungantur." Listen to a frightful example, and learn the evil which a wicked friend does. Father Sabatino relates in his "Evangelical Light" that two friends of that kind were one day together. One of them, to please the other, committed a sin; but after they had separated he died suddenly. The other, who knew nothing of his death, saw, in his sleep, his friend, and, according to his custom, ran to embrace him. But the deceased appeared to be surrounded with, fire, and began to blaspheme the other, and to upbraid him for being the cause of his damnation. The other awoke and changed his life. But his unhappy friend was damned. And for his damnation there is not, and shall not be, any remedy for all eternity.
Coming next ....FOURTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ALL ENDS, AND SOON ENDS.
"The grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven." - MATT. vii. 30.
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| spaxx |
Posted - 12/23/2009 : 15:43:51
TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTWe have been initiated into spiritual life by the Sacrament of Baptism and strengthened, perfected, by the Sacrament of Confirmation. The Feast of Pentecost has celebrated the efficaciousness of Baptism and Confirmation: the graces and fruits given by the Holy Ghost.The Church recalls in the Liturgy today the duty of charity which derives therefrom. The law of Our Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect development of the Law of Moses as the Epistle points out. Let us not follow a pharisaical interpretation of the law which reduces our religious duties to a few outward practices. "The letter killeth, the spirit quickeneth."
The Gospel of St. Luke today treats the parable of the Good Samaritan and the command from Our Lord to go and do likewise in loving our neighbor for love of God. The Fathers and early Doctors of the Church all agree, this parable is an allegory of the New Covenant. The victim in dire help is Adam, his posterity is Jerusalem. The man, by heading for Jericho is seeking the world, the flesh and the devil, is accommodated by the demons personified in the robbers, who take grace from him by beating him as he succumbs to sin. Those who pass by him without helping represent the old Law, while the Samaritan is Christ Who represents the New Law. His beast of burden signifies our Lord's humanity and the inn He brings the man to represents the only Church He founded. The wine for the man is the Blood of Christ, the oil is His mercy. The host of the inn represents St. Peter and his succession of true Popes and Hierarchy.
EPISTLE: II Corinthians 3 Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Brethren, Such confidence we have through Christ towards God. Not that we are sufficient to think of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God. Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth. Now if the ministration of death, engraven with letters upon stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses, for the glory of his countenance which is made void: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice aboundeth in glory.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 10: 23-37At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: "Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them." And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Him, and saying: Master, what must I do to possess eternal life? But He said to him: "What is written in the law? how readest thou?" He answering, said: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind and thy neighbor as thyself," And He said to him: "Thou hast answered rightly: this do, and thou shalt live." But he, willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: And who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering, said: "A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him, went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced that a certain priest went down the same way, and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him, and seeing him, was moved with compassion, and going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence and gave to the host, and said. Take care of him, and whatsoever thou shalt spend over and above I, at my return, will repay thee. Which of these three, in thine opinion, was neighbor to him that fell among robbers? But he said: He that showed mercy to him. And Jesus said to him: "Go and do thou in like manner."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE ABUSE OF DIVINE MERCY"Take care of him." - LUKE x. 35
IN this days gospel we read, that a certain man fell into the hands of robbers, who, after having taken his money, wounded him, and left him half dead. A Samaritan who passed by, saw him, and taking pity on him, bound up his wounds, brought him to an inn, and left him to the care of the host, saying: "Take care of him." These words I this day address to those, if there be any such among you, who, though their souls are wounded by sin, instead of attending to the care of them, continually aggravate the wounds by new sins, and thus abuse the mercy of God, who preserves their lives, that they may repent, and not be lost for ever. I say to you: Brethren, take care of your souls, which are in a very bad state; have compassion on them. "Have pity on thy own soul." (Eccl. xxx. 24.) Your souls are sick, and what is worse they are near the eternal death of hell. For he who abuses to excess the divine mercy, is on the point of being abandoned by the mercy of God. This shall be the subject of the present discourse.
1. St. Augustine says that the devil deludes Christians in two ways "by despair and hope." After a person has committed sin, the enemy, by placing before his eyes the rigor of divine justice, tempts him to despair of the mercy of God. But, before he sins, the devil by representing to him the divine mercy, labors to make him fearless of the chastisement due to sin. Hence the saint gives the following advice: "After sin, hope for mercy; before sin, fear justice." If, after sin, you despair of Gods pardon, you offend him by a new and more grievous sin. Have recourse to his mercy, and he will pardon you. But, before sin, fear Gods justice, and trust not to his mercy. They who abuse the mercy of God to offend him, do not deserve to be treated with mercy. Abulensis says, that the man who offends justice may have recourse to mercy; but to whom can they have recourse, who offend and provoke mercy against themselves?
2. When you intend to commit sin, who, I ask, promises you mercy from God? Certainly God does not promise it. It is the devil that promises it, that you may lose God and be damned. "Beware," says St. John Chrysostom, "never to attend to that dog that promises thee mercy from God." (Hom. 50, ad Pop.) If, beloved sinners, you have hitherto offended God, hope and tremble: if you desire to give up sin, and if you detest it, hope. God promises pardon to all who repent of the evil they have done. But if you intend to continue in your sinful course, tremble lest God should wait no longer for you, but cast you into hell. Why does God wait for sinners? Is it that they may continue to insult him? No; he waits for them that they may renounce sin, and that thus he may have pity on them, and forgive them. "Therefore the Lord waiteth, that he may have mercy on you." (Isa. xxx. 1, 8.) But when he sees that the time which he gave them to weep over their past iniquities is spent in multiplying their sins, he begins to inflict chastisement, and he cuts them off in the state of sin, that, by dying, they may cease to offend him. Then he calls against them the very time he had given them for repentance. "He hath called against me the time." (Lamentations. i. 15.) "The very time," says St. Gregory, "comes to judge."
3. O common illusion of so many damned Christians! We seldom find a sinner so abandoned to despair as to say: I will damn myself. Christians sin, and endeavor to save their souls. They say: "God is merciful: I will commit this sin, and will afterwards confess it." Behold the illusion, or rather the snare, by which Satan draws so many souls to hell. "Commit sin," he says, "and confess it afterwards." But listen to what the Lord says: "And say not, the mercy of the Lord is great; he will have mercy on the multitude of my sins." (Eccl. v. 6.) Why does he tell you not to say, that the mercy of God is great? Attend to the words contained in the following verse: "For mercy and wrath come quickly from him, and his wrath looketh upon sinners." (Ibid., ver. 7.) The mercy of God is different from the acts of his mercy. The former is infinite, the latter are finite. God is merciful, but he is also just. St. Basil says, that sinners only consider God as merciful and ready to pardon, but not as just and prepared to inflict punishment. Of this the Lord complained one day to St. Bridget: "I am just and merciful: sinners regard me only as merciful." St. Basils words are: "Bonus est Dominus sed etiam Justus, nolimus Deum ex dimidia parte cogitare." God is just, and, being just, he must punish the ungrateful. Father John Avila used to say, that to bear with those who avail themselves of the mercy of God to offend him, would not be mercy, but a want of justice. Mercy, as the divine mother said, is promised to those who fear, and not to those who insult the Lord. And his mercy to them that fear him." (Luke i. .50.)
4. Some rash sinners will say: God has hitherto shown me so many mercies; why should he not here after treat me with the same mercy? I answer: he will show you mercy, if you wish to change your life; but if you intend to continue to offend him, he tells you that he will take vengeance on your sins by casting you into hell. "Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide." (Deut. xxxii. 35.) David says, that "except you be converted, he will brandish his sword." (Ps. vii. 13.) The Lord has bent his bow, and waits for your conversion. But if you resolve not to return to him, he will in the end cast the arrow against you, and you shall be damned. O God! there are some who will not believe that there is a hell until they fall into it. Can you, beloved Christians, complain of the mercies of God, after he has shown you so many mercies by waiting for you so long? You ought to remain always prostrate on the earth to thank him for his mercies, saying: "The mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed." (Lamentations. iii. 32.) Were the injuries which you offered to God committed against a brother, he would not have borne with you. God has had so much patience with you; and he now calls you again. If, after all this, he shall send you to hell, will he do you any wrong? "What is there," he will say, "that I ought to do more for my vineyard, that I have not done to it ?" (Isa. v. 4.) Impious wretch! what more ought I to do for you that I have not done?
5. St. Bernard says, that the confidence which sinners have in God's goodness when they commit sin, procures for them, not a blessing, but a malediction from the Lord (Serm, iii., de Annunc.) O deceitful hope, which sends so many Christians to hell! St. Augustine says: They do not hope for the pardon of the sins of which they repent; but they hope that, though they continue to commit sin, God will have mercy upon them. Thus they make the mercy of God serve as a motive for continuing to offend him. accursed hope! hope which is an abomination to the Lord! "And their hope the abomination." (Job xi. 20.) This hope will make God hasten the execution of his vengeance. For surely a master will not defer the punishment of servants who offend him because he is good. Sinners, as St. Augustine observes, trusting in God#8223;s goodness, insult him, and say: "God is good; I will do what I please." (Tract, xxxiii. in Joan.) But, alas! how many, exclaims the same St. Augustine, has this vain hope deluded! "They who have been deceived by this shadow of vain hope cannot be numbered." St. Bernard writes, that Lucifers chastisement was accelerated, because, in rebellion against God, he hoped that he should not be punished for his rebellion. Ammon, the son of king Manasses, seeing that God had pardoned the sins of his father, gave himself up to a wicked life with the hope of pardon; but, for Ammon there was no mercy. St. John Chrysostom says, that Judas was lost because, trusting in the goodness of Jesus Christ, he betrayed him.
6. He that sins with, the hope of pardon, saying: "I will afterwards repent, and God will pardon me :" is, according to St. Augustine, "not a penitent, but a scoffer." The Apostle tells us that "God is not mocked." (Gal. vi. 7.) It would be a mockery of God to offend him as often and as long as you please, and always to receive the pardon of your offenses. "For what things a man shall sow," says St. Paul, "those also shall he reap." (Ibid., ver. 8.) They who sow sins, can hope for nothing but the hatred of God and hell. "Despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and patience, and long-suffering." (Rom. ii. 4.) Do you, O sinner, despise the riches of the goodness, of the patience, and long-suffering of God towards you? He uses the word riches, because the mercies which God shows us, in not punishing our sins, are riches more valuable to us than all treasures. "Knowest thou not, " continues the Apostle, "that the benignity of God leadeth thee to penance ?" (Ibid.) Do you not know that the Lord waits for you, and treats you with so much benignity, not that you may continue to sin, but that you may weep over the offenses you have offered to him? For, says St. Paul, if you persevere in sin and do not repent, your bstinacy and impenitence shall accumulate a treasure of wrath against the day of wrath, that is, the day on which God shall judge you. "According to thy hardness and impenitent heart, thou treasurest up wrath, against the day of wrath, and revelation of the just judgment of God." (Ibid., verse 5.)
7. To the hardness of the sinner shall succeed his abandonment by God, who shall say of the soul that is obstinate in sin, what he said of Babylon: We would have cured Babylon; but she is not healed; let us forsake her." (Jer. li. 9.) And how does God abandon the sinner? He either sends him a sudden death, and cuts him off in sin, or he deprives him of the graces which would be necessary to bring him to true repentance; he leaves him with the sufficient graces with which he can, but will not, save his soul. The darkness of his understanding, the hardness of his heart, and the bad habits which he has contracted, will render his conversion morally impossible. Thus, he shall not be absolutely but morally abandoned. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be wasted." (Isa. v. 5.) When the master of the vineyard destroys its hedges, does he not show that he abandons it? It is thus that God acts when he abandons a soul. He takes away the hedge of holy fear and remorse of conscience, and leaves the soul in darkness, and then vices crowd into the heart. Thou hast appointed darkness, and it is night: in it shall all the beasts of the wood go about. (Ps. ciii. 20.) And the sinner, abandoned in an abyss of sins, will despise admonitions, excommunications, divine grace, chastisement, and hell: he will make a jest of his own damnation. "The wicked man, when he is come into the depth of sin, contemneth." (Prov. xviii. 3.)
8. "Why," asks the Prophet Jeremias, "doth the way of the wicked prosper?" (Jer. xii. 1.) He answers: "Gather them together as sheep for a sacrifice." (v. 3.) Miserable the sinner who is prosperous in this life! The prosperity of sinners is a sign that God wishes to give them a temporal reward for some works which are morally good, but that he reserves them as victims of his justice for hell, where, like the accursed cockle, they shall be cast to burn for all eternity. "In the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers: Gather up the first cockle, and bind it in bundles to burn." (Matt. xiii. 30.)
9. Thus, not to be punished in this life is the greatest of Gods chastisements on the wicked, and has been threatened against the obstinate sinner by the Prophet Isaias. "Let us have pity on the wicked, but he will not learn justice." (Isa. xxvi. 10.) On this passage St. Bernard says: This mercy I do not wish for: it is above all wrath (Serm, xlii., in Cant.) And what greater chastisement than to be abandoned into the Lands of sin, so that, being permitted by God to fall from sin to sin, the sinner must in the end go to suffer as many hells as he has committed sins? "Add thou iniquity upon their iniquity. .. .let them he "blotted out of the book of the living." (Ps. Ixviii. 28, 29.) On these words St. Robert Bellarmine writes: "There is no punishment greater than when sin is the punishment of sin." It would be better for such a sinner to die after the first sin, because by dying under the load of so many additional iniquities, he shall suffer as many hells as he has committed sins. This is what happened to a certain comedian in Palermo, whose name was Csar. He one day told a friend that Father La Nusa, a missionary, foretold him that God should give him twelve years to live, and that if within that time he did not change his life, he should die a bad death. Now, said he to his friend, I have traveled through so many parts of the world: I have had many attacks of sickness, one of which nearly brought me to the grave. But in this month the twelve years shall be completed, and I feel myself in better health than in any of the past years. He then invited his friend to listen to a new comedy which he had composed. But, what happened? On the 24th November, 1688, the day fixed for the comedy, as he was going on the stage, he was seized with apoplexy, and died suddenly. He expired in the arms of a female comedian. Thus the scene of this world ended miserably for him.
10. Let us make the application to ourselves, and conclude the discourse. Brethren, I entreat you to give a glance at all the bygone years of your life: look at the grievous offenses you have committed against God, and at the great mercies which he has shown to you, the many lights he has bestowed upon you, and the many times he has called you to a change of life. By this sermon he has today given you a new call. He appears to me to say to you: "What is there that I ought to do to my vineyard, that I have not done to it ?" (Isa. v. 4.) What more ought I to do for you that I have not done? What do you say? What answer have you to make? Will you give yourselves to God, or will you continue to offend him? Consider, says St. Augustine, that the punishment of your sins has been deferred, not remitted. "unfruitful tree! the axe has been deferred. Be not secure: you shall be cut off." If you abuse the divine mercy, you shall be cut off; vengeance shall soon fall upon you. What do you wait for? Do you wait till God sends you to hell? The Lord has been hitherto silent; but he is not silent for ever. When the time of vengeance shall arrive he will say: "These things hast thou done, and I was silent. Thou thoughtest unjustly that I should be like to thee: but I will reprove thee, and set before thy face." (Ps. xlix. 21.) He will set before your eyes the graces which he bestowed upon you, and which you have despised: these very graces shall judge and condemn you. brethren, resist no longer the calls of God; tremble lest the call which he gives you Today may be the last call for you. Go to confession as soon as possible, and make a firm resolution to change your lives. It is useless to confess your sins, if you afterwards return to your former vices. But you will perhaps say, that you have not strength to resist the temptations by which you are assailed. Listen to the words of the Apostle: "God is faithful, who will not permit you to be tempted above that which you are able." (1 Cor. x. 13.) God is faithful: he will not permit you to be tempted above your strength. And if of yourself you have not strength to overcome the devil, ask it from God, and he will give it to you. "Ask, and you shall receive." (John xvi. 24.) "Praising," said David, "I will call on the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies." (Ps. xvii. 4.) And St. Paul said: "I can do all things in him who strengthened me." (Phil. iv. 13.) Of myself I can do nothing, but with the divine assistance I can do all things. Recommend yourselves to God in all temptations, and God will enable you to resist them, and you shall not fall.
Coming next ...THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON AVOIDING BAD COMPANY.
"There met him ten men that were lepers... As they went, they were made clean." - LUKE xvii. 12,14. |
| spaxx |
Posted - 12/13/2009 : 09:53:46
ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
There is no member of the body more dangerous and pernicious than the tongue. The tongue, says the Apostle St. James, is indeed a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold how small a fire kindleth a great wood. And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is placed among our members, which defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity, being set on fire by hell. (James iii. 5. 6.) The tongue no man can tame: an unquiet evil, full of deadly poison. By it we bless God and the Father; and by it we curse men, who are made after the likeness of God. Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. (ibid. iii. 8-10.)
There is no country, no city, scarcely a house, in which evil tongues do not cause quarrel and strife, discord and enmity, jealousy and slander, seduction and debauchery. An impious tongue reviles God and His saints, corrupts the divine word, causes heresy and schism, makes one intemperate, unchaste, envious, and malevolent; in a word, it is according to the apostle a fire, a world of iniquity.
The tongue of the serpent seduced our first parents, and brought misery and death into the world. (Gen. iii.) The tongue of Judas betrayed Jesus (Matt. xxvi. 49.) And what is the chief cause of war among princes, revolts among nations, if it is not the tongue of ambitious, restless men, who seek their fortune in war and revolution? How many, in fine, have plunged themselves into the greatest misery by means of their unguarded tongue? How can we secure ourselves against this dangerous, domestic enemy?
Only by being slow to speak according to the advice of St. James, (i. 19.) to speak very few, sensible, and well-considered words. In this way we will not offend, but will become perfect. (James iii. 2.:) As this cannot happen without a special grace of God, we must according to the advice of St. Augustine beg divine assistance, in the following or similar words:
EPISTLE: 1 Cor. XV. 1-10
Brethren, I make known unto you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you have received, and wherein you stand: by which also you are saved: if you hold fast after what manner I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all, which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen by Cephas, and after that by the eleven. Then was he seen by more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom many remain until this present, and some are fallen asleep. After that he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. And last of all, he was seen also by me, as by one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace in me hath not been void.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Mark vii. 31-37
At that time, Jesus going out of the coast of Tyre, came by Sidon to the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coast of Decapolis. And they bring to him one deaf and dumb, and they besought him that he would lay his hand upon him. And taking him from the multitude apart, he put his fingers into his ears, and spitting, he touched his tongue: and looking up to heaven, he groaned, and said to him, Ephpheta, which is, Be thou opened: and immediately his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke right. And he charged them that they should tell no man; but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal did they publish it, and so much the more did they wonder, saying: He hath done all things well: he hath made both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak. Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE VICE OF SPEAKING IMMODESTLY"He touched his tongue, .... and the string of his tongue was loosed." - MARK vii. 33, 35.
