The last Day
by VP
Posted on Saturday November 23, 2024 at 11:00PM in Sermons
"Amen, I say to you; this generation shall not pass, till all things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.-MATT. xxiv. 34, 35."
"THESE words, with which the Church both commences and concludes her evangelical year, call your attention to that great scene, emphatically denominated, in sacred language, the last day. One of the characteristics of the Deity, which he has himself pointed out to us in his inspired oracles, is, that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. His revealed religion is marked with a similar feature. With respect to this material world, she may be called the beginning and the end: she invincibly proves herself divine, by the sublime and sovereign manner in which she disposes of both extremities. Who, but religion, has taught us how we were created, and how this our inhabited earth began? On this subject, what human system does not sink into contempt, by the side of her simple and majestic narrative? In like manner, who, but religion, pretends to inform us how this great scene is to terminate? On the former head, man has attempted a few feeble conjectures; but on the latter, if I mistake not, he has been utterly silent. Or, if his unassisted reason has ventured to touch the subject, he has been afraid to pronounce his favored abode perishable; and, seeing it permanent amid all his own changes, has vainly imagined it to be eternal. Religion alone speaks out with confidence on the dark but interesting subject, and boldly declares that the world is not eternal; that, temporary like its lord, it shall one day pass away like him: heaven and earth shall pass away.
Even as mere matter of curiosity and contemplation, I can imagine no subject more choice and inviting to the mind: the last of days-the great epilogue; -the closing page of man's eventful history, which is to shut up the long-expected volume, or rather to supersede at once all its insignificant records! But, my brethren, the subject is not merely curious; it is one of deep interest and expectation; for it speaks of a scene, in which you are yourselves to appear, not as remote spectators, but to act your several parts. Induced by these considerations, and, above all, encouraged and authorized by the Church of God, I venture this day to approach the awful and interesting, but arduous, subject. Attempting little of my own, I will assemble, select, and digest for you, what has been said by those who alone have a right to speak on the subject-the inspired writers.
Man, by his fall, seems to have involved in that mortality, which was its punishment, all that is connected with him: even the world, which he inhabits, is become mortal, like himself. As it is decreed for all men once to die, so it is decreed that the world shall perish. There will come a day, which to this universe will be final and fatal. That day is already known in the counsels of heaven: but, to us, one of its most awful and alarming circumstances is its inscrutable uncertainty. In this, as in other particulars, it bears a remarkable resemblance to man's individual sentence, which from nothing borrows so much terror as from that mysterious darkness which hangs over its execution. As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be then. For as, in the days before the deluge, men were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the very day when Noah entered the ark, and they knew not, till the deluge came and carried them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of Man.
This uncertainty, too, will subsist in the midst of the most pointed warnings; for no future event was ever marked out by more striking and plainer preludes. Here, also, it keeps up its parallel with the dissolution of man. For, as that dreaded event is commonly preceded by a succession of appearances and symptoms, both remote and proximate, which indicate to every eye, but perhaps the interested individual, that the human machine is running down and hastening to its last stroke; so, it has pleased the Almighty to usher in the great day of the world's dissolution, by a series of preludes, which shall clearly announce that its last hour is approaching. Its remoter indications may be said to be the general decay of faith and piety among men; the coldness and almost total extinction of charity; the wide-spread corruption of manners; the neglect of divine worship, and the appearance of that mysterious character, called in scripture anti-christ, or the man of sin, who is to seduce many from the true faith, to deceive with signs and wonders, and to make war on the Church of God. When these have subsisted their due period, then shall commence those more immediate symptoms, so awfully accumulated in the divine oracles. You shall hear, says the Son of God, of wars and rumors of wars; nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes. These are the beginnings of sorrows. Let us expand a little, and dwell on these fearful particulars.
There shall be wars. Man himself shall begin the work of destruction, and co-operate with the vengeance of heaven. This is signified under the figure of the red horse, which was seen by St. John. And to him that sat thereon it was given, that he should take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and a great sword was given him.-Men, restless and agitated with all the furies of discord and revenge, will turn their ferocity against their own species, will assemble in vast bodies for the destruction of each other, and cover the earth with the blood of its inhabitants. If past history speaks of rivers of blood shed in battle, here shall be a deluge. The wine-press, in the mystic language of St. John, was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the wine-press, even up to the horses' bridles, for a thousand six hundred furlongs.And there shall be famines. Famine is the natural concomitant of war, and accordingly is the next figure presented to us in the Apocalypse, as the black horse, the rider of which held a balance in his hand, wherein he was to weigh rigorously the scanty necessaries of existence. And Pestilence, the other attendant of war. And behold, says St. John, there was a pale horse, and he that sat upon him his name was death, and hell followed him. These three, War, Famine, and Pestilence, as we see in the history of David, are the commissioned scourges of the Almighty, which he sends forth, at intervals, to punish the sins of men. And if they are even now so terrible, devastating whole nations, as we read and even see, when yet their visitations are only limited and partial, what will they be, when they shall become unbounded and universal, like the deluge of iniquity which shall call them down? If they are so formidable in the day of God's mercy, what will they be when sent as harbingers to what is emphatically called the great day of his wrath?