IN this days gospel St. Mark relates the miracle which our Saviour wrought in healing the man that was dumb by barely touching his tongue. "He touched his tongue and the string of his tongue was loosed." From the last words we may infer that the man was not entirely dumb, but that his tongue was not free, or that his articulation was not distinct. Hence St. Mark tells us, that after the miracle he spoke right. Let us make the application to ourselves. The dumb man stood in need of a miracle to loose his tongue, and to take away the impediment under which he labored. But how many are there on whom God would confer a great grace, if he bound their tongues, that they might cease to speak immodestly! This vice does great injury to others. Secondly, it does great injury to themselves. These shall be the two points of this sermon.
First Point. The man who speaks immodestly does great injury to others who listen to him. 1. In explaining the 140th Psalm, St. Augustine calls those who speak obscenely "the mediators of Satan," the ministers of Lucifer; because, by their obscene language, the demon of impurity gets access to souls, which by his own suggestions he could not enter. Of their accursed tongues St. James says: "And the tongue is a fire,... being set on fire by hell." (James iii. 6.) He says that the tongue is a fire kindled by hell, with which they who speak obscenely burn themselves and others. The obscene tongue may be said to be the tongue of the third person, of which Ecclesiasticus says: "The tongue of a third person hath disquieted many, and scattered them from nation to nation." (Eccl. xxviii. 16.) The spiritual tongue speaks of God, the worldly tongue talks of worldly affairs; but the tongue of a third person is a tongue of hell, which speaks of the impurities of the flesh; and this is the tongue that perverts many, and brings them to perdition.
2. Speaking of the life of men on this earth, the Royal Prophet says: "Let their way become dark and slippery." (Ps. xxxiv. 0.) In this life men walk in the midst of darkness and in a slippery way. Hence they are in danger of falling at every step, unless they cautiously examine the road on which they walk, and carefully avoid dangerous steps that is, the occasions of sin. Now, if in treading this slippery way, frequent efforts were made to throw them down, would it not be a miracle if they did not fall? "The Mediators of Satan," who speak obscenely, impel others to sin, who, as long as they live on this earth, walk in the midst of darkness, and as long as they remain in the flesh, are in danger of falling into the vice of impurity. Now, of those who indulge in obscene language, it has been well said: "Their throat is an open sepulcher." (Ps. v. 11.) The mouths of those who can utter nothing but filthy obscenities are, according to St. Chrysostom, so many open sepulchers of putrefied carcasses. "Talia sunt ora hominum qui turpia proferunt." (Hom, ii., de Proph. Obs.) The exhalation which arises from the rottenness of a multitude of dead bodies thrown together into a pit, communicates infection and disease to all who feel the stench.
3. "The stroke of a whip," says Ecclesiasticus, "maketh a blue mark; but the stroke of a tongue will break the bones." (Eccl. xxviii. 21.) The wounds of the lash are wounds of the flesh, but the wounds of the obscene tongue are wounds which infect the bones of those who listen to its language. St. Bernardino of Sienna relates, that a virgin who led a holy life, at hearing an obscene word from a young man, fell into a bad thought, and afterwards abandoned herself to the vice of impurity to such a degree that, the saint says, if the devil had taken human flesh, he could not have committed so many sins of that kind as she committed.
4. The misfortune is, that the mouths of hell that frequently utter immodest words, regard them, as trifles, and are careless about confessing them: and when rebuked for them they answer: "I say these words in jest, and without malice." In jest! Unhappy man, these jests make the devil laugh, and shall make you weep for eternity in hell. In the first place, it is useless to say that you utter such words without malice. For, when you use such expressions, it is very difficult for you to abstain from acts against purity. According to St. Jerome, "He that delights in words is not far from the act." Besides, immodest words spoken before persons of a different sex, are always accompanied with sinful complacency. And is not the scandal you give to others criminal? Utter a single obscene word, and you shall bring into sin all who listen to you. Such is the doctrine of St. Bernard. "One speaks, and he utters only one word; but he kills the souls of a multitude of hearers." (Serm. xxiv., in Cant.) A greater sin than if, by one discharge of a blunderbuss, you murdered many persons; because you would then only kill their bodies: but, by speaking obscenely, you have killed their souls.
5. In a word, obscene tongues are the ruin of the world. One of them does more mischief than a hundred devils; because it is the cause of the perdition of many souls. This is not my language; it is the language of the Holy Ghost. "A slippery mouth worketh ruin." (Prov. xxvi. 28.) And when is it that this havoc of souls is effected, and that such grievous insults are offered to God? It is in the summer, at the time when God bestows upon you the greatest temporal blessings. It is then that he supplies you for the entire year with corn, wine, oil, and other fruits of the earth. It is then that there are as many sins committed by obscene words, as there are grains of corn or bunches of grapes. O ingratitude! How does God bear with us? And who is the cause of these sins? They who speak immodestly are the cause of them. Hence they must render an account to God, and shall be punished for all the sins committed by those who hear them. "But I will require his blood at thy hand." (Ezec. iii. 11.) But let us pass to the second point.
Second Point. He who speaks immodestly does great injury to himself.6. Some young men say: I speak without malice." In answer to this excuse, I have already said, in the first point, that it is very difficult to use immodest language without taking delight in it. And that speaking obscenely before young females, married or unmarried, is always accompanied with a secret complacency in what is said. Besides, by using immodest language, you expose yourself to the proximate danger of falling into unchaste actions: for, according to St. Jerome, as we have already said, "he who delights in words is not far from the act." All men are inclined to evil. "The imagination and thought of man#8223;s heart are prone to evil." (Gen. viii. 21.) But, above all, men are prone to the sin of impurity, to which nature itself inclines them. Hence St. Augustine has said, that in struggling against that vice "the victory is rare," at least for those who do not use great caution. Now, the impure objects of which they speak are always presented to the mind of those who freely utter obscene words. These objects excite pleasure, and bring them into sinful desires and morose delectations, and afterwards into criminal acts. Behold the consequence of the immodest words which young men say they speak without malice.
7. "Be not taken in thy tongue," says the Holy Ghost. (Eccl. v. 16.) Beware lest by your tongue you forge a chain which will drag you to hell. The tongue," says St. James, defileth the whole body, and inflameth the wheel of our nativity." (St. James iii. 6.) The tongue is one of the members of the body, but when it utters bad words it infects the whole body, and "inflames the wheels of our nativity ;" it inflames and corrupts our entire life from our birth to old age. Hence we see that men who indulge in obscenity, cannot, even in old age, abstain from immodest language. In the life of St. Valerius, Surius relates that the saint, in traveling, went one day into a house to warm himself. He heard the master of the house and a judge of the district, though both were advanced in years, speaking on obscene subjects. The saint reproved them severely; but they paid no attention to his rebuke. However, God punished both of them: one became blind, and a sore broke out on the other, which produced deadly spasms. Henry Gragerman relates (in Magn. Spec., dist. 9, ex. 58), that one of those obscene talkers died suddenly and without repentance, and that he was afterwards seen in hell tearing his tongue in pieces; and when it was restored he began again to lacerate it.
8. But how can God have mercy on him who has no pity on the souls of his neighbors? "Judgment without mercy to him that hath not done mercy." (St. James ii. 13.) Oh! what a pity to see one of those obscene wretches pouring out his filthy expressions before girls and young married females! The greater the number of such persons present, the more abominable is his language. It often happens that little boys and girls are present, and he has no horror of scandalizing these innocent souls! Cantipratano relates that the son of a certain nobleman in Burgundy was sent to be educated by the monks of Cluny. He was an angel of purity. But the unhappy boy having one day entered into a carpenters shop, heard some obscene words spoken by the carpenters wife, fell into sin, and lost the divine grace. Father Sabitano, in his work entitled Evangelical Light," relates that another boy, fifteen years old, having heard an immodest word, began to think of it the following night, consented to a bad thought, and died suddenly the same night. His confessor having heard of his death, intended to say Mass for him. But the soul of the unfortunate boy appeared to him, and told the confessor not to celebrate Mass for him that, by means of the word he had heard, he was damned and that the celebration of Mass would add to his pains. O God! how great, were it in their power to weep, would be the wailing of the angel-guardians of these poor children that are scandalized and brought to hell by the language of obscene tongues! With what earnestness shall the angels demand vengeance from God against the author of such scandals! That the angels shall cry for vengeance against them, appears from the words of Jesus Christ: "See that you despise not one of these little ones; for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father." (Matt, xviii. 10.)
9. Be attentive, then, my brethren, and guard your selves against speaking immodestly, more than you would against death. Listen to the advice of the Holy Ghost: "Make a balance for thy words, and a just bridle for thy mouth; and take heed lest thou slip with thy tongue and thy fall be incurable unto death." (Eccl. xxvhi. 29, 30.) "Make a balance" you must weigh your words before you utter them and "a bridle for thy mouth" when immodest words come to the tongue, you must suppress them. Otherwise, by uttering them, you shall inflict on your own soul, and on the souls of others, a mortal and incurable wound. God has given you the tongue, not to offend him, but to praise and bless him. "But, " says St. Paul, "fornication and all uncleanness, let it not so much as be named among you, as becometh saints." (Ephes. v. 3.) Mark the words "all uncleanness." We must not only abstain from obscene language and from every word of double meaning spoken in jest, but also from every improper word unbecoming a saint that is, a Christian. It is necessary to remark, that words of double meaning sometimes do greater evil than open obscenity, because the art with which they are spoken makes a deeper impression on, the mind.
10. Reflect, says St. Augustine, that your mouths are the mouths of Christians, which Jesus Christ has so often entered in the holy communion. Hence, you ought to have a horror of uttering all unchaste words, which are a diabolical poison. "See, brethren, if it be just that, from the mouths of Christians, which the body of Christ enters, an immodest song, like diabolical poison, should proceed." (Serm. xv., de Temp.) St. Paul says, that the language of a Christian should be always seasoned with salt. "Let your speech be always in grace, seasoned with salt." (Col. iv. 6.) Our conversation should be seasoned with words calculated to excite others not to offend, but to love God. "Happy the tongue," says St. Bernard, that knows only how to speak of holy things!" Happy the tongue that knows only how to speak of God! brethren, be careful not only to abstain from all obscene language, but to avoid, as you would a plague, those who speak immodestly. When you hear any one begin to utter obscene words, follow the advice of the Holy Ghost: "Hedge in thy ears with thorns: hear not a wicked tongue." (Eccl. xxviii. 28.) "Hedge in thy ears with thorns" that is, reprove with zeal the man who speaks obscenely; at least turn away your face, and show that you hate such language. Let us not be ashamed to appear to be followers of Jesus Christ, unless we wish Jesus Christ to be ashamed to bring us with him into Paradise.
Coming next ...ON THE ABUSE OF DIVINE MERCY
"Take care of him." - LUKE x. 35
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| spaxx |
Posted - 12/07/2009 : 12:30:30
TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
The Church gives us today a true notion of Christian humility. The liturgy reminds us that the humble soul is blessed to recognize its nothingness only on this condition Our sanctification is an impossible work if we undertake it alone, since our acts are only supernatural if they proceed from the Holy Ghost.
Left to ourselves, we are powerless and given to sin, it is to God that we owe its avoidance or its pardon, and that we are even able to pronounce the name of Jesus affirming His divinity (Epistle).
Wherefore, in the Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican, the Master stigmatizes the pride which makes us put our trust in ourselves and always shows itself in our contempt for others. This pride is the enemy of God, for it attributes to itself the gifts which the Holy Ghost confers on each according to His pleasure (Epistle), and it therefore hinders His divine power from manifesting itself in us, since it makes us imagine that we need no help. The humble soul, on the contrary, is pleased to recognize its nothingness, knowing that it is only on this condition that the virtue of Christ will dwell in it.
EPISTLE: I Corinthians 12. 2-11
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Brethren, You know that, when you were heathens, you went to dumb idols, according as you were led, Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, saith Anathema to Jesus and no man can say, The Lord Jesus, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of graces, but the same Spirit and there are diversities of ministries, but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh in all. And the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man unto profit. To one indeed, by the Spirit, is given the word of wisdom, and to another, the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another the grace of healing in one Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another, prophecy; to another the discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another, interpretation of speeches. But all these things one and the same Spirit worketh, dividing to every one according as He will.
Thanks be to God
GOSPEL: Luke 18: 9-14At that time, Jesus spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves as just, and despised others. "Two men went up into the temple to pray: the one was a pharisee, and the other a publican, The pharisee standing, prayed thus with himself. O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers as also is this publican. I fast twice in the week I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican standing afar off would not so much as lift up his eyes towards heaven, but struck his breast saying: O God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say to you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: because every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - On the efficacy and necessity of prayer"God, be merciful to me a sinner." - LUKE xviii. 13.
IN this day’s gospel we read, that two men, one a Pharisee and the other a Publican, went to the temple. Instead of bowing down to beg of God to assist him by his graces, the Pharisee said: I thank thee, O Lord, that I am not as the rest of men, who are sinners. But the Publican, tilled with sentiments of humility, cried out: ”O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." St. Luke tells us, that this Publican returned to his house justified; and that the Pharisee went home as guilty and as proud as when he entered the temple. From this, most beloved brethren, you may infer how pleasing to God, and how necessary for us, are our humble petitions to obtain from the Lord all the graces which are indispensable for salvation. In this sermon I will show, in the first point, the efficacy of prayer: and in the second, the necessity of prayer.
First Point. On the efficacy of prayer1. To understand the efficacy and value of our prayers, we need only consider the great promises which. God has made to every one who prays. "Call upon me, and I will deliver thee." (Ps. xlix. 15.) Call upon me, and I will save you from every danger. ”He shall cry to me, I will hear him." (Ps. xc. 15.) "Cry to me, and I will hear thee." (Jer. xxxiii. 3.) "You shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you." (John xv. 7.) Ask whatsoever you wish and it shall be given to you. There are a thousand similar passages in the Old and New Testaments. By his nature God is, as St. Leo says, goodness itself. Hence he desires, with a great desire, to make us partakers of his own good. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi used to say, that when a soul prays to God for any grace, he feels in a certain manner under an obligation to her, and thanks her. Because by prayer the soul opens to him a way of satisfying his desire to dispense his graces to us. Hence, in the holy Scriptures, the Lord appears to recommend and inculcate to us nothing more forcibly than to ask and pray. To show this, the words which we read in the seventh chapter of St. Matthew are sufficient. ”Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you" (vii. 7). St. Augustine teaches, that by these promises God has bound himself to grant all that we ask in prayer. ”By his promises he has made himself a debtor." (De Verb. Dom. Serm. ii.) And, in the fifth sermon, the saint says, that if the Lord did not wish to bestow his graces upon us, he would not exhort us so strenuously to ask them. "He would not exhort us to ask, unless he wished to give." Hence we see that the Psalms of David and the Books of Solomon and of the Prophets are full of prayers.
2. Theodoret has written, that prayer is so efficacious before God, that, though it be one, it can do all things. St. Bernard teaches, that when we pray, the Lord, if he does not give the grace we ask, will grant a more useful gift. ”He will give either what we ask, or what he knows to be more profitable to us." (Serm. v. in Fer. 4 cm.) And whom has God, when asked for aid, ever despised by not listening to his petition? ”Who hath called upon him, and he despised him ?" (Eccl. ii. 12.) The Scripture says, that among the nations there is none that has gods so willing to hear our prayers, as our true God. "Neither is there any other nation so great, that hath gods so nigh to them, as our God is present to all our petitions." (Deut. iv. 7.) The princes of the earth, says St. Chrysostom, give audience only to a few; but God grants it to every one that wishes for it. (Lib. 2, de Orat.) David tells us that this goodness of God in hearing us at whatever time we pray to him, shows us that he is our true God, whose love for us surpasses the love of all others. ”In what day soever I shall call upon thee, behold I know thou art my God." (Ps. lv. 10.) He wishes and ardently desires to confer favors upon us; but he requires us to pray for them. Jesus Christ said one day to his disciples: ”Hitherto you have not asked anything in my name; ask, and you shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John xvi. 24.) As if he said: You complain of me for not making you perfectly content; but you ought to complain of yourselves for not having asked of me all the gifts you stood in need of. Ask, henceforth, whatsoever you want, and your prayer shall be heard. Many, says St. Bernard complain that the Lord is wanting to them. But he complains with more justice that they are wanting to him, by neglecting to ask him for his graces.
3. The ancient fathers, after having consulted together about the exercise most conducive to salvation, came to the conclusion, that the best means of securing eternal life is, to pray continually, saying: Lord, assist me; Lord, hasten to my assistance. ”Incline unto my aid, God; Lord, make haste to help me." Hence the holy Church commands these two petitions to be often repeated in the canonical hours by all the clergy and by all religious, who pray not only for themselves, but also for the whole Christian world. St. John Climacus says, that our prayers as it were compel God by a holy violence to hear us. "Prayer piously does violence to God." Hence, when we pray to the Lord, He instantly answers by bestowing upon us the grace we ask. ”At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee." (Isa. xxx. 19.) Hence St. Ambrose says, that ”he who asks of God, receives while he asks." (Ep. Ixxxiv., ad Demetr.) And he not only grants his grace instantly, but also abundantly, giving us more than we pray for. St. Paul tells us that God is rich that is, liberal of his graces to every one that prays to him. “Rich unto all that call upon him." (Rom. x. 12.) And St. James says: ”If any of you want wisdom let him ask of God, who giveth to all men abundantly and upbraideth not. ” (St. James i. 5.) ”He upbraideth not;" when we pray to him he does not reproach us with the insults we have offered to him, but he appears then to forget all the injuries we have done him, and to delight in enriching us with his graces.
Second Point On the necessity of prayer4. "God," as St. Paul has written, ”will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim. ii. 4.) According to St. Peter, he does not wish any one to be lost. ”The Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing that any soul should perish, but that all should return to penance." (1 Pet. iii. 9.) Hence St. Leo teaches, that as God wishes us to observe his commands, so he prevents us by his assistance, that we may fulfil them (Serm. xvi. de Pass.) And St. Thomas, in explaining the words of the Apostle, ”God, who will have all men to be saved," says: “Therefore, grace is wanting to no one; but he, on his part, communicates it to all." (In Epist, ad Hebr., cap. xii., lect. 3.) And in another place the holy doctor writes: ”To provide every man with the means necessary for his salvation, provided on his part he puts no obstacle to it, belongs to Divine Providence." But, according to Gennadius, the assistance of his grace the Lord grants only to those who pray for it. ”We believe. . . .that no one works out his salvation but by God‟s assistance; and that he only who prays merits aid from God." (de Eccles. Dogm.) And St. Augustine teaches, that, except the first graces of vocation to the faith and to repentance, all other graces, and particularly the grace of perseverance, are granted to those only who ask them. ”It is evident that God gives some graces, such as the beginning of faith, without prayer and that he has prepared other graces, such as perseverance to the end only for those who pray." (De dono persev., c.xvi.) And in another place he writes, that ”God wishes to bestow his favours; but he gives them only to those who ask." (In Ps. c.)
5. Hence theologians commonly teach, after St. Basil, St. John Chrysostom, St. Augustine, Clement of Alexandria, and others, that, for adults prayer is necessary as a means of salvation. That is, that without prayer it is impossible for them to be saved. This doctrine may be inferred from the following passages of Scripture: "We ought always to pray." (Luke xviii. 1.) "Ask, and you shall receive." (John xvi. 24.) "Pray without ceasing." (1 Thess. v. 17.) The words we ought, ask, pray, according to St. Thomas (3 part, qu. xxxix. art. 5) and the generality of theologians, imply a precept which obliges, under grievous sin, particularly in three cases: First, when a man is in the state of sin; secondly, when he is in great danger of falling into sin; and, thirdly, when he is in danger of death. Theologians teach, that he who, at other times, neglects prayer for a month, or at most for two months, cannot be excused from mortal sin; because, without prayer we cannot procure the helps necessary for the observance of the law of God. St. Chrysostom teaches that as water is necessary to prevent trees from withering, so prayer is necessary to save us from perdition (Tom. l,hom. lxxvii.)
6. Most groundless was the assertion of Jansenius, that there are some commands, the fulfillment of which is impossible to us, and that we have not even grace to render their observance possible. For, the Council of Trent teaches, in the words of St. Augustine, that, though man is not able, with the aid of the grace ordinarily given, to fulfill all the commandments, still he can, by prayer, obtain the additional helps necessary for their observance. ”God does not command impossibilities; but, by his precepts, he admonishes you to do what you can, and to ask what you cannot do; and he assists you, that you may be able to do it." (Sess. 6, cap. xi.) To this may be added another celebrated passage of St. Augustine: ”By our faith, which teaches that God does not command impossibilities, we are admonished what to do in things that are easy, and what to ask in things that are difficult." (Lib. de Nat. et Grat., cap. lxix., n. 83.)
7. But why does God, who knows our weakness, permit us to be assailed by enemies which we are not able to resist? The Lord, answers the holy doctor, seeing the great advantages which we derive from the necessity of prayer, permits us to be attacked by enemies more powerful than we are, that we may ask his assistance. Hence they who are conquered cannot excuse themselves by saying that they had not strength to resist the assault of the enemy; for had they asked aid from God, he should have given it; and had they prayed, they should have been victorious. Therefore, if they are defeated, God will punish them. St. Bonaventure says, that if a general lose a fortress in consequence of not having sought timely succour from his sovereign, he shall be branded as a traitor. (S. Bon. Difet. tit, c. v.) Thus God regards as a traitor the Christian who, when he finds himself assailed by temptations, neglects to seek the divine aid. ”Ask," says Jesus Christ, ”and you shall receive." Then, concludes St. Teresa, he that does not ask does not receive. This is conformable to the doctrine of St. James: ”You have not, because you do not ask." (St. James iv. 2.) St. Chrysostom says, that prayer is a powerful weapon of defence against all enemies. ”Truly prayer is a great armour." (Hom, xli., ad Pop.) St. Ephrem writes, that he who fortifies himself beforehand by prayer, prevents the entrance of sin into the soul. "If you pray before you work, the passage into the soul will not be open to sin." (Serm. de Orat.) David said the same: "Praising I will call upon the Lord, and I shall be saved from my enemies." (Ps. xvii. 4.)
8. If we wish to lead a good life, and to save our souls, we must learn to pray. "He," says St. Augustine, "knows how to live well who knows how to pray well." (Hom, xliii.) In order to obtain God’s graces by prayer, it is necessary, first, to take away sin; for God does not hear obstinate sinners. For example: if a person entertains hatred towards another, and wishes to take revenge, God does not hear his prayer. ”When you multiply prayer, I will not hear; for your hands are full of blood." (Isa. i. 15.) St. Chrysostom says, that he who prays while he cherishes a sinful affection, does not pray, but mocks God (Hom. xi., in Matt, vi.) But if he ask the Lord to take away hatred from his heart, the Lord will hear him. Secondly, it is necessary to pray with attention. Some imagine that they pray by repeating many Our Fathers, with such distraction that they do not know what they say. These speak, but do not pray. Of them the Lord says, by the Prophet Isaias: ”With their lips they glorify me, but their hearts are far from me." (Isa. xxix. 13.) Thirdly, it is necessary, as the Holy Ghost exhorts us, to take away the occasions which hinder us to pray. ”Let nothing hinder thee from praying always." (Eccl. xviii. 22.) He who is occupied in a thousand affairs unprofitable to the soul, places a cloud before his prayers, which prevents their passing to the throne of grace. ”Thou hast set a cloud before thee, that our prayer may not pass through." (Lamen. iii. 44.) I will not omit here the exhortation of St. Bernard, to ask graces of God through the intercession of his divine mother. ”Let us ask grace, and ask it through Mary; for she is a mother, and her prayer cannot be fruitless." (Serm. de Aqæd.) St. Anselm says: "Many things are asked of God and are not obtained: what is asked of Mary is obtained, not because she is more powerful, but because God decreed thus to honor her, that men may know that she can obtain all things from God." |
| spaxx |
Posted - 11/28/2009 : 11:02:21
NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
God is our Helper, and He will always come to our aid He will open the ears of His mercy to our prayers, and will not allow us to be tempted beyond our strength. Let us obey therefore with joy the precepts of the Lord; let us worthily attend In the temple the mysteries of the holy Mass, and partake of the Body of the Lord, the manna of our souls.
This day's liturgy puts before us in the Epistle and Gospel, the terrible punishments incurred by the Israelites on account of their immorality and irreligion. Twenty-three thousand Hebrews perished in one day on account of their lust; several were killed by serpents for having tempted God by complaining that they had no other food but manna ; many were killed by the destroying angel on account of their murmuring (Epistle), and over a million Jews perished when Jerusalem was destroyed for having rejected the Messiah. They were thrown out of the Kingdom of God as the sellers were driven from the temple which is its figure, for having transformed the house of prayer into a den of thieves (Gospel).
The Gentiles, called in their stead, must therefore be faithful to their vocation and take care not to fall in their turn (Epistle). Let them obey therefore with holy joy the commandments of the Lord (Offertory), let them worthily attend in the temple the Eucharistic mysteries in which the work of our redemption is daily enacted and eat the flesh of Jesus which is the true manna of our souls.
Then will God always come to their help, He will open the ears of His Mercy to their prayers, and will not allow them to be tempted beyond their strength (Epistle).
EPISTLE: I Corinthians 10. 6-13
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians. Brethren, let us not covet evil things, as they also coveted: Neither become ye idolaters, as some of them: as it is written "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed fornication, and there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted, and perished by the serpents. Neither do you murmur, as some of them murmured, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them in figure, and they are written for our correction, upon whom the ends of the world are to come. Wherefore he that thinketh himself to stand, let him take heed lest he fall. Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human: and God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 19: 41-47
At that time, when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem, seeing the city, He wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, and thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee on every side and beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children who are in thee; and they shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast not known the time of thy visitation. And entering into the temple, He began to cast out them that sold therein, and them, that bought, saying to them: "It is written, 'My house is the house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves'." And He was teaching daily in the temple.
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE DEATH OF THE SINNER"Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee." - LUKE xix. 43.
SEEING from a distance the city of Jerusalem, in which the Jews were soon to put him to death, Jesus Christ wept over it. Our merciful Redeemer wept at the consideration of the chastisement which was soon to be inflicted on the city, and which he foretold to her inhabitants. "Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee." Unhappy city! thou shalt one day see thyself encompassed by enemies, who shall beat thee flat to the ground, and thy children in thee, and shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone. Most beloved brethren, this unhappy city is a figure of the soul of a sinner, who, at the hour of death, shall find himself surrounded by his enemies first, by remorse of conscience; secondly, by the assaults of the devils; and thirdly, by the fears of eternal death
First Point. The sinner at death shall be tortured by remorse of conscience1. "Their soul shall die in a storm." (Job xxxvi. 14.) The unhappy sinners who remain in sin die in a tempest, with which God has beforehand threatened them. "A tempest shall break out and come upon the head of the wicked." (Jer. xxiii. 19.) At the commencement of his illness the sinner is not troubled by remorse or fear because his relatives, friends, physicians, and all tell him that his sickness is not dangerous. Thus he is deceived and hopes to recover. But when his illness increases, and malignant symptoms, the harbingers of approaching death, begin to appear, then the storm with which the Lord has threatened the wicked shall commence. "When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction as a tempest shall be at hand." (Prov. i. 27.) This tempest shall be formed as well by the pains of sickness as by the fear of being obliged to depart from this earth, and to leave all things. But still more by the remorse of conscience, which shall place before his eyes all the irregularities of his past life. "They shall come with fear at the thought of their sins, and their iniquities shall stand against them to convict them." (Wis. iv. 20.) Then shall his sins rush upon his mind, and fill him with terror. His iniquities shall stand against him to convict him, and, without the aid of other testimony, shall assail him, and prove that he deserves hell.
2. The dying sinner will confess his sins. But, according to St. Augustine, "The repentance which is sought from a sick man is infirm." (Serm, xxxvii., de Temp.) And St. Jerome says, that of a hundred thousand sinners who continue till death in the state of sin, scarcely one shall be saved (Epis. de Mort. Eus.)
St. Vincent Ferrer writes, that it is a greater miracle to save such sinners, than to raise the dead to life. "Majus miraculum est, quod male viventes faciant bonum finem, quam suscitare mortuos." (Serm. i., de Nativ. Virgin.) They shall feel convinced of the evil they have done. They will wish, but shall not be able, to detest it. Antiochus understood the malice of his sins when he said: "Now I remember the evils that I have done in Jerusalem." (1 Mach. vi. 12.) He remembered his sins, but did not detest them. He died in despair and oppressed with great sadness, saying: "Behold, I perish with great grief in a strange land" (v. 13). According to St. Fulgentius, the same happened to Saul at the hour of death: he remembered his sins; he dreaded the punishment which they deserved; but he did not detest them.
3. Oh! how difficult is it for a sinner, who has slept many years in sin, to repent sincerely at the hour of death, when his mind is darkened, and his heart hardened! "His heart shall be as hard as a stone, and as firm as a smiths anvil." (Job xli. 15.) During life, instead of yielding to the graces and calls of God, he became more obdurate, as the anvil is hardened by repeated strokes of the hammer. "A hard heart shall fare evil at the last." (Eccl. iii. 27.) By loving sin till death, he has loved the danger of his damnation, and therefore God will justly permit him to perish in the danger in which he wished to live till death.
4. St. Augustine says, that he who is abandoned by sin before he abandons it, will scarcely detest it as he ought at the hour of death. For he will then detest it, not through a hatred of sin, but through necessity. But how shall he be able to hate from his heart the sins which he has loved till death? He must love the enemy whom till then he has hated, and he must hate the person whom he has till that moment loved. Oh! what mountains must he pass! He shall probably meet with a fate similar to that of a certain person, who kept in confinement a great number of wild beasts in order to let them loose on the enemies who might assail him. But the wild beasts, as soon as he unchained them, instead of attacking his enemies, devoured himself. When the sinner will wish to drive away his iniquities, they shall cause his destruction, either by complacency in objects till then loved, or by despair of pardon at the sight of their numbers and enormity. "Evils shall catch the unjust man unto destruction." (Ps. cxxxix. 12.) St. Bernard says, that at death the sinner shall see himself chained and bound by his sins. "We are your works; we will not desert you." We will not leave you; we will accompany you to judgment, and will be your companions for all eternity in hell.
Second Point. The dying sinner shall be tortured by the assaults of the devils5. "The devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time." (Apoc. xii. 12.) At death the devil exerts all his powers to secure the soul that is about to leave this world. For he knows, from the symptoms of the disease, that he has but little time to gain her for eternity. The Council of Trent teaches that Jesus Christ has left us the sacrament of Extreme Unction as a most powerful defense against the temptations of the devil at the hour of death. And the holy council adds, that there is no time in which the enemy combats against us with so much violence in order to effect our damnation, and to make us despair of the divine mercy, as at the end of life (Sess. 14, cap. ix. Doctr. de Sacr. Extr. Unct.)
6. Oh! how terrible are the assaults and snares of the devil against the souls of dyiug persons, even though they have led a holy life! After his recovery from a most severe illness, the holy king Eleazar said, that the temptations by which the devil assails men at death, can be conceived only by him who has felt them. We read in the life of St. Andrew Avelliuo, that in his agony he had so fierce a combat with hell, that all the religious present were seized with trembling. They perceived that, in consequence of the agitation, his face swelled, and became black, all his members trembled, and a flood of tears gushed from his eyes. All began to weep through compassion, and were rilled with terror at the sight of a saint dying in such a manner. But they were afterwards consoled, when they saw that as soon as an image of most holy Mary was held before him, he became perfectly calm, and breathed forth his blessed soul with great joy.
7. Now, if this happens to the saints, what shall become of poor sinners, who have lived in sin till death? At that awful moment the devil does not come alone to tempt them in a thousand ways, in order to bring them to eternal perdition, but he calls companions to his assistance. "Their house shall be filled with serpents." (Isa. xiii. 21.) When a Christian is about to leave this world, his house is filled with devils, who unite together in order to effect his ruin. "All her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits." (Lamentations i. 3.) All his enemies will encompass him in the straits of death. One shall say: Be not afraid; you shall not die of this sickness! Another will say: You have been for so many years deaf to the calls of God, and can you now expect that he will save you? Another will ask: How can you repair the frauds of your past life, and the injuries you have done to your neighbor in his property and character? Another shall ask: What hope can there be for you? Do you not see that all your confessions have been null that they have been made without true sorrow, and without a firm purpose of amendment? How can you repair them with this heart, which you feel so hard? Do you not see that you are lost? And in the midst of these straits and attacks of despair, the dying sinner, full of agitation and confusion, must pass into eternity. "The people shall be troubled and they shall pass." (Job xxxiv 20.)
Third Point. The dying sinner shall be tortured by the fears of eternal death8. Miserable the sick man who takes to his bed in the state of mortal sin! He that lives in sin till death shall die in sin. "You shall die in your sin." (John viii. 21.) It is true that, in whatsoever hour the sinner is converted, God promises to pardon him. But to no sinner has God promised the grace of conversion at the hour of death. "Seek the Lord while he may be found." (Isaiah. iv. 6.) Then, there is for some sinners a time when they shall seek God and shall not find him. "You shall seek me, and shall not find me." (John vii. 34.) The unhappy beings will go to confession at the hour of death. They will promise and weep, and ask mercy of God, but without knowing what they do. How can God pardon the dying sinner, when he sees that all his acts of sorrow, and all his promises, proceed not from the heart, but from a dread of death and of approaching damnation.
9. In the recommendation of the departing soul, the assisting priest prays to the Lord, saying: "Recognize, O Lord, thy creature." But God answers: I know that he is my creature; but, instead of regarding me as his Creator, he has treated me as an enemy. The priest continues his prayer, and says: "Remember not his past iniquities." I would, replies the Lord, pardon all the past sins of his youth. But he has continued to despise me till this moment the very hour of his death. "They have turned their back upon me, and not their face: and, in the time of affliction, they will say: Arise, and deliver us. Where are the gods which thou hast made thee? let them rise and deliver thee." (Jer. ii. 27, 28.) You, says the Lord, have turned your back upon me till death; "and do you now want me to deliver you from vengeance? Invoke your own gods the creatures, the riches, the friends you loved more than you loved me. Call them now to come to your assistance, and to save you from hell, which is open to receive you. It now justly belongs to me to take vengeance on the insults you have offered me. You have despised my threats against obstinate sinners, and have paid no regard to them. "Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time, that their foot may slide." (Deut. xxxii. 35.) The time of my vengeance is now arrived. It is but just to execute it.
This is precisely what happened to a certain person in Madrid, who led a wicked life, but, at the sight of the unhappy death of a companion, went to confession, and resolved to enter a strict religious order. But, in consequence of having neglected to put his resolution into immediate execution, he relapsed into his former irregularities. Being reduced to great want, he wandered about the world, and fell sick at Lima. From the hospital in which he took refuge he sent for a confessor, and promised again to change his life, and to enter religion. But, having recovered from his illness, he returned to his wickedness; and, behold! the vengeance of God fell upon him. One day, his confessor, who was a missionary, in passing over a mountain, heard a noise, which appeared to be the howling of a wild beast. He drew near the place from which the noise proceeded, and saw a dying man, half rotten, and howling through despair. He addressed to him some words of consolation. The sick man, opening his eyes, recognized the missionary, and said: Have you, too, come to he a witness of the justice of God? I am the man who made my confession in the hospital of Lima. I then promised to change my life, but have not done so; and now I die in despair. And thus the miserable man, amid these acts of despair, breathed forth his unhappy soul. These facts are related by Father Charles Bovio (part iii., example 9)
10. Let us conclude the discourse. Tell me, brethren, were a person in sin seized with apoplexy, and instantly deprived of his senses, what sentiments of pity would you feel at seeing him die in this state; without the sacraments, and without signs of repentance! Is not he a fool, who, when he has time to be reconciled with God, continues in sin, or returns to his sins, and thus exposes himself to the danger of dying suddenly, and of dying in sin? "At what hour you think not," says Jesus Christ, "the Son of Man will come," (Luke xiii. 40.) An unprovided death, which has happened to so many, may also happen to each of us. And it is necessary to understand, that all who lead a bad life, meet with an unprovided death, though their last illness may allow them some time to prepare for eternity. For the days of that mortal illness are days of darkness days of confusion, in which it is difficult, and even morally impossible, to adjust a conscience burdened with many sins. Tell me, brethren, if you were now at the point of death, given over by physicians, and in the last agony, how ardently would you desire another month, or another week, to settle the accounts you must render to God! And God gives you this time. He calls you, and warns you of the danger of damnation to which you are exposed. Give yourself, then, instantly to God. What do you wait for? Will you wait till he sends you to hell? "Walk whilst you have light." (John xii. 35.) Avail yourselves of this time and this light, which God gives you at this moment, and now, while it is in your power, repent of all your past sins; for, a time shall come when you will be no longer able to avert the punishment which they deserve.
I entreat my readers not to miss the Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, on the practical death, or that which practically happens at the death of men of the world. I know by experience that though it does not contain Latin texts, whenever I preached that sermon, it produced a great impression, and left the audience full of terror. A greater impression is made by practical than by speculative truths. - St Alphonse Maria de Liguori
Coming next ...TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - On the efficacy and necessity of prayer.
"God, be merciful to me a sinner." - LUKE xviii. 13.
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Posted - 11/16/2009 : 10:13:48
EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE PARTICULAR JUDGMENT.
The theme of the Eighth Sunday is to account for your stewardship before God and then man. In the Epistle we are reminded of our divine filiation, and Our Lord tells us in a parable in today's Gospel of the duties thereby entailed. We are the children of God, since we may say in all truth: Our Father (Epistle). God has given us life, "wherefore we must life according to His will". Just as this rich landowner who, before giving his son his share of the heritage, wishes to test his administrative capability, by entrusting to him things of little value, God, before making us His heirs in Heaven, has wished to test our fidelity by giving us the management on earth of both temporal and spiritual goods. But, like the steward mentioned by Jesus, we have been unfaithful, dissipating by sin the riches and talents which God entrusted to us.
Therefore, vying in zeal with the children of the world, the sons of light imitate the foresight of the steward who, by means of his father's riches, prepared friends unto himself. Turning to profitable use what God has given to us, let us do good, and especially by almsgiving let us secure the testimony which the poor will bear their benefactors at the moment when all will have to give an account of their stewardship to the divine Judge.
EPISTLE: Romans 8: 12-17 Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Romans, We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh; for if you live according to the flesh, you shall die but if by the Spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live. For whoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry, Abba (Father). For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God and if sons, heirs also heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 16: 1-9At that time Jesus said to His disciples this parable: "There was a certain man, who had a steward and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods; and he called him, and said to him: How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for now thou canst be steward no longer, And the steward said within himself: What shall I do, because my lord taketh away from me the stewardship? To dig I am not able: to beg I am ashamed. I know what I will do, that when I shall be put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses, Therefore calling together every one of his lord's debtors, he said to the first: How much dost thou owe my lord? But he said: A hundred barrels of oil. And he said to him: Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he said to another: And how much dost thou owe my lord? Who said: A hundred quarters of wheat. He said to him: Take thy bill, and write eighty. And the lord commended the unjust steward, as much as he had done wisely: for the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And I say to you: Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity, that when you shall fail, they may receive you into everlasting dwellings."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE PARTICULAR JUDGMENT. "Give an account of thy stewardship." - LUKE xvi. 2.
BELOVED Christians, of all the goods of nature, of fortune, and of grace, which we have received from God, we are not the masters, neither can we dispose of them as we please. We are but the administrators of them, and therefore we should employ them according to the will of God, who is our Lord. Hence, at the hour of death, we must render a strict account of them to Jesus Christ, our Judge. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body as he hath done, whether it be good or evil." (2 Cor. v. 10.) This is the precise meaning of that give an account of thy stewardship," in the gospel of this day. You are not," says St. Bonaventure, in his comment on these words, a master, but a steward over the things committed to you; and therefore you are to render an account of them." I will place before your eyes today the rigour of this judgment, which shall be passed on each of us on the last day of our life. Let us consider the terror of the soul, first, when we shall be presented to the Judge; secondly, when she shall be examined; and thirdly, when she shall be condemned.
First Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be presented to the Judge. 1. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment." (Heb. ix. 27.) It is of faith that we shall die, and that immediately after death a judgment shall be passed on all the actions of our life. Now, what shall be the terror of each of us when we shall be at the point of death, and shall have before our eyes the judgment which must take place the very moment the soul departs from the body? Then shall be decided our doom to eternal life, or to eternal death. At the time of the passage of their souls from this life to eternity, the sight of their past sins, the rigour of Gods judgment, and the uncertainty of their eternal salvation, have made the saints tremble. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzia trembled in her sickness, through the fear of judgment. And to her confessor, when he endeavoured to give her courage, she said: "Ah! father, it is a terrible thing to appear before Christ in judgment." After spending so many years in penance in the desert, St. Agatho trembled at the hour of death, and said: What shall become of me when I shall be judged ?" The venerable Father Louis da Ponte was seized with such a fit of trembling at the thought of the account which he should render to God, that he shook the room in which he lay. The thought of judgment inspired the venerable Juvenal Ancina, Priest of the Oratory, and afterwards Bishop of Saluzzo, with the determination to leave the world. Hearing the Dies Ir sung, and considering the terror of the soul when presented before Jesus Christ, the Judge, he took, and afterwards executed, the resolution of giving himself entirely to God.
2. It is the common opinion of theologians, that at the very moment and in the very place in which the soul departs from the body, the divine tribunal is erected, the accusation is read, and the sentence is passed by Jesus Christ, the Judge. At this terrible tribunal each of us shall be presented to give an account of all our thoughts, of all our words, and of all our actions. "For we must all be manifested before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil." ( 2 Cor. v. 10.) When presented before an earthly judge criminals have been seen to fall into a cold sweat through fear. It is related of Piso, that so great and insufferable was the confusion, which he felt at the thought of appearing as a criminal before the senate that he killed himself. How great is the pain of a vassal, or of a son, in appearing before an angry prince or an enraged father, to account for some crime which he has committed! Oh! how much greater shall be the pain and confusion of the soul in standing, before Jesus Christ enraged against her for having despised him during her life! Speaking of judgment, St. Luke says: "Then you shall see the Son of Man." (Luke xxi. 27.) They shall see Jesus Christ as man, with the same wounds with which he ascended into heaven. "Great joy of the beholders!" says Robert the Abbot, "a great terror of those who are in expectation!" These wounds shall console the just, and shall terrify the wicked. In them sinners shall see the Redeemers love for themselves, and their ingratitude to him.
3. "Who," says the Prophet Nahum, "can stand before the face of his indignation ?" (i. 6.) How great, then, shall be the terror of a soul that finds herself in sin before this Judge, the first time she shall see him, and see him full of wrath! St. Basil says that she shall be tortured more by her shame and confusion than by the very fire of hell. Philip the Second rebuked one of his domestics for having told him a lie. Is it thus," said the king to him, you deceive me?" The domestic, after having returned home, died of grief. The Scripture tells us, that when Joseph reproved his brethren, saying: I am Joseph, whom you sold," they were unable to answer through fear, and remained silent. His brethren could not answer him, being struck with exceeding great fear." (Gen. xlv. 3.) Now what answer shall sinners make to Jesus Christ when he shall say to them: I am your Redeemer and your Judge, whom you have so much despised. Where shall the miserable beings fly, says St. Augustine, when they shall see an angry Judge above, hell open below, on one side their own sins accusing them, and on the other the devils dragging them to punishment, and their conscience burning them within? "Above shall be an enraged Judge below, a horrid chaos on the right, sins accusing him on the left, demons dragging him to punishment within, a burning conscience! Whither shall a sinner, beset in this manner, fly ?" Perhaps he will cry for mercy? But how, asks Eusebius Emissenus, can he dare to implore mercy, when he must first render an account of his contempt for the mercy which Jesus Christ has shown to him? "With what face will you, who are to be first judged for contempt of mercy, ask for mercy?" But let us come to the rendering of the accounts.
Second Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be examined.
4. As soon as the soul shall be presented before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, he will say to her: Give an account of thy stewardship:" render instantly an account of thy entire life. The Apostle tells us, that to be worthy of eternal glory our lives must be found conformable to the life of Jesus Christ. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his son ;...them he also glorified." (Rom. viii. 29, 30.) Hence St. Peter has said, that in the judgment of Jesus Christ, the just man who has observed the divine law, has pardoned enemies, has respected the saints, has practised chastity, meekness, and other virtues, shall scarcely be saved. "The just man shall scarcely be saved." The Apostle adds: "Where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?" (1 Pet. iv. 18.) What shall become of the vindictive and the unchaste, of blasphemers and slanderers? What shall become of those whose entire life is opposed to the lite of Jesus Christ?
5. In the first place, the Judge shall demand of sinners an account of all the blessings and graces which he bestowed on them in order to bring them to salvation, and which they have rendered fruitless. He will demand an account of the years granted to them that they might serve God, and which they have spent in offending him. "He hath called against me the time." (Lamentations. i. 15.) He will then demand an account of their sins. Sinners commit sins, and afterwards forget them; but Jesus Christ does not forget them: he keeps, as Job says, all our iniquities numbered, as it were in a bag. "Thou hast sealed up my iniquities, as it were in a bag." (Job xiv. 17.) And he tells us that, on the day of accounts, he will take a lamp to scrutinize all the actions of our life. "And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with lamps." (Sophonius. i. 12.) The lamp, says Mendoza on this passage, penetrates all the corners of the house that is, God will discover all the defects of our conscience, great and small. According to St. Anselm, an account shall be demanded of every glance of the eyes. "Exigitur usque ad ictum oculi." And, according to St. Matthew, of every idle word. "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment." (Matt. xii. 36.)
6. The Prophet Malachy says, that as gold is refined by taking away the dross, so on the day of judgment all our actions shall be examined, and every defect which may be discovered shall be punished. "He shall purify the sons of Levi, and shall refine them as gold." (Mal. iii. 3.) Even our justices that is, our good works, confessions, communions, and prayers shall be examined. "When I shall take a time, I will judge justices." (Ps. Ixxiv. 3.) But if every glance, every idle word, and even good works, shall be judged, with what rigour shall immodest expressions, blasphemies, grievous detractions, thefts, and sacrileges be judged? Alas! on that day every soul shall, as St. Jerome says, see, to her own confusion, all the evils which she has done.
7. "Weight and balance are judgments of the Lord." (Prov. xvi. 11.) In the balance of the Lord a holy life and good works make the scale descend. But nobility, wealth, and science have no weight. Hence, if found innocent, the peasant, the poor, and the ignorant shall be rewarded. But the man of rank, of wealth, or of learning, if found guilty, shall be condemned. "Thou art weighed in the balance," said Daniel to Belthassar, and art found wanting." (Dan. v. 27.) "Neither his gold nor his wealth," says Father Alvares, "but the king alone was weighed."
8. At the divine tribunal the poor sinner shall see himself accused by the devil, who, according to St. Augustine, "will recite the words of our profession, and will charge us before our face with all that we have done, will state the day and hour in which we sinned." (Con. Jud., tom. 6.) "He will recite the words of our profession" that is, he will enumerate the promises which we have made to God, and which we afterwards violated. "He will charge us before our face;" he will upbraid us with all our wicked deeds, pointing to the day and hour in which they were committed. And he will, as the same saint says, conclude his accusation by saying: "I have suffered neither stripes nor scourges for this man." Lord, I have suffered nothing for this ungrateful sinner, and to make himself my slave he has turned his back on thee who has endured so much for his salvation. He, therefore, justly belongs to me. Even his angel-guardian will, according to Origen, come forward to accuse him, and will say: "I have laboured so many years for his salvation; but he has despised all my admonitions." (Hom. lxvi.) Thus, even friends shall treat with contempt the guilty soul. "All her friends have despised her." (Lamentations. i. 2.) Her very sins shall, says St. Bernard, accuse her. "And they shall say: You have made us; we are your work; we shall not desert you." (Lib. Medit, cap. ii.) We are your offspring; we shall not leave you: we shall be your companions in hell for all eternity.
9. Let us now examine the excuses which the sinner will be able to advance. He will say, that the evil inclinations of nature had drawn him into sin. But he shall be told that, if concupiscence impelled him to sins, it did not oblige him to commit them. And that, if he had recourse to God, he should have received from him grace to resist every temptation. For this purpose Jesus Christ has left us the sacraments: but when we do not make use of them, we can complain only of ourselves. "But, " says the Redeemer, "now they have no excuse for their sin." (John xv. 22.) To excuse himself, the sinner shall also say that the devil tempted him to sin. But, as St. Augustine says, "The enemy is bound like a dog in chains, and can bite only him who has united himself to him with a deadly security." The devil can bark, but cannot bite unless you adhere and listen to him. Hence the saint adds: See how foolish is the man whom a dog, loaded with chains, bites." Perhaps he will advance his bad habits as an excuse; but this shall not stand; for the same St. Augustine says, that though it is difficult to resist the force of an evil habit, "if any one does not desert himself, he will conquer it with the divine assistance." If a man does not abandon himself to sin, and invokes Gods aid, he will overcome evil habits. The Apostle tells us, that the Lord does not permit us to be tempted above our strength. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able." ( 1 Cor. x. 13.)
10. "For what shall I do," said Job, when God shall rise to judge me? and when he shall examine, what shall I answer him (Job xxxi. 14.) What answer shall the sinner give to Jesus Christ? How can he, who sees himself so clearly convicted, give an answer? He shall be covered with confusion, and shall remain silent, like the man found without the nuptial garment. But he was silent." (Matt. xxii. 12.) His very sins shall shut the sinners mouth. "And all iniquity shall stop her mouth." (Ps. cvi. 42.) There, says St. Thomas of Villanova, there shall be no intercessor to whom the sinner can have recourse. There, there is no opportunity of sinning; there, no intercessor, no friend, no father shall assist." Who shall then save you? Is it God? But how, asks St. Basil, can you expect salvation from him whom you have despised? Who shall deliver you? Is it God, whom you have insulted ?" (St. Basil, Or. 4, de Fen.) Alas! the guilty soul that leaves this world in sin, is condemned by herself before the Judge pronounces sentence. Let us come to the sentence of the Judge.
Third Point. Terror of the soul when she shall be condemned.
11. How great shall be the joy of a soul when, at death, she hears from Jesus Christ these sweet words: "Well done, good and faithful servant; because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." (Matt. xxv. 21.) Equally great shall be the anguish and despair of a guilty soul, that shall see herself driven away by the Judge with the following words: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire" (verse 41). Oh! what a terrible thunderclap shall that sentence be to her! Oh! how frightfully," says the Carthusian, "shall that thunder resound!" Eusebius writes, that the terror of sinners at hearing their condemnation shall be so great that, if they could, they would die again. The wicked shall be seized with such terror at the sight of the Judge pronouncing sentence that, if they were not immortal, they should die a second time." But, brethren, let us, before the termination of this sermon, make some reflections which will be profitable to us. St. Thomas of Villanova says, that some listen to discourses on the judgment and condemnation of the wicked with as little concern as if they they themselves were secure against these things, or as if the day of judgment were never to arive for them. "Heu quam securi hc dicimus et audimus, quasi nos non tangeret hc sententia, aut quasi dies hc nunquam esset venturus!" (Conc, i., de Jud.) The saint then asks: Is it not great folly to entertain security in so perilous an affair? "Qu est ista stulta securitas in discrimine tanto?" There are some, says St. Augustine, who, though they live in sin, cannot imagine that God will send them to hell. Will God," they say, really condemn us ?" Brethren, adds the saint, do not speak thus. So, many of the damned did not believe that they should be sent to hell; but the end came, and, according to the threat of Ezechiel, they have been cast into that place of darkness. "The end is come, the end is come... and I will send my wrath upon thee, and I will judge thee." (Ezec. vii. 2, 3.) Sinners, perhaps vengeance is at hand for you, and still you laugh and sleep in sin. Who will not tremble at the words of the Baptist: For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that doth not yield good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire." (Matt, iii. 10.) He says, that every tree that does not bring forth good fruit shall be cut down and cast into the fire; and he promises that, with regard to the trees, which represent sinners, the axe is already laid to the roots that is, chastisement is at hand. Dearly beloved brethren, let us follow the counsel of the Holy Ghost "Before judgment, prepare thee justice." (Eccl. xviii. 19.) Let us adjust our accounts before the day of accounts. Let us seek God, now that we can find him; for the time shall come when we will wish, but shall not be able to find him. You shall seek me, and shall not find me." (John vii. 36.)"Before judgment," says St. Augustine, "the Judge can be appeased, but not in judgment." By a change of life we can now appease the anger of Jesus Christ, and recover his grace; but when he shall judge, and find us in sin, he must execute justice, and we shall be lost.
Coming next... NINTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. - ON THE DEATH OF THE SINNER.
"Thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee." LUKE xix. 43.
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Posted - 11/06/2009 : 09:59:25
SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
Sins, both of the flesh and of the spirit, have shame as their wages and end in eternal death. Acts of virtue have holiness as their reward and lead to eternal life (Epistle).
Every man is like a tree in the moral order, yielding a certain kind of fruit. If we wish to form a judgement about him, it is enough to wait for and examine his fruits, that is his conduct, deeds and words which will betray his inmost nature. We judge of the cause by its effects. "What our Lord wishes to make clear," says St John Chrysostom, "is that faith cannot save without virtue." (Gospel)
EPISTLE: Romans 6: 19-23
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Romans, Brethren, I speak a human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh for as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity for iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from justice. What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting. For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, is life everlasting in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Matthew 7: 15-21
At that time Jesus said to His disciples: "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth; good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them. Not every one that saith of Me: Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven but he that doeth the will of My Father Who is in Heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of Heaven."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit." - MATT. vii. 18.
THEN the gospel of this day tells us, that a good plant cannot produce bad fruit, and that a bad one cannot produce good fruit. Learn from this, brethren, that a good father brings up good children. But, if parents be wicked, how can the children be virtuous? Have you ever, says the Redeemer, in the same gospel, seen grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles ?" (v. 16.) And, in like manner, it is impossible, or rather very difficult, to find children virtuous, who are brought up by immoral parents. Fathers and mothers, be attentive to this sermon, which is of great importance to the eternal salvation of yourselves and of your children. Be attentive, young men and young women, who have not as yet chosen a state of life. If you wish to marry, learn this day the obligations which you can contract with regard to the education of your children. And learn also that, if you do not fulfil them, you shall bring yourselves and all your children to damnation. I shall divide this sermon into two points. In the first, I shall show how important it is to bring up children in habits of virtue; and in the second, I shall show with what care and diligence a parent ought to labour to bring them up well.
First Point. How very important it is to bring up children in habits of virtue1. A father owes two obligations to his children; he is bound to provide for their corporal wants, and to educate them in habits of virtue. It is not necessary at present to say more on the first obligation, than that there are some fathers more cruel than the most ferocious of wild beasts. For these do not forget to nourish their offspring. But certain parents squander away in eating and drinking, and gaming, all their property, or all the fruits of their industry, and allow their children to die of hunger. But let us come to the education, which is the subject of my discourse.
2. It is certain that a childs future good or ill conduct depends on his being brought up well or ill. Nature itself teaches every parent to attend to the education of his offspring. He who has given them being ought to endeavour to make life useful to them. God gives children to parents, not that they may assist the family, but that they may be brought up in the fear of God, and be directed in the way of eternal salvation. We have," says St. Chrysostom, a great deposit in children; let us attend to them with great care." (Hom, ix., in 1 ad Tit.)
Children have not been given to parents as a present, which they may dispose of as they please, but as a trust, for which, if lost through their negligence, they must render an account to God.
Scripture tells us, that when a father observes the divine law, both he and his children shall prosper. "That it may be well with thee and thy children after thee, when thou shalt do that which is pleasing in the sight of God." (Deut. xii. 25.) The good or ill conduct of a parent may be known, by those who have not witnessed it, from the life which his children lead. "For by the fruit the tree is known. (Matt. xii. 33.) "A father, " says Ecclcsiasticus, "who leaves a family, when he departs this life, is as if he had not died; because his sons remain, and exhibit his habits and character. His father is dead, and he is as if he were not dead; for he hath left one behind him that is like himself." (Eccl. xxx. 4.) When we find a son addicted to blasphemies, to obscenities, and to theft, we have reason to suspect that such too was the character of the father. "For a man is known by his children." (Eccl. xi. 30.)
3. Hence Origen says, that on the day of judgment parents shall have to render an account for all the sins of their children. (Grig., Lib. 2, in Job.) Hence, he who teaches his son to live well, shall die a happy and tranquil death. He that teacheth his son ...when he died he was not sorrowful, neither was he confounded." (Eccl. xxx. 3, 5.) And he shall save his soul by means of his children; that is, by the virtuous education which he has given them. She shall be saved through child-bearing." (1 Tim. ii. 15.) But, on the other hand, a very uneasy and unhappy death shall be the lot of those who have laboured only to increase the possessions, or to multiply the honours of their family; or who have sought only to lead a life of ease and pleasure, but have not watched over the morals of their children. St. Paul says, that such parents are worse than infidels. "But if any man have not care of his own, and especially of those of his house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." (1 Tim. v. 8.) "Were fathers or mothers to lead a life of piety and continual prayer, and to communicate every day, they should be damned if they neglected the care of their children. " Would to God that certain parents paid as much attention to their children as they do to their horses! How careful are they to see that their horses are fed and well trained! And they take no pains to make their children attend at catechism, hear mass, or go to confession. "We take more care" says St. Chrysostom, "of our asses and horses, than of the children. "(Hom, x., in Matt.)
4. If all fathers fulfilled their duty of watching over the education of their children, we should have but few crimes and few executions. By the bad education which parents give to their offspring, they cause their children, says St. Chrysostom, to rush into many grievous vices; and thus they deliver them up to the hands of the executioner. Hence, in Lacedemon, a parent, as being the cause of all the irregularities of his children, was justly punished for their crimes with greater severity than the children themselves. Great indeed is the misfortune of the child that has vicious parents, who are incapable of bringing up their children in the fear of God, and who, when they see their children engaged in dangerous friendships and in quarrels, instead of correcting and chastising them, rather take compassion on them, and say: "What can be done? They are young; they must take their course." Oh! what wicked maxims! what a cruel education! Do you hope that when your children grow up they shall become saints? Listen to what Solomon says: "A young man, according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. xxii. 6.) A young man who has contracted a habit of sin will not abandon it even in his old age. "His bones," says Job, "shall be filled with the vices of his youth, and they shall sleep with him in the dust." (Job xx. 11.)
When a young person has lived in evil habits, his bones shall be filled with the vices of his youth, so that he will carry them with him to death; and the impurities, blasphemies, and hatred to which he was accustomed in his youth, shall accompany him to the grave, and shall sleep with him after his bones shall be reduced to dust and ashes. It is very easy, when they are small, to train up children to habits of virtue. But, when they have come to manhood, it is equally difficult to correct them, if they have learned habits of vice (The baganda tribe of Uganda have a similar saying: "akakyaama amamera....").
But, let us come to the second point that is, to the means of bringing up children in the practice of virtue. I entreat you, fathers and mothers, to remember what I now say to you. For on it depends the eternal salvation of your own souls, and of the souls of your children.
Second Point. On the care and diligence with which parents ought to endeavour to bring up their children in habits of virtue5. St. Paul teaches sufficiently, in a few words, in what the proper education of children consists. He says that it consists in discipline and correction. "And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord." (Ephes. vi. 4 ) Discipline, which is the same as the religious regulation of the morals of children, implies an obligation of educating them in habits of virtue by word and example. First, by words: a good father should often assemble his children, and instil into them the holy fear of God. It was in this manner that Tobias brought up his little son. The father taught him from his childhood to fear the Lord and to fly from sin. "And from his infancy he taught him to fear God and to abstain from sin." (Tob. i. 10.) The Wise Man says that a well educated son is the support and consolation of his father. "Instruct thy son, and he shall refresh thee, and shall give delight to thy soul." (Prov. xxix. 17.) But, as a well instructed son is the delight of his fathers soul, so an ignorant child is a source of sorrow to a fathers heart. For the ignorance of his obligations as a Christian is always accompanied with a bad life.
Cantipratensis relates (lib. 1, cap. 20) that, in the year 1248, an ignorant priest was commanded, in a certain synod, to make a discourse. But while he was greatly agitated by the command, the devil appeared to him, and instructed him to say: "The rectors of infernal darkness salute the rectors of parishes, and thank them for their negligence in instructing the people; because from ignorance proceed the misconduct and the damnation of many." The same is true of negligent parents. In the first place, a parent ought to instruct his children in the truths of faith, and particularly in the four principal mysteries. First, that there is but one God, the Creator, and Lord of all things. Secondly, that this God is a remunerator, who, in the next life, shall reward the good with the eternal glory of Paradise, and shall punish the wicked with the everlasting torments of hell. Thirdly, the mystery of the holy Trinity that is, that in God there are Three Persons, who are only one God, because they have but one essence. Fourthly, the mystery of the incarnation of the Divine Word the Son of God, and true God, who became man in the womb of Mary, and suffered and died for our salvation.
Should a father or a mother say: I myself do not know these mysteries, can such an excuse be admitted? that is, can one sin excuse another? If you are ignorant of these mysteries you are obliged to learn them, and afterwards teach them to your children. At least, send your children to the catechism. Oh! what a misery to see so many fathers and mothers who are unable to instruct their children in the most necessary truths of faith, and who, instead of sending their sons and daughters to the Christian doctrine on festivals, employ them in messages, or other occupations of little moment; and when grown up they know not what is meant by mortal sin, by hell, or eternity. They do not even know the Creed, the Pater Noster, or the Hail Mary, which every Christian is bound to learn under pain of mortal sin.
6. Religious parents not only instruct their children in these things, which are the most important, but they also teach them the acts which ought to be made every morning after rising. They teach them, first, to thank God for having preserved their life during the night; secondly, to offer to God all the good actions which they will perform, and all the pains which they shall suffer during the day; thirdly, to implore of Jesus Christ and most holy Mary to preserve them from all sin during the day. They teach them to make every evening an examen of conscience and an act of contrition. They also teach them to make every day the acts of Faith, Hope, and Charity, to recite the Rosary, and to visit the Blessed Sacrament. Some good fathers of families are careful to get a book of meditations read, and to have mental prayer in common for half an hour every day. This is what the Holy Ghost exhorts you to practise. "Hast thou children? Instruct them and bow down their neck from their childhood." (Eccl. vii. 25.) Endeavour to train them from their infancy to these religious hahits, and when they grow up they shall persevere in them. Accustom them also to go to confession and communion every week. Be careful to make them go to confession when they arrive at the age of seven, and to communion at the age of ten. This is the advice of St. Charles Borromeo. As soon as they attain the use of reason make them receive the sacrament of confirmation.
7. It is also very useful to infuse good maxims into the infant minds of children. Oh! what ruin is brought upon his children by the father who teaches them worldly maxims! "You must," some people say to their children, "seek the esteem and applause of the world. God is merciful; he takes compassion on certain sins." Miserable the young man who sins in obedience to such maxims. Good parents teach very different maxims to their children. Queen Blanche, the mother of St. Louis, King of France, used to say to him: "My son, I would rather see you dead in my arms than in the state of sin."
Oh! brethren, let it be your practice also to infuse into your children certain maxims of salvation, such as, "What will it profit us to gain the whole world, if we lose our own souls? Every thing on this earth has an end; but eternity never ends. Let all be lost, provided God is not lost." One of these maxims well impressed on the mind of a young person will preserve him always in the grace of God.
8. But parents are obliged to instruct their children in the practice of virtue, not only by words, but still more by example. If you give your children bad example, how can you expect that they will lead a good life? When a dissolute young man is corrected for a fault, he answers: Why do you censure me, when my father does worse. "The children will complain of an ungodly father, because for his sake they are in reproach."(Eccl. xli. 10.) How is it possible for a son to be moral and religious, when he has had the example of a father who was accustomed to utter blasphemies and obscenities; who spent the entire day in the tavern, in gaming and drunkenness; who was in the habit of frequenting houses of bad fame, and of defrauding his neighbour? Do you expect that your son will go frequently to confession, when you yourself approach the tribunal of penance scarcely once a year? Children are like apes; they do what they see their parents do. It is related in the fables, that a crab-fish one day rebuked its young for walking crookedly. They replied: Father, let us see you walk. The father walked before them more crookedly than they did. This is what happens to the parent who gives bad example. Hence, he has not even courage to correct his children for the sins which he himself commits.
9. But though he should correct them, by words, of what use is his correction when he sets them a bad ex ample by his acts? It has been said in the council of Bishops, that "men believe the eyes rather than the ears." And St. Ambrose says: "The eyes convince me of what they see more quickly than the ear can insinuate what is past." (Serm. xxiii., de S. S.) According to St. Thomas, scandalous parents compel, in a certain manner, their children to lead a bad life. (in Ps. xvi). They are not, says St. Bernard, fathers, but murderers. They kill, not the bodies, but the souls of their children. It is useless for them to say: "My children have been born with bad dispositions." This is not true; for, as Seneca says, "you err, if you think that vices are born with us; they have been engrafted." (Ep. xciv.) Vices are not born with your children, but have been communicated to them by the bad example of the parents. If you had given good example to your sons, they should not be so vicious as they are. O brethren, frequent the sacraments, assist at sermons, recite the Rosary every day, abstain from all obscene language, from, detraction, and from quarrels; and you shall see that your sons will go often to confession, will assist at sermons, will say the Rosary, will speak modestly, and will fly from detraction and disputes. It is particularly necessary to train up children to virtue in their infancy: "Bow down their neck from their childhood" For when they have grown up and contracted bad habits, it will be very difficult for you to produce, by words, any amendment in their lives.
10. To bring up children in the discipline of the Lord, it is also necessary to take away from them the occasion of doing evil. Hence a father must, in the first place, forbid his children to go out at night, or to go to a house in which their virtue might be exposed to danger, or to keep bad company. "Cast out," said Sarah to Abraham, "this bondwoman and her son." (Gen. xxi. 10.) She wished to have Ishmael, the son of Agar the bondwoman, banished from her house, that her son Isaac might not learn his vicious habits. Bad companions are the ruin of young persons. A father should not only remove the evil which he witnesses, but he is also bound to inquire after the conduct of his children, and to seek information from domestics and from externs regarding the places which his sons frequent when they leave home, regarding their occupations and companions.
Secondly, he should take from them every musical instrument which is to them an occasion of going out at night, and all forbidden weapons which may lead them into quarrels or disputes. Thirdly, he should dismiss all immoral servants. And, if his sons be grown up, he should not keep in his house any young female servant. Some parents pay little attention to this; and when the evil happens they complain of their children, as if they expected that tow thrown into the fire should not burn. Fourthly, a father ought to forbid his children ever to bring into his house stolen goods such as fowl, fruit, and the like. When Tobias heard the bleating of a goat in his house, he said: "Take heed, lest perhaps it be stolen; restore ye it to its owners." (Tob. li. 21.) How often does it happen that, when a child steals something, the mother says to him: Bring it to me, my son. Parents should prohibit to their children all games which bring destruction on their families and on their own souls, and also masks, scandalous comedies, and certain, dangerous conversations and parties of pleasure. Fifthly, a father should remove from his house romances, which pervert young persons, and all bad books which contain pernicious maxims, tales of obscenity, or of profane love."
Sixthly, he ought not to allow his children to sleep in his own bed, nor the males and females to sleep together. Seventhly, he should not permit his daughters to be alone with men, whether young or old. But some will say: "Such a man teaches my daughters to read and write, etc.; he is a saint." The saints are in heaven. But the saints that are on earth are flesh, and by proximate occasions they may become devils. Eighthly, if he has daughters, he should not permit young men to frequent his house. To get their daughters married, some mothers invite young men to their houses. They are anxious to see their daughters married; but they do not care to see them in sin. These are the mothers who, as David says, immolate their daughters to the devil. "They sacrifice their sons and their daughters to devils." (Ps. cv. 37.) And to excuse themselves they will say: Father, there is no harm in what I do. There is no harm! Oh! how many mothers shall we see condemned on the day of judgment on account of their daughters! The conduct of such mothers is at least a subject of conversation among their neighbours and equals; and, for all, the parents must render an account to God. O fathers and mothers! confess all the sins you have committed in this respect, before the day on which you shall be judged arrives.
11. Another obligation of parents is, to correct the faults of the family. "Bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord." There are fathers and mothers who witness faults in the family, and remain silent. A certain mother was in the habit of acting in this manner. Her husband one day took a stick and began to beat her severely. She cried out, and said: "I am doing nothing. Why do you beat me ?" "I beat you," replied the husband, "because you see, and do not correct, the faults of the children because you do nothing." Through fear of displeasing their children some fathers neglect to correct them. But, if you saw your son falling into a pool of water, and in danger of being drowned, would it not be savage cruelty not to catch him by the hair and save his life? "He that spareth the rod hateth his son." (Prov. xiii. 24.) If you love your sons correct them, and, while they are growing up chastise them, even with the rod, as often as it may be necessary. I say, "with the rod," but not with the stick. For you must correct them like a father, and not like a galley sergeant. You must be careful not to beat them when you are in a passion; for, you shall then be in danger of beating them with too much severity, and the correction will be without fruit. For they then believe that the chastisement is the effect of anger, and not of a desire on your part to see them amend their lives. I have also said that you should correct them "while they are growing up." For, when they arrive at manhood, your correction will be of little use. You must then abstain from correcting them with the hand; otherwise, they shall hecome more perverse, and shall lose their respect for you. But of what use is it to correct children by so many injurious words and by so many imprecations? Deprive them of some part of their meals, of certain articles of dress, or shut them up in a room. But I have said enough. Dearly beloved brethren, draw from the discourse which you have heard the conclusion, that he who has brought up his children badly shall be severely punished; and that he who has trained them to habits of virtue shall receive a great reward.
Coming next...EIGHTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE PARTICULAR JUDGMENT
"Give an account of thy stewardship." LUKE xvi. 2.
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Posted - 10/26/2009 : 15:47:36
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTHoly Mother Church reminds us today of the effects of the two great Sacraments: Baptism and the Eucharist, which she has conferred at Easter and Whitsunday.
Her mind being still occupied with the Sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, which she has administered at Easter and at Pentecost, the Church reminds us today of the effects of these two great Sacraments.
Dead through sin, we have been plunged and, as it were, buried with Jesus in the baptismal water. "All we who have been baptized," says St. Paul, "it is in His death that we have been baptized" (Epistle). By dying on the Cross He atoned for our sins, and "our evil nature was crucified with Him" (Epistle): we must therefore die to sin and no longer commit sin. "If we have died with Christ," continued the Apostle, "we believe that we shall live with Him." "Christ having risen from the dead, we must also walk in a new life."
The Eucharist is the food of this divine life. The multiplication of loaves, related by St. Mark in today's Gospel, figured and announced this great Sacrament by which faithful souls are nourished. Jesus has compassion on the multitude and gives food to four thousand men, who without this sustenance "would have fainted on the way." "He took the seven loaves, gave thanks to God, broke them, and gave them to His disciples to distribute, and they distributed them among the people" (Gospel). This miracle expressly relates to the promise of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament. Wherefore, when Jesus fulfilled it at the Last Supper, St. Paul writes that "He took bread and giving thanks He broke, it and said: "Receive and eat : this is My Body." And in adding : "Do this in memory of Me," He ordered the Apostles and their successors to consecrate in the same way the supernatural broad which is to sustain our souls and to distribute it throughout the world and to the end of time.
EPISTLE: Romans 6: 3-11
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Romans. Brethren, All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in His death. For we are buried together with Him by baptism unto death that as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in the newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we may serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall live also together with Christ. Knowing that Christ, rising again from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once; but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. So do you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Mark 8: 1-9
At that time, when there was a great multitude with Jesus, and they had nothing to eat, calling His disciples together, He saith to them: "I have compassion on the multitude, for behold they have now been with Me three days, and have nothing to eat and if I shall send them away fasting to their home, they will faint in the way: for some of them came from afar off." And His disciples answered Him: "From whence can any one fill them here with bread in the wilderness?" And he asked them: "How many loaves have ye?" Who said: "Seven." And He commanded the people to sit down on the ground. And taking the seven loaves, giving thanks, He broke and gave to His disciples to set before the people, And they had a few little fishes, and He blessed them, and commanded them to be set before' them. And they did eat, and were filled: and they took up that which was left of the fragments, seven baskets: and they that had eaten, were about four thousand: and He sent them away.
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD"And have nothing to eat." MARK viii. 2.
1. SUCH were the attractions of our Divine Savior, and such the sweetness with which he received all, that he drew after him thousands of the people. Ho one day saw himself surrounded by a great multitude of men, who followed him and remained with him three days, without eating anything. Touched with pity for them, Jesus Christ said to his disciples: "I have compassion on the multitude; for behold they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat." (Mark viii. 2.) He, on this occasion, wrought the miracle of the multiplication of the seven loaves and a few fishes, so as to satisfy the whole multitude. This is the literal sense; but the mystic sense is, that in this world there is no food which can fill the desire of our souls. All the goods of this earth riches, honors, and pleasures delight the sense of the body, but cannot satiate the soul, which has been created for God, and which God alone can content. I will, therefore speak Today on the vanity of the world, and will show how great is the illusion of the lovers of the world, who lead an unhappy life on this earth, and expose themselves to the imminent danger of a still more unhappy life in eternity.
2. "O ye sons of men," exclaims the Royal Prophet, against worldlings, "how long will you be dull at heart? Why do you love vanity and seek after lying ?" (Ps. iv. 3.) O men, fools, how long will you fix the affections of your hearts on this earth? why do you love the goods of this world, which are all vanity and lies? Do you imagine that you shall find peace by the acquisition of these goods? But how can you expect to find peace, while you walk in the ways of affliction, and misery? Behold how David describes the condition of worldlings. "Destruction and unhappiness in their ways; and the way of peace they have not known." (Ps. xiii. 3.) You hope to obtain peace from the world. But how can the world give you that peace which you seek, when St. John says, "that the whole world is seated in wickedness ?" (1 John v. 19.) The world is full of iniquities; hence worldlings live under the despotism of the wicked one that is, the Devil. The Lord has declared that there is no peace for the wicked who live without his grace. ”There is no peace to the wicked." (Isa. xlviii. 22.)
3. The goods of the world are but apparent goods, which cannot satisfy the heart of man. "You have eaten," says the Prophet Aggeus, ”and have not had enough." (Ag. i. 6) Instead of satisfying our hunger they increase it. "These," says St. Bernard, "provoke rather than extinguish hunger." If the goods of this work! made men content, the rich and powerful should enjoy complete happiness. But experience shows the contrary. We see every day that they are the most unhappy of men; they appear always oppressed by fears, by jealousies and sadness. Listen to King Solomon, who abounded in these goods: "And behold all is vanity and vexation of spirit." (Eccl. i. 14.) He tells us, that all things in this world are vanity, lies, and illusion. They are not only vanity, but also affliction of spirit. They torture the poor soul, which finds in them a continual source, not of happiness, but of affliction and bitterness. This is a just punishment on those who instead of serving their God with joy, wish to serve their enemy the world which makes them endure the want of every good. "Because thou didst not serve the Lord thy God with joy and gladness of heart thou shaft serve thy enemy in hunger, and thirst, and nakedness, and in want of all things."(Deut. xxviii. 47, 48.) Man expects to content his heart with the goods of this earth; but, howsoever abundantly he may possess them, he is never satisfied. Hence, he always seeks after more of them, and is always unhappy. Oh! happy he who wishes for nothing but God; for God will satisfy all the desires of his heart. "Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart." (Ps. xxxvi. 4.) Hence St. Augustine asks: "What, miserable man, dost thou seek in seeking after goods? Seek one good, in which are all goods." And, having dearly learned that the goods of this world do not content, but rather afflict the heart of man, the saint, turning to the Lord, said: "All things are hard, and thou alone repose." Hence in saying, "My God and my all," the seraphic St. Francis, though divested of all worldly goods, enjoyed greater riches and happiness than an the worldlings on this earth. Yes; for the peace which fills the soul that desires nothing but God, surpasses all the delights which creatures can give. They can only delight the senses, but cannot content the heart of man. "The peace of God which surpasseth all understanding." (Phil. iv. 7.) According to St. Thomas, the difference between God, the sovereign good, and the goods of the earth, consists in this, that the more perfectly we possess God, the more ardently we love him, because the more perfectly we possess him, the better we comprehend his infinite greatness, and therefore the more we despise other things. But, when we possess temporal goods, we despise them, because we see their emptiness, and desire other things, which may make us content.(S. Thom, i. 2, qu. 2, art. 1, ad. 3.)
4. The Prophet Osee tells us that the world holds in its hand a deceitful balance. "He is like Chanaan" (that is the world); "there is a deceitful balance in his hand." (Osee xii. 7.) We must, then, weigh things in the balance of God, and not in that of the world, which makes them appear different from what they are. What are the goods of this life? "My days," said Job, "have been swifter than a post: they have passed by as ships carrying fruits." (Job ix. 25, 26.) The ships signify the lives of men, which soon pass away, and run speedily to death. And if men have labored only to provide themselves with earthly goods, these fruits decay at the hour of death: we can bring none of them with us to the other world. We, says St. Ambrose, falsely call these things our property, which we cannot bring with us to eternity, where we must live for ever, and where virtue alone will accompany us. You, says St. Augustine, attend only to what a rich man possessed. but tell me, which of his possessions shall he, now that he is on the point of death, be able to take with him? (Serm. xiii. de Adv. Dom.) The rich bring with them a miserable garment, which shall rot with them in the grave. And should they, during life, have acquired a great name, they shall be soon forgotten. "Their memory hath perished with a noise." (Ps. ix. 7.)
5. Oh! that men would keep before their eyes that great maxim of Jesus Christ ”What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul ?" (Matt. xvi. 26.) If they did, they should certainly cease to love the world. What shall it profit them at the hour of death to have acquired all the goods of this world, if their souls must go into hell to be in torments for all eternity? How many has this maxim, sent into the cloister and into the desert? How many martyrs has it encouraged to embrace torments and death! In the history of England, we read of thirty kings and queens, who left the world and became religious, in order to secure a happy death. The consideration of the vanity of earthly goods made St. Francis Borgia retire from the world. At the sight of the Empress Isabella, who had died in the flower of youth, he came to the resolution of serving God alone. "Is such, then," he said, "the end of all the grandeur and crowns of this world? Henceforth I will serve a master who can never die." The day of death is called "the day of destruction" ("The day of destruction is at hand"(Deut. xxxii. 35), because on that day we shall lose and give up all the goods of the world all its riches, honors, and pleasures. The shade of death obscures all the treasures and grandeurs of this earth. It obscures even the purple and the crown. Sister Margaret of St. Anne, a Discalced Carmelite, and daughter of the Emperor Rodolph the Second, used to say: "What do kingdoms profit us at the hour of death ?" "The affliction of an hour maketh one forget great delights." (Eccl. xi. 29.) The melancholy hour of death puts an end to all the delights and pomp of this life. St. Gregory says, that all goods which cannot remain with us, or which are incapable of taking away our miseries, are deceitful. Behold a sinner whom the riches and honors which he had acquired made an object of envy to others. Death came upon him when he was at the summit of his glory, and he is no longer what he was. "I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus; and I passed by, and lo! he was not; and I sought him, and his place was not found." (Ps. xxxvi. 35, 38.)
6. These truths the unhappy damned fruitlessly confess in hell, where they exclaim with tears: "What hath pride profited us? or what advantage hath the boasting of riches brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow." (Wisdom. v. 8, 9.) What, they say, have our pomps and riches profited us, now that they are all passed away like a shadow, and for us nothing remains but eternal torments and despair? Dearly beloved Christians, let us open our eyes, and now that we have it in our power, let us attend to the salvation of our souls. For, if we lose them, we shall not be able to save them in the next life. Aristippus, the philosopher, was once shipwrecked, and lost all his goods. But such was the esteem which the people entertained for him on account of his learning, that, as soon as he reached the shore, they presented him with an equivalent for all that he had lost. He then wrote to his friends, and exhorted them to attend to the acquisition of goods which cannot be lost by shipwreck. Our relatives and friends who have passed into eternity exhort us, from the other world, to labor in this life for the attainment of goods which are not lost at death. If at that awful moment we shall be found to have attended only to the accumulation of earthly goods, we shall be called fools, and shall receive the reproach addressed to the rich man in the gospel, who, after having reaped an abundant crop from his fields, said to himself: "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thy rest, eat, drink, make good cheer. But, God said to him: Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee: and whose shall those things be which thou hast provided ?" (Luke xii. 19,20.) He said, "they require thy soul of thee," because to everyman his soul is given, not with full power to dispose of it as he pleases, but it is given to him in trust, that he may preserve and return it to God in a state of innocence, when it shall be presented at the tribunal of the Sovereign Judge. The Redeemer concludes this parable by saying: "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God" (v. 21). This is what happens to those who seek to enrich themselves with the goods of this life, and not with the love of God. Hence St. Augustine asks: "What has the rich man if he has not charity? If the poor man has charity, what is there that he has not ?" He that possesses all the treasures of this world, and has not charity, is the poorest of men; but the poor who have God possess all things, though they should be bereft of all earthly goods.
7. "The children of this world," says Jesus Christ, "are wiser in their generation than the children of light." (Luke xvi. 8.) how wise in earthly affairs are worldlings, who live in the midst of the darkness of the world! "Behold," says St. Augustine, "how much men suffer for things for which they entertain a vicious love." What fatigue do they endure for the acquisition of property, or of a situation of emolument! With what care do they endeavor to preserve their bodily health! They consult the best physician, and procure the best medicine. And Christians, who are the children of light, will take no pains, will suffer nothing, to secure the salvation of their souls! God! at the light of the candle which lights them to death, at that hour, at that time, which is called the time of truth, worldlings shall see and confess their folly. Then each of them shall exclaim: that I had led the life of a saint! At the hour of death, Philip the Second, King of Spain, called in his son, and having shown him his breast devoured with worms, said to him: Son, behold how we die; behold the end of all worldly greatness. He then ordered a wooden cross to be fastened to his neck; and, having made arrangements for his death, he turned again to his son, and said: My son, I wished you to be present at this scene, that you might understand how the world in the end treats even monarchs. He died saying: Oh, that I had been a lay brother in some religious order, and that I had not been a king! Such is the language at the hour of death, even of the princes of the earth, whom worldlings regard as the most fortunate of men. But these desires and sights of regret serve only to increase the anguish and remorse of the lovers of the world at the hour of death, when the scene is about to close.
8. And what is the present life but a scene, which soon passes away for ever? It may end when we least expect it. Cassimir, King of Poland, while he sat at table with his grandees, died in the act of raising a cup to take a draught. Thus the scene ended for him. The Emperor Celsus was put to death in seven days after his election; and the scene closed for him. Ladislaus, King of Bohemia, in his eighteenth year, while he was preparing for the reception of his spouse, the daughter of the King of France, was suddenly seized with a violent pain, which took away his life. Couriers were instantly dispatched to announce to her that the scene was over for Ladislaus, that she might return to France. "The world," says Cornelius à Lapide, in his comment upon this passage, "is like a stage. One generation passes away, and a new generation comes. The king does not take with him the purple. Tell me, villa, O house, how many masters had you ?" In every age the inhabitants of this earth are changed. Cities and kingdoms are filled with new people. The first generation passes to the other world, a second comes on, and this is followed by another. He who, in the scene of this world, has acted the part of a king is no longer a king. The master of such a villa or palace is no longer its master. Hence the Apostle gives us the following advice: "The time is short; it remaineth that... they that use this world be as if they used it not; for the fashion of this world passeth away." (1 Cor. vii. 29, 30.) Since the time of our dwelling on this earth is short, and since all must end with our death, let us make use of this world to despise it, as if it did not exist for us; and let us labor to acquire the eternal treasures of Paradise, where, as the Gospel says, there are no moths to consume, nor thieves to steal them. "But lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." (Matt. vi. 20.) St. Teresa used to say: "We should not set value on what ends with life; the true life consists in living in such a manner as not to be afraid of death." Death shall have no terror for him who, during life, is detached from the vanities of this world, and is careful to provide himself only with goods which shall accompany him to eternity, and make him happy for ever.
Coming Next...SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.
"A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit." - Matt. vii. 18.
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Posted - 10/20/2009 : 15:59:10
FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
The liturgy presents to us today a great lesson in Christian charity. We must live in union with one another. We are the children of God, and we must love Him in our neighbor, who participates as we do in the divine nature.
The Mass as presented to us by the Church on this day contains a great lesson in Christian Charity. We must live in union. Having entered the Church - the Kingdom of the Father - we are the children of God, and we must love Him in our neighbor who participates as we do in the divine nature.
Indeed the Epistle and Gospel show us that our prayer is of value only if we are all of one heart in unison with God's will, not man's. If not, it is vain, and we must ask God to grant us His love, as it is our love for God which is the motive of our love for our neighbor.
EPISTLE: 1 Peter 3: 8-16
Lesson from the first Epistle of Blessed Peter the Apostle. Dearly beloved Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble, not rendering evil for evil, nor railing for railing, but contrariwise, blessing: for unto this you are called, that you may inherit a blessing. For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him decline from evil and do good let him seek after peace, and pursue it because the eyes of the Lord are upon the just, and His ears unto their prayers, but the countenance of the Lord is against them that do evil things, And who is he that can hurt you, if you be zealous of good? But if also you suffer anything for justice' sake, blessed are ye. And be not afraid of their fear, and be not troubled: but sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Matthew 5: 20-24
At that time Jesus said to His disciples: "Except your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven. You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not kill and whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you, that whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment and whosoever shall say to his brother: Raca, shall be in danger of the council and whosoever shall say: Thou fool, shalt be in danger of hell fire. If therefore thou offer thy gift at the altar, and there thou remember that thy brother hath anything against thee, leave there thy offering before the altar, and go first to be reconciled to thy brother and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE SIN OF ANGER"Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment." - MATT. v. 2.
ANGER resembles fire. Hence, as fire is vehement in its action, and, by the smoke which it produces, obstructs the view, so anger makes men rush into a thousand excesses, and prevents them from seeing the sinfulness of their conduct, and thus exposes them to the danger of the judgment of eternal death. Whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment." Anger is so pernicious to man that it even disfigures his countenance. No matter how comely and gentle he may be, he shall, as often as he yields to the passion of anger, appear to be a monster and a wild beast full of terror, says St. Basil (Hom, xxi.) But, if anger disfigures us before men, how much more deformed will it render us in the eyes of God! In this discourse I will show, in the first point, the destruction which anger unrestrained brings on the soul; and, in the second, how we ought to restrain anger in all occasions of provocation which may occur to us.
First Point. The ruin which anger unrestrained brings on the soul
1. St. Jerome says that anger is the door by which all vices enter the soul. Omnium vitiorum jantia est iracundia." (Inc. xxix. Prov.) Anger precipitates men into resentments, blasphemies, acts of injustice, detractions, scandals, and other iniquities; for the passion of anger darkens the understanding, and makes a man act like a beast and a madman. My eye has lost its sight through indignation (Job xvii. 7.). David said: My eye is troubled with wrath." (Ps. xxx. 10.) Hence, according to St. Bonaventure, an angry man is incapable of distinguishing between what is just and unjust. In a word, St. Jerome says that anger deprives a man of prudence, reason, and understanding. Hence St. James says: The anger of man worketh not the justice of God." (St. James i. 20.) The acts of a man under the influence of anger cannot be conformable to the divine justice, and consequently cannot be faultless.
2. A man who does not restrain the impulse of anger, easily falls into hatred towards the person who has been the occasion of his passion. According to St. Augustine, hatred is nothing else than persevering anger. Odium est ira diuturno tempore perseverans." Hence St. Thomas says that anger is sudden, but hatred is lasting. (Opusc. v.) It appears, then, that in him in whom anger perseveres hatred also reigns. But some will say: I am the head of the house; I must correct my children and servants, and, when necessary, I must raise my voice against the disorders which I witness. I say in answer: It is one thing to be angry against a brother, and another to be displeased at the sin of a brother. To be angry against sin is not anger, but zeal; and therefore it is not only lawful, but is sometimes a duty. But our anger must be accompanied with prudence, and must appear to be directed against sin, but not against the sinner. For, if the person whom we correct perceive that we speak through passion and hatred towards him, the correction will be unprofitable and even mischievous. To be angry, then, against a brothers sin is certainly lawful. "He," says St. Augustine, "is not angry with a brother who is angry against a brother's sin." It is thus, as David said, we may be angry without sin. "Be ye angry, and sin not." (Ps. iv. 5.) But, to be angry against a brother on account of the sin which he has committed is not lawful; because, according to St. Augustine, we are not allowed to hate others for their vices.
3. Hatred brings with it a desire of revenge. For, according to St. Thomas, anger, when fully voluntary, is accompanied with a desire of revenge. But you will perhaps say: If I resent such an injury, God will have pity on me, because I have just grounds of resentment Who, I ask, has told you that you have just grounds for seeking revenge? It is you, whose understanding is clouded by passions, that say so. I have already said that anger obscures the mind, and takes away our reason and understanding. As long as the passion of auger lasts, you will consider your neighbor conduct very unjust and intolerable. But, when your anger shall have passed away, you shall see that his act was not so bad as it appeared to you. But, though the injury be grievous, or even more grievous, God will not have compassion, on you if you seek revenge. No, he says: vengeance for sins belongs not to you, but to me. And when the time shall come I will chastise them as they deserve. "Revenge is mine, and I will repay them in due time." (Deut. xxxii. 35.) If you resent an injury done to you by a neighbor, God will justly inflict vengeance on you for all the injuries you have offered to him, and particularly for taking revenge on a brother whom he commands you to pardon. He that seeketh to revenge himself, shall find vengeance from the Lord .... Man to man reserveth anger, and doth he seek remedy of God? .... He that is but flesh nourisheth anger; and doth he ask forgiveness of God? Who shall obtain pardon for his sins ?" (Eccl. xxviii. 1, 3, 5.) Man, a worm of flesh, reserves anger, and takes revenge on a brother: does he afterwards dare to ask mercy of God? And who, adds the sacred writer, can obtain pardon for the iniquities of so daring a sinner? "How," says St. Augustine, "can he who will not obey the command of God to pardon his neighbour, expect to obtain from God the forgiveness of his own sins?"
4. Let us implore the Lord to preserve us from yielding to any strong passion, and particularly to anger. "Give me not over to a shameful and foolish mind." (Eccl. xxiii. 6.) For, he that submits to such a passion is exposed to great danger of falling into a grievous sin against God or his neighbor. How many, in consequence of not restraining anger, break out into horrible blasphemies against God or his saints! But, at the very time we are in a flame of indignation, God is armed with scourges. The Lord said one day to the Prophet Jeremias: "What seest thou, Jeremias? And I said: I see a rod watching." (Jer. i. 11.) Lord, I behold a rod watching to inflict punishment. "The Lord asked him again: "What seest thou? And I said: I see a boiling cauldron." (Ibid., v. 13.). The boiling cauldron is the figure of a man inflamed with wrath, and threatened with a rod, that is, with the vengeance of God. Behold, then, the ruin which anger unrestrained brings on man. It deprives him, first, of the grace of God, and afterwards of corporal life. "Envy and anger shortens a man's days." (Eccl. xxx. 26.) Job says: "Anger indeed killeth the foolish." (Job v. 2.) All the days of their life, persons addicted to anger are unhappy, because they are always in a tempest. But let us pass to the second point, in which I have to say many things which will assist you to overcome this vice.
Second Point. How we ought to restrain anger in the occasions of provocation which occur to us
5. In the first place it is necessary to know that it is not possible for human weakness, in the midst of so many occasions, to be altogether free from every motion of anger. "No one," as Seneca says, "can be entirely exempt from this passion." (I. 3, c. xii). All our efforts must be directed to the moderation of the feelings of anger which spring up in the soul. How are they to be moderated? By meekness. This is called the virtue of the lamb that is, the beloved virtue of Jesus Christ. Because, like a lamb, without anger or even complaint, he bore the sorrows of his passion and crucifixion. "He shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth." (Isa. liii. 7.) Hence he has taught us to learn of him meekness and humility of heart. "Learn of me, because I am meek and humble of heart." (Matt. xi. 29)
6. Oh! how pleasing in the sight of God are the meek, who submit in peace to all crosses, misfortunes, persecutions, and injuries! To the meek is promised the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the land." (Matt. v. 4.) They are called the children of God. "Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God." (Ibid., v. 9.) Some boast of their meekness, but without any grounds. For they are meek only towards those who praise and confer favors upon them: but to those who injure or censure them they are all fury and vengeance. The virtue of meekness consists in being meek and peaceful towards those who hate and maltreat us. "With them, that hated peace I was peaceful." (Ps. cxix. 7.)
7. We must, as St. Paul says, put on the bowels of mercy towards all men, and bear one with another. "Put on ye the bowels of mercy, humility, modesty, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another." (Col iii. 12, 13.) You wish others to bear with your defects, and to pardon your faults. You should act in the same manner towards them. Whenever, then, you receive an insult from a person enraged against you , remember that a "mild answer breaketh wrath," (Prov. xv. 1.) A certain monk once passed through a cornfield: the owner of the field ran out, and spoke to him in very offensive and injurious language. The monk humbly replied: Brother, you are right; I have done wrong; pardon me. By this answer the husbandman was so much appeased that he instantly became calm, and even wished to follow the monk, and to enter into religion. The proud make use of the humiliations they receive to increase their pride; but the humble and the meek turn the contempt and insults offered to them into an occasion of advancing in humility. "He," says St. Bernard, is humble who converts humiliation into humility." (Ser. xxiv. in Can.)
8. "A man of meekness," says St. Chrysostom, "is useful to himself and to others." The meek are useful to themselves, because, according to F. Alvares, the time of humiliation and contempt is for them the time of merit. Hence, Jesus Christ calls his disciples happy when they shall be reviled and persecuted. "Blessed are ye when they shall revile you and persecute you." (Matt. v. 11.) Hence, the saints have always desired to be despised as Jesus Christ has been despised. The meek are useful to others; because, as the same St. Chrysostom says, there is nothing better calculated to draw others to God, than to see a Christian meek and cheerful when he receives an injury or an, insult. The reason is, because virtue is known by being tried; and, as gold is tried by fire, so the meekness of men is proved by humiliation. "Gold and silver are tried in the fire, but acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation." (Eccl. ii. 5.) "My spikenard," says the spouse in the Canticles, "sent forth the odour thereof" (i. 11.) The spikenard is an odoriferous plant, but diffuses its odours only when, it is torn and bruised. In this passage the inspired writer gives us to understand, that a man cannot be said to be meek unless he is known to send forth the odour of his meekness by bearing injuries and insults in peace and without anger. God wishes us to be meek even towards ourselves. When a person commits a fault, God certainly wishes him to humble himself, to be sorry for his sin, and to purpose never to fall into it again but he does not wish him to be indignant with himself, and give way to trouble and agitation of mind. For, while the soul is agitated, a man is incapable of doing good. "My heart is troubled; my strength hath left me." (Ps. xxx vii. 11.)
9. Thus, when we receive an insult, we must do violence to ourselves in order to restrain anger. Let us either answer with meekness, as recommended above, or let us remain silent; and thus, as St. Isidore says, we shall conquer. But, if you answer through passion, you shall do harm to yourselves and others. It would be still worse to give an angry answer to a person who corrects you, says St. Bernard (Ser. vi. de Nativ.) Some are not angry, though they ought to be indignant with those who wound their souls by flattery; and are filled with indignation against the person who censures them in order to heal their irregularities. Against the man who abhors correction, the sentence of perdition has, according to the Wise Man, been pronounced. "Because they have despised all my reproofs,...the prosperity of fools shall destroy them." (Prov. i. 30, etc.) Fools regard as prosperity to be free from correction, or to despise the admonitions which they receive. But such prosperity is the cause of their ruin. When you meet with an occasion of anger, you must, in the first place, be on your guard not to allow anger to enter your heart. "Be not quickly angry" (Eccles. vii. 10.) Some persons change color, and get into a passion, at every contradiction: and when anger has got admission, God knows to what it shall lead them. Hence, it is necessary to foresee these occasions in our meditations and prayers; for, unless we are prepared for them, it will be as difficult to restrain anger as to put a bridle on a horse while running away.
10. Whenever we have the misfortune to permit anger to enter the soul, let us be careful not to allow it to remain. Jesus Christ tells all who remember that a brother is offended with them, not to offer the gift which they bring to the altar without being first reconciled to their neighbour. "Go first to be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming thou shalt offer thy gift." (Matt. v. 24.) And he who has received any offense, should endeavor to root out of his heart not only all anger, but also every feeling of bitterness towards the persons who have offended him. "Let all bitterness," says St. Paul, "and anger and indignation be put away from you." (Eph. iv. 31.) As long as anger continues, follow the advice of Seneca "When you shall be angry do nothing, say nothing, which may be dictated by anger." Like David, be silent, and do not speak, when you feel that you are disturbed. "I was troubled, and I spoke not." (Ps. Ixxvi. 5.) How many when inflamed with anger, say and do what they afterwards, in their cooler moments, regret, and excuse themselves by saying that they were in a passion? As long, then, as anger lasts we must be silent, and abstain from doing or resolving to do anything; for, what is done in the heat of passion will, according to the maxim of St. James, be unjust. The anger of man worketh not the justice of God." (i. 20.) It is also necessary to abstain altogether from consulting those who might foment our indignation. "Blessed," says David, "is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly." (Ps. i. 1.) To him who is asked for advice, Ecclesiasticus says. "If thou blow the spark, it shall burn as a fire; and if thou spit upon it, it shall be quenched." (Eccl. xxviii. 14.) When a person is indignant at some injury which he has received, you may, by exhorting him to patience, extinguish the fire. But, if you encourage revenge, you may kindle a great flame. Let him, then, who feels himself in any way inflamed with anger, be on his guard against false friends, who, by an imprudent word, may be the cause of his perdition.
11. Let us follow the advice of the apostle: "Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good." (Hom, xii. 21.) "Be not overcome by evil:" do not allow yourself to be conquered by sin. If, through anger, you seek revenge or utter blasphemies, you are overcome by sin. But you will say: "I am naturally of a warm temper." By the grace of God, and by doing violence to yourself, you will be able to conquer your natural disposition. Do not consent to anger, and you shall subdue the warmth of your temper. But you say: I cannot bear with unjust treatment." In answer I tell you, first, to remember that anger obscures reason, and prevents us from seeing things as they are. "Fire hath fallen on them, and they shall not see the sun." (Ps. lvii. 9.) Secondly, if you return evil for evil, your enemy shall gain a victory over you. "If," said David, "I have rendered to them that repaid me evils, let me deservedly fall empty before my enemies." (Ps. vii. 5.) If I render evil for evil, I shall be defeated by my enemies. Overcome evil by good. Render every foe good for evil. "Do good," says Jesus Christ, "to them that hate you." (Matt. v. 44.) This is the revenge of the saints, and is called by St. Paulinus, Heavenly revenge. It is by such revenge that you shall gain the victory. And should any of those, of whom the Prophet says, The venom, of asps is under their lips" (Ps. cxxxix. 4), ask how you can submit to such an injury, let your answer be: "The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" (John xviii. 11.) And then turning to God you shall say: I opened not my mouth, because thou hast done it" (Ps. xxxviii. 10), for it is certain that every cross which befalls you comes from the Lord. "Good things and evil are from God." (Eccl xi. 14.) Should any one take away your property, recover it if you can; but if you cannot, say with Job: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away" (i. 21.) A certain philosopher, who lost some of his goods in a storm, said: "If I have lost my goods I will not lose my peace." And, do you say: If I have lost my property, I will not lose my soul.
12. In fine, when we meet with crosses, persecutions, and injuries, let us turn to God, who commands us to bear them with patience; and thus we shall always avoid anger. "Remember the fear of God, and be not angry with thy neighbour." (Eccl. xxviii. 8.) Let us give a look at the will of God, which disposes things in this manner for our merit, and anger shall cease. Let us give a look at Jesus crucified, and we shall not have courage to complain. St. Eleazar being asked by his spouse how he bore so many injuries without yielding to anger, answered: I turn to Jesus Christ, and thus I preserve my peace. Finally, let us give a glance at our sins, for which we have deserved far greater contempt and chastisement, and we shall calmly submit to all evils. St. Augustine says, that though we are sometimes innocent of the crime for which we are persecuted, we are, nevertheless, guilty of other sins which merit greater punishment than that which we endure. "Esto non habemus peccatum, quod objicitur: habemus tamen, quod digne in nobis flagelletur." (in Ps. Ixviii.)
Coming Next... SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE VANITY OF THE WORLD
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| spaxx |
Posted - 10/13/2009 : 12:13:01
FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOSTIt was from Peter's boat that our Lord choose to preach; It was Simon Peter that He told to launch out in the deep, and it was he who, at the Master's word of command, laid down the nets which became so full that they broke. Finally, it was Peter, who overcome with fear and astonishment, adored his Master and was chosen by Him as a fisher of men.
"St. Matthew," says St. Ambrose, "describes this boat as tossed by waves, while St. Luke describes it as full of fish. Here, we have a picture of the Church's vicissitudes in her early days and of her wonderful prosperity later on. The vessel which carries divine Wisdom and which is wafted by the wind of Faith runs no danger. What indeed can it fear when for its pilot it has Him who is the very strength of the Church? Peril is encountered when Faith is rare. But here there is safety since love is perfect"
Commenting on a Gospel which is very similar to this, in which St. John records a miraculous draught of fishes which took place after our Lord's resurrection, St. Gregory writes: "What does the sea represent of not the present age in which the changes and chances of this mortal life are like waves which unceasingly dash and break against each other? Or what is the firm ground of the shore a figure if not the permanence of rest? Because the disciples were still surrounded by the waves of this mortal life, they toiled on the sea. And as our Redeemer had put off the corruptibility of the flesh after His resurrection, He stood on the shore."
Again in St. Matthew, our Lord compares the kingdom of heaven to "a net cast into the sea and gathering together all kinds of fishes. Which when it was filled they drew out. And sitting by the shore, they chose out the good fishes but the bad they ast forth."
In the same way Baptism was represented in the Catacombs by a fisher drawing a fish out of the water. Here the, is the function of the Church whose head is Peter, "to fish for men," to free souls from the dangers they encounter in the world represented by the sea.
In St. Peter's bark, tossed by the angry waves and the storms of this world,let us all put our trust in Christ. Through his one and only true Church, He will save us from the attacks of "the strong man armed," who is the devil.
EPISTLE: Romans 8: 18-23
Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Romans. Brethren, I reckon that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to come, that shall be revealed to us. For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God, for the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject in hope; because the creature also itself shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption, into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain, even till now and not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body in Christ Jesus Our Lord.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 12: 1-8
At that time, when the multitude pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, He stood by the lake of Genesareth. And He saw two ships standing by the lake but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets; and going up into one of the ships that was Simon's, He desired him to draw back a little from the land: and sitting He taught the multitudes out of the ship. Now when He had ceased to speak, He said to Simon: "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught." And Simon, answering, said to Him: Master, we have labored all the night, and have taken nothing, but at Thy word I will let down the net. And when they had done this, they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes and their net broke: and they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship, that they should come and help them and they came, and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking. Which when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying: Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was wholly astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of fishes which they had taken: and so were also James and John the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon's partners. And Jesus saith to Simon: "Fear not, from henceforth thou shalt catch men." And having brought their ships to land, leaving all things, they followed Him.
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - DEATH IS CERTAIN AND UNCERTAINLet down your nets for a draught - LUKE v. 4.
IN this days gospel we find that, having gone up into one of the ships, and having heard from St. Peter, that he and his companions had labored all the night and had taken nothing, Jesus Christ said: "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught." They obeyed; and having cast out their nets into the sea, they took such a multitude of fishes, that the nets were nearly broken. Brethren, God has placed us in the midst of the sea of this life, and has commanded us to cast out our nets, that we may catch fishes. That is, that we may perform good works, by which we can acquire merits for eternal life. Happy we, if we attain this end and save our souls! Unhappy we, if, instead of laying up treasures for heaven, we by our sins merit hell, and bring our souls to damnation! Our happiness or misery for eternity depends on the moment of our death, which is certain and uncertain. The Lord assures us that death is certain, that we may prepare for it; but, on the other hand, he leaves us uncertain as to the time of our death, that we may be always prepared for it, two points of the utmost importance.
It is certain that we shall die. But it is uncertain when we shall die.
First Point: It is certain that we shall die. 1. "It is appointed unto men once to die." (Heb. ix. 27.) The decree has been passed for each of us: we must all die. St. Cyprian says, that we are all born with the halter on the neck: hence, every step we make brings us nearer to the gibbet. For each of us the gibbet shall be the last sickness, which will end in death. As then, brethren, your name has been inserted in the registry of baptism, so it shall be one day written in the record of the dead. As, in speaking of your ancestors, you say: God be merciful to my father, to my uncle, or to my brother; so others shall say the same of you when you shall be in the other world; and as you have often heard the death-bell toll for many, so others shall hear it toll for you.
2. All things future, which regard men now living, are uncertain, but death is certain. "All other goods and evils," says St. Augustine, "are uncertain; death only is certain." It is uncertain whether such an infant shall be rich or poor, whether he shall enjoy good or ill health, whether he shall die at an early or at an advanced age. But it is certain that he shall die, though he be son of a peer or of a monarch. And, when the hour arrives, no one can resist the stroke of death. The same St. Augustine says: "Fires, waters, and the sword are resisted; kings are resisted: death comes; who resists it ?" (in Ps. xii.) We may resist conflagrations, inundations, the sword of enemies, and the power of princes; but who can resist death? A certain king of France, as Belluacensis relates, said in his last moments: "Behold, with all my power, I cannot make death wait for a single hour." No; when the term of life has arrived, death does not wait even a moment. "Thou hast appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed." (Job. xiv. 5.)
3. We must all die. This truth we not only believe, but see with our eyes. In every age houses, streets, and cities are filled with new inhabitants: their former possessors are shut up in the grave. And, as for them the days of life are over, so a time shall come when not one of all who are now alive shall be among the living. "Days shall be formed, and no one in them." (Ps. cxxxviii. 10.) "Who is the man that shall live, and shall not see death ?" (Ps. lxxxviii. 49 ) Should any one flatter himself that he will not die, he would not only be a disbeliever for it is of faith that we shall all die but he would be regarded as a madman. We know that all men, even potentates and princes and emperors, have, at a certain time, fallen victims to death. And where are they now? "Tell me," says St. Bernard, "where are the lovers of the world? Nothing has remained of them but ashes and worms." Of so many great men of the world, though buried in marble mausoleums, nothing has remained but a little dust and a few withered bones. We know that our ancestors are no longer among the living: of their death we are constantly reminded by their pictures, their memorandum books, their beds, and by the clothes which they have left us. And can we entertain a hope or a doubt that we shall not die? Of all who lived in this town a hundred years ago how many are now alive? They are all in eternity in an eternal day of delights, or in an eternal night of torments. Either the one or the other shall be our lot also.
4. But, God! we all know that we shall die: the misfortune is, that we imagine death as distant as if it were never to come, and therefore we lose sight of it. But, sooner or later, whether we think or think not of death, it is certain, and of faith that we shall die, and that we are drawing nearer to it every day. "For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come." (Heb. xiii. 14.) This is not our country: here we are pilgrims on a journey. "While we are in the body we are absent from the Lord." (2 Cor. v. 6.) Our country is Paradise, if we know how to acquire it by the grace of God and by our own good works. Our house is not that in which we live; we dwell in it only in passing; our dwelling is in eternity. "Man shall go into the house of his eternity." (Eccl. xii. 5.) How great would be the folly of the man, who, in passing through a strange country, should lay out all his property in the purchase of houses and possessions in a foreign land, and reduce himself to the necessity of living miserably for the remainder of his days in his own country! And is not he, too, a fool, who seeks after happiness in this world, from which he must soon depart, and by his sins, exposes himself to the danger of misery in the next, where he must live for eternity?
5. Tell me, beloved brethren, if, instead of preparing for his approaching death, a person condemned to die were, on his way to the place of execution, to employ the few remaining moments of his life in admiring the beauty of the houses as he passed along, in thinking of balls and comedies, in uttering immodest words, and detracting his neighbors, would you not say that the unhappy man had either lost his reason, or that he was abandoned by God? And are not you on the way to death? Why then do you seek only the gratification of the senses? Why do you not think of preparing the accounts which you shall one day, and perhaps very soon, have to render at the tribunal of Jesus Christ? Souls that have faith, leave to the fools of this world the care of realizing a fortune on this earth; seek you to make a fortune for the next life, which shall be eternal. The present life must end, and end very soon. must soon depart; and, by his sins, exposes himself to the danger of misery in the next, where he must live for eternity?
6. Go to the grave in which your relatives and friends are buried. Look at their dead bodies: each of them says to you: "Yesterday for me; Today for thee." (Eccl. xxxviii. 23.) What has happened to me must one day happen to thee. Thou shalt become dust and ashes, as I am. And where shall thy soul be found, if, before death, thou hast not settled thy accounts with God? Ah, brethren! if you wish to live well, and to to have you accounts ready for that great day, on which your doom to eternal life or to eternal death must be decided, endeavor, during the remaining days of life, to live with death before your eyes. "death, thy sentence is welcome." (Eccl. xli. 3.) Oh! how correct are the judgments, how well directed the actions, of those who form their judgments, and perform their actions, with death before their view! The remembrance of death destroys all attachment to the goods of this earth. "Let the end of life be considered, " says St. Lawrence Justinian, "and there will be nothing in this world to be loved." (de Ligno Vit, cap. v.) Yes; all the riches, honors, and pleasures of this world are easily despised by him who considers that he must soon leave them forever, and that he shall be thrown into the grave to be the food of worms.
7. Some banish the thought of death, as if, by avoiding to think of death, they could escape it. But death cannot be avoided. And they who banish the thought of it, expose themselves to great danger of an unhappy death. By keeping death before their eyes, the saints have despised all the goods of this earth. Hence St. Charles Borromeo kept on his table a deaths head, that he might have it continually in view. Cardinal Baronius had the words, "Memento mori" - "Remember death" - inscribed on his ring. The venerable P. Juvenal Anzia, Bishop of Saluzo, had before him a skull, on which was written, "As I am, so thou shalt be." In retiring to deserts and caves the holy solitaries brought with them the head of a dead man. And for what purpose? To prepare themselves for death. Thus a certain hermit being asked at death, why he was so cheerful, answered: I have kept death always before my eyes; and therefore, now that it has arrived, I feel no terror. But, oh! how full of terror is death, when it comes to those who have thought of it but seldom.
Second Point: It is uncertain when we shall die.8. "Nothing," says the Idiota, "is more certain than death, but nothing is more uncertain than the hour of death." It is certain that we shall die. God has already determined the year, the month, the day, the hour, the moment, in which each of us shall leave this earth, and enter into eternity. But this moment he has resolved not to make known to us. And justly, says St. Augustine, has the Lord concealed it. For, had he manifested to all the day fixed for their death, many should be induced to continue in the habit of sin by the certainty of not dying before the appointed day. "Si statuisset viam omnibus, faceret abundare peccata de securitate"(in Ps. cxliv). Hence the holy doctor teaches that God has concealed from us the day of our death, that we may spend all our days well. "Latet ultimus dies, ut observentur omnes dies." (Hom. xii. inter 50.) Hence Jesus Christ says: "Be you also ready; for at what hour you think not the Son of Man will come." (Luke xii. 40.) That we may be always prepared to die, he wishes us to be persuaded that death will come when we least expect it. "Of death," says St. Gregory, "we are uncertain, that we may be found always prepared for death." St. Paul likewise admonishes us that the day of the Lord that is, the day on which the Lord shall judge us shall come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night, "The day of the Lord shall so come as a thief in the night." (1 Thess. v. 2.) Since, then, says St. Bernard, death may assail you and take away your life in every place and at every time, you should, if you wish to die well and to save your soul, be at all times and places in expectation of death. St. Augustine says: The Lord conceals from us the last day of our life, that we may always have ready the account which we must render to God after death (Hom, xii.)
9. Many Christians are lost, because many, even among the old, who feel the approach of death, flatter themselves that it is at a distance, and that it will not come without giving them time to prepare for it. Death, even when it is felt, is believed to be far off, says St. Gregory. O brethren, are these your sentiments? How do you know that your death is near or distant? What reason have you to suppose that death will give you time to prepare for it? How many do we know who have died suddenly? Some have died walking; some sitting; and some during sleep. Did any one of these ever imagine that he should die in such a manner? But they have died in this way; and if they were in enmity with God, what has been the lot of their unhappy souls? Miserable the man who meets with an unprovided death! And I assert, that all who ordinarily neglect to unburden their conscience, die without preparation, even though they should have seven or eight days to prepare for a good death; for as I shall show in the forty-fourth sermon, it is very difficult, during these days of confusion and terror, to settle accounts with God, and to return to him with sincerity. But I repeat that death may come upon you in such a manner, that you shall not have time even to receive the sacraments. And who knows whether, in another hour, you shall be among the living or the dead? The uncertainty of the time of his death made Job tremble. "For I knew not how long I shall continue, or whether, after a while, my Maker may take me away." (Job xxxii. 22.) Hence St. Basil exhorts us in going to bed at night, not to trust that we shall see the next day.
10. Whenever, then, the devil tempts you to sin, by holding out the hope that you will go to confession and repair the evil you have done, say to him in answer: How do I know that this shall not be the last day of my life? And should death overtake me in sin, and not give me time to make my confession, what shall become of me for all eternity? Alas! how many poor sinners have been struck dead in the very act of indulging in some sinful pleasure, and have been sent to hell! "As fishes are taken by the hook, and as birds are caught with the snare, so men are taken in the evil time." (Eccl. ix. 12.) Fishes are taken with the hook while they eat the bait that conceals the hook, which is the instrument of their death. The evil time is precisely that in which sinners are actually offending God. In the act of sin, they calm their conscience by a security of afterwards making a good confession, and reversing the sentence of their damnation. But death comes suddenly upon them, and does not leave them time for repentance. "For, when they shall say peace and security, then shall sudden destruction come upon them." (1 Thess. v. 3.)
11. If a person lend a sum of money he is careful instantly to get a written acknowledgment, and to take all the other means necessary to secure the repayment of it. Who, he says, can know what shall happen? Death may come, and I may lose my money. And how does it happen that there are so many who neglect to use the same caution for the salvation of their souls, which is of far greater importance than all temporal interests? Why do they not also say: Who knows what may happen? death may come, and I may lose my soul? If you lose a sum of money, all is not lost; if you lose it one way you may recover the loss in another; but he that dies and loses his soul, loses all, and has no hope of ever recovering it. If we could die twice, we might, if we lost our soul the first time, save it the second. But we cannot die twice. "It is appointed unto men once to die," (Heb. ix. 27) Mark the word once: death happens to each of us but once: he who has erred the first time has erred for ever. Hence, to bring the soul to hell is an irreparable error. "Periisse semel ternum est."
12. The venerable Father John Avila was a man of great sanctity, and apostle of Spain. What was the answer of this great servant of God, who had led a holy life from his childhood, when he was told that his death was at hand, and that he had but a short time to live? "Oh!" replied the holy man with trembling, "that I had a little more time to prepare for death!" St. Agatho, abbot, after spending so many years in penance, trembled at the hour of death, and said: "What shall become of me? who can know the judgments of God ?" And, O brethren, what will you say when the approach of death shall be announced to you, and when, from the priest who attends you, you shall hear these words: "Go forth, Christian soul, from this world ?" You will, perhaps, say: Wait a little; allow me to prepare better. No; depart immediately; death does not wait. You should therefore prepare yourselves now. "With fear and trembling work out your salvation." (Phil. ii. 12.) St. Paul admonishes us that, if we wish to save our souls, we must live in fear and trembling, lest death may find us in sin. Be attentive, brethren: there is question of eternity. "If a tree fall to the south or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall there shall it be." (Eccl. xi. 3.) If, when the tree of your life is cut down, you fall to the south that is, if you obtain eternal life how great shall be your joy at being able to say: I shall be saved; I have secured all; I can never lose God; I shall be happy for ever. But, if you fall to the north that is, into eternal damnation how great shall be your despair! Alas! you shall say, I have erred, and my error is irremediable! Arise, then, from your tepidity, and, after this sermon, make a resolution to give yourselves sincerely to God. This resolution will insure you a good death, and will make you happy for eternity.
Coming Next...FIFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE SIN OF ANGER
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| spaxx |
Posted - 10/04/2009 : 11:26:52
THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST.
The liturgy celebrates today the mercy of God towards us, poor sinners. Jesus has come not to call the just but sinners, and the Holy Ghost comes to establish the reign of God in our sinful, unclean hearts.
The Sanctifier continues in our hearts the action of Christ, coming to establish the reign of God in sinful souls. He therefore proclaims by the mouth of Peter, the Head of the Church, our weakness before the devil, who, like roaring lion, seeks to devour us (Epistle). The human race has fallen into sin. It is represented by the lost sheep which the divine Shepherd bore on His shoulders, and by the lost drachma struck with the effigy of the King of Heaven and which the Church found again (Gospel).
"Without God, nothing is strong, nothing is holy." He alone can give us, in the midst of temptation "an unshakable stability". Therefore on Him we must "throw all our thoughts and cares."
EPISTLE: I Peter 5: 6-11
Lesson from the first Epistle of Blessed Peter the Apostle. Dearly Beloved, Be you humbled under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation casting all your care upon Him, for He hath care of you. Be sober and, watch, because, your adversary the, devil, as, a roaring lion, goeth about seekinq whom he may devour, Whom resist ye, strong in faith knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto the eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you, and confirm you, and establish you. To Him be glory and empire for ever and ever, Amen.
Thanks be to God.
GOSPEL: Luke 15: 1-10
At that time, the publicans and sinners drew near unto Jesus to hear Him: and the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying: This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. And He spoke to them this parable, saying: "What man is there of you that hath a hundred sheep, and if he shall lose one of them, doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing and coming home, call together his friends and neighbors, saying to them; Rejoice with me because I have found my sheep that was lost? I say to you that even so there shall be joy in Heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than upon ninety-nine just who need no penance. Or what woman having ten groats, if she lose one groat doth not light a candle and sweep the house,and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, call together her friends and neighbors, saying: Rejoice with me because I have found the groat which I had lost? So I say to you, there shall be joy before the Angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."
Praise be to Christ
SERMON FOR THIRD SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST- ON THE MERCY OF GOD TOWARDS SINNERS.
" There shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than ninety-nine just, who need not penance." LUKE xv. 7
In this day’s gospel it is related that the Pharisees murmured against Jesus Christ, because he received sinners and eat with them. ”This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them" (v. 2). In answer to their murmurings our Lord said: If any of you had a hundred sheep, and lost one of them, would he not leave the ninety-nine in the desert, and go in search of the lost sheep? would he not continue his search until he found it? and having found it, would he not carry it on his shoulders, and, rejoicing, say to his friends and neighbours: ”Rejoice with me, because I have found my sheep that was lost ?" (v. 6.) In conclusion, the Son of God said: ”I say to you, there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance, more than, upon ninety-nine just, that need not penance." There is more joy in heaven upon one sinner who returns to God, than upon many just who preserve the grace of God. Let us, then, speak Today on the mercy which God shows to sinners, first, in calling them to repentance; secondly, in receiving them when they return
First Point, Mercy of God in calling sinners to repentance.
1. After having sinned by eating the forbidden apple, Adam fled from the face of the Lord through shame of the sin he had committed. What must have been the astonishment of the angels when they saw God seeking after him, and calling him as it were with tears, saying: ”Adam, where art thou ?" (Gen. iii. 9.) My beloved Adam, where art thou? These words, says Father Pereyra, in his commentary on this passage, ”are the words of a father in search of his lost son." Towards you, brethren, the Lord acts in a similar manner. You fled from him and he has so often invited you to repentance by means of confessors and preachers. Who was it that spoke to you when they exhorted you to penance? It was the Lord. Preachers are, as St. Paul says, his ambassadors. ”For Christ, therefore, we are ambassadors; God, as it were, exhorting by us." (2 Cor. v. 20.) Hence he writes to the sinners of Corinth: ”For Christ, we beseech you, be reconciled to God." (Ibid.) In explaining these words St. Chrysostom says: Jesus Christ himself entreats you, sinners: and what does he entreat you to do? To make peace with God. The saint adds: It is not God that acts like an enemy, but you. That is, God does not refuse to make peace with sinners, but they are unwilling to be reconciled with him."
2. But notwithstanding the refusal of sinners to return to God, he does not cease to continue to call them by so many interior inspirations, remorse of conscience, and terrors of chastisements. Thus, beloved Christians, God has spoken to you, and, seeing that you disregarded his words, he has had recourse to scourges. He has called you to repentance by such a persecution, by temporal losses, by the death of a relative, by sickness which has brought you to the brink of the grave. He has, according to holy David, placed before your eyes the bow of your damnation, not that you might be condemned to eternal misery, but that you might be delivered from hell, which you deserved. "Thou hast given a warning to them that fear thee, that they may flee from before the bow, that thy beloved may be delivered." (Ps. lix. 6). You regarded certain afflictions as misfortunes. But they were mercies from God; they were the voices of God calling on you to renounce sin, that you might escape perdition. ”My jaws are become hoarse." (Ps. lxviii. 4.) My son, says the Lord, I have almost lost my voice in calling you to repentance. ”I am weary of entreating thee." ( Jer. xv. (5.) I have become weary in imploring you to offend me no more.
3. By your ingratitude you deserved that he should call you no more. But he has continued to invite you to return to him. And who is it that has called you? It is a God of infinite majesty, who is to be one day your judge, and on whom your eternal happiness or misery depends. And what are you but miserable worms deserving hell? Why has he called you? To restore to you the life of grace which you have lost. "Return ye and live." (Ezec. xviii. 32.) To acquire the grace of God, it would be but little to spend a hundred years in a desert in fasting and penitential austerities. But God offered it to you for a single act of sorrow. You refused that act, and after your refusal he has not abandoned you, but has sought after you, saying: "And why will you die, house of Israel?" (Ez. xviii. 31.) Like a father weeping and following his son, who has voluntarily thrown himself into the sea, God has sought after you, saying, through compassion to each of you: My son, why dost thou bring thyself to eternal misery? ”Why will you die, house of Israel ?"
4. As a pigeon that seeks to take shelter in a tower, seeing the entrance closed on every side, continues to fly round till she finds an opening through which she enters, so, says St. Augustine, did the divine mercy act towards me when I was in enmity with God. Circuibat super me fidelis a longe misericordia tua." The Lord treated you, brethren, in a similar manner. As often as you sinned you banished him from your souls. The wicked have said to God: "Depart from us." (Job xxi. 14.) And, instead of abandoning you, what has the Lord done? He has placed himself at the door of your ungrateful hearts, and, by his knocking, has made you feel that he was outside, and seeking for admission. ”Behold I stand at the gate and knock." (Apoc. iii. 20.) He, as it were, entreated you to have compassion on him, and to allow him to enter. "Open to me, my sister." (Cant. v. 2.) Open to me; I will deliver you from perdition; I will forget all the insults you have offered to me if you give up sin. Perhaps you are unwilling to open to me through fear of becoming poor by restoring ill-gotten goods, or by separating from a person who provided for you? Am I not, says the Lord, able to provide for you? Perhaps you think that, if you renounce a certain friendship which separates you from me, you shall lead a life of misery? Am I not able to content your soul and to make your life happy? Ask those who love me with their whole hearts, and they will tell you that my grace makes them content, and that they would not exchange their condition, though poor and humble, for all the delights and riches of the monarchs of the earth.
Second Point. Mercy of God in waiting for sinners to return to him.
5. We have considered the divine mercy in calling sinners to repentance: let us now consider his patience in waiting for their return. That great servant of God, D. Sancia Carillo, a penitent of Fr John D’Avila, used to say, that the consideration of God's patience with sinners made her desire to build a church, and entitle it "The Patience of God." Ah, sinners! who could ever bear with what God has borne from you? If the offenses which you have committed against God had been offered to your best friends, or even to your parents, they surely would have sought revenge. When you insulted the Lord he was able to chastise you. You repeated the insult, and he did not punish your guilt, but preserved your life, and provided you with sustenance. Lie, as it were, pretended not to see the injuries you offered to him, that you might enter into yourselves, and cease to offend him. "Thou overlookest the sins of men for the sake of repentance." (Wisdom. xi. 24.) But how, Lord, does it happen, that thou canst not behold a single sin, and that thou dost bear in silence with so many? "Thy eyes are too pure to behold evil, and thou canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest thou upon them that do unjust things, and boldest thy peace ?" (Habacuc. i. 13.) Thou seest the vindictive prefer their own before thy honour; thou beholdest the unjust, instead of restoring what they have stolen, continuing to commit theft; the unchaste, instead of being ashamed of their impurities, boasting of them before others; the scandalous, not content with the sins which they themselves commit, but seeking to draw others into rebellion against thee; thou seest all this, and holdest thy peace, and dost not inflict vengeance.
6. “Omnis creatura," says St. Thomas, "tibi factor! deserviens excandescit adversus injustos." All creatures of the earth, fire, air, water because they all obey God, would, by a natural instinct, wish to punish the sinner, and to avenge the injuries which he does to the Creator. But God, through his mercy, restrains them. But, Lord, thou waitest for the wicked that they may enter into themselves; and dost thou not see that they abuse thy mercy to offer new insults to thy majesty? "Thou hast been favourable to the nation, O Lord, thou hast been favourable to the nation: art thou glorified ?" (Isa. xxvi. 15.) Thou hast waited so long for sinners; thou hast abstained from inflicting punishment. But what glory have you reaped from thy forbearance? They have become more wicked. Why so much patience with such ungrateful souls? Why dost thou continue to wait for their repentance? Why dost thou not chastise their wickedness? The same Prophet answers: " The Lord waiteth that he may have mercy on you." (Isa. xxx. 18.) God waits for sinners that they may one day repent, and that after their repentance, he may pardon and save them. "As I live, saith the Lord, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live." (Ezech. xxxiii. 11.) St. Augustine goes so far as to say that the Lord, if he were not God, should be unjust on account of his excessive patience towards sinners. By waiting for those who abuse his patience to multiply their sins, God appears to do an injustice to the divine honor. "We," continues the saint, "sin; we adhere to sin (some of us become familiar and intimate with sin, and sleep for months and years in this miserable state); we rejoice at sin (some of us go so far as to boast of our wickedness); and thou art appeased! We provoke thee to anger thou dost invite us to mercy." We and God appear to be, as it were, engaged in a contest, in which we labor to provoke him to chastise our guilt, and he invites us to pardon.
7. Lord, exclaimed holy Job, what is man, that thou dost entertain so great an esteem for him? Why dost thou love him so tenderly? "What is man that thou shouldst magnify him? or why dost thou set thy heart upon him ?" (Job. vii. ] 7.)
St. Denis the Areopagite says, that God seeks after sinners like a despised lover, entreating them not to destroy themselves. Why, ungrateful souls, do you fly from me? I love you and desire nothing but your welfare. Ah, sinners! says St. Teresa, remember that he who now calls and seeks after you, is that God who shall one day be your judge. If you are lost, the great mercies which he now shows you, shall be the greatest torments which, you shall suffer in hell.
Third Point. Mercy of God in receiving penitent sinners.
8. Should a subject who has rebelled against an earthly monarch go into the presence of his sovereign to ask pardon, the prince instantly banishes the rebel from his sight, and does not condescend even to look at him. But God does not treat us in this manner, when we go with humility before him to implore mercy and forgiveness. "The Lord your God is merciful, and will not turn away his face from you if you return to him." (2 Par. xxx. 9.) God cannot turn away his face from those who cast themselves at his feet with an humble and contrite heart. Jesus himself has protested that he will not reject any one who returns to him. "And him that cometh to me, I will not cast out." (John vi. 37.) But how can he reject those whom he himself invites to return, and promises to embrace? "Return to me, saith the Lord, and I will receive thee." (Jer. iii. 1.) In another place he says: Sinners, I ought to turn my back on you, because you first turned your back on me; but be converted to me, and I will be converted to you. "Turn to me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts." (Zach. i. 3.)
9. Oh! with what tenderness does God embrace a sinner that returns to him! This tenderness Jesus Christ wished to declare to us when he said that he is the good pastor, who, as soon as he finds the lost sheep, embraces it and places it on his own shoulders. "And when he hath found it, doth he not lay it upon his shoulders rejoicing?" (Luke xv. 5.) This tenderness also appears in the parable of the prodigal son, in which Jesus Christ tells us that he is the good father, who, when his lost son returns, goes to meet him, embraces and kisses him, and, as it were, swoons away through joy in receiving him. "And running to him, he fell upon his neck and kissed him." (Luke xv. 20.)
10. God protests that when sinners repent of their iniquities, he will forget all their sins, as if they had never offended him. "But, if the wicked do penance for all the sins which he hath committed...living, he shall live, and shall not die. I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done." (Ezech. xviii. 21,22.) By the Prophet Isaias, the Lord goes so far as to say: "Come and accuse me, saith the Lord. If your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow." (Isa. i. 18.) Mark the words, Come and accuse me. As if the Lord said: Sinners, come to me, and if I do not pardon and embrace you, reprove me, upbraid me with violating my promise. But no! God cannot despise an humble and contrite heart. "A contrite and humble heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." (Ps. l. 19.)
11. To show mercy and grant pardon to sinners, God regards as redounding to his own glory. "And therefore shall he be exalted sparing you." (Isa. xxx. 18.) The holy Catholic Church says, that God displays his omnipotence in granting pardon and mercy to sinners. "O God, who manifested thy omnipotence in sparing and showing mercy." Do not imagine, dearly beloved sinners, that God requires of you to labor for a long time before he grants you pardon: as soon as you wish for forgiveness, he is ready to give it. Behold what the Scripture says: "Weeping, thou shalt not weep, he will surely have pity on thee." (Isa. xxx. 19.) You shall not have to weep for a long time: as soon as you shall have shed the first tear through sorrow for your sins, God will have mercy on you. "At the voice of thy cry, as soon as he shall hear, he will answer thee." (Ibid.) The moment he shall hear you say: Forgive me, my God, forgive me, he will instantly answer and grant your pardon.
Coming next... FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST - ON THE CERTAINITY AND UNCERTAINITY OF DEATH
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