In addition to this, the earth itself, man's own domain, will rise up against him, and, with its different elements, combine to scourge him. There shall be earthquakes, says the divine oracle. The solid globe, as if no longer patient of its iniquitous burden, shall swell and oscillate round its ample circumference, not with those partial and petty heavings which we have hitherto read of in history, but with such vast undulations as to threaten its destruction. And there was, says St. John, a great earthquake, such a one as has never been since men were upon the earth, such an earthquake, so great. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. The sea shall next add its terrors. Its awful and heart-subduing roarings shall reach the most distant lands; and their inhabitants, safe beyond intervening continents, will start and shudder at the portentous sound. I am not exaggerating; I am giving but a feeble paraphrase of the very words of the Son of God. There shall be distress of nations by reason of the roaring of the sea, and of the waves, men withering away through fear and expectation of what shall come upon the world. Next the air will charge itself with vengeance. We have already seen it loaded with pestilence and death; besides this, St. John speaks of lightnings, and thunders, and whirlwinds, and vast hail like a torrent; the whole artillery of heaven exploding on the devoted earth.
As the awful day draws nearer, the great tempest of nature shall still thicken; the convulsions of an agonizing world shall become still more terrific. The day of the Lord is nigh, cries out the prophet, it is nigh and exceeding swift; the voice of the day of the Lord is bitter. A day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds. The prophet seems lost under the accumulation of its terrors; but let us hear Him, who was the Inspirer of the prophets, himself depict the extraordinary catastrophe. And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened; the moon shall not give her light; and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be moved.
It only remains, that the last of the commissioned elements come in, and, with its rapid energies, obliterate the scene. Behold the Lord will come with fire, says Isaiah, and his chariots are like a whirlwind, to render his wrath in indignation, and his rebuke with flames of fire; for the Lord shall judge by fire. A day of clouds and whirlwinds, exclaims Joel, the like to it hath not been from the beginning, nor shall be after it, even to the years of generation and generation. Before the face thereof a devouring fire, and behind it a burning flame; the land is like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it a desolate wilderness; neither is there any one that can escape it. Fire is, of all the elements, the most active and violent, and is therefore reserved by the Almighty for the consummation of his judgment, for the temporal death of this visible world, as well as for the eternal death of the world to come. He chastised and reformed the earth by water; he will destroy it by fire; and as, on that occasion, he not only opened the floodgates of heaven, but broke up the fountains of the great deep,-so we may naturally suppose, that now he will not only pour down the destroying element from above, but will command the great deep of hell to open its gates and send forth an inundation of fire upon the earth. It is the sentiment of one of the Fathers. Follow, my brethren, in imagination, the course, the range, the waste of this fiery deluge, as it rolls over the earth, a garden of pleasure before it, and instantly a desolate wilderness behind. Will man here, too, scale the mountains, or bury himself in the depths? Will he entrench himself behind his marble bulwarks, or attempt, by another tower, to baffle the wrath of heaven? Alas! the elements themselves, says St. Peter, shall melt with heat; and the earth, and the works which are in it, be burnt up. His houses, his gardens, his palaces, his cities, shall be swept away in a moment by the devouring element; his limits and his landmarks, his provinces and his countries, shall be rapidly effaced; every trace of his existence on the earth will disappear, and all lie low and level, in one undistinguished blank.
Thus, my brethren, are all the great preludes accomplished; thus is the earth prepared for the coming judgment of its Creator. And it was fitting, that whatever had risen prominent on its surface, should be leveled into insignificance before Him; and that nothing, of all that once divided the attention of his creatures, should, when he came to take his final cognizance, be found standing in his presence.
Where now are those who once most figured in the busy scene, who fondly flattered themselves with immortality? who labored hard during life to gain it, and left no art unpracticed to secure it after death? Oh, mockery of earthly ambition! oh, cruel satire on human vanity! What better application could we make of the celebrated sentence of the Wise Man, than to inscribe it here, as an epitaph on the tomb of a buried world? Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. And if, my brethren, those schemes and projects, which enjoyed, after all, some semblance of greatness, and at least a shadow of success, are to have at last so pitiful an exit, what shall become of those petty objects which now occupy and fill our minds?-that fortune which one is raising?-that fame which another is aiming at?-that treasure of science which a third is accumulating? that trivial distinction which a fourth affects, of person, dress, or equipage? Where shall then be found these insignificant nothings, which even now have no real importance, and yet, unhappily, divert us from our only interest, bind us to this perishable earth, and make us forget our last end, and the great Judge before whom we are infallibly to appear.
At the appointed hour, ere the great Judge descends upon the earth, he will give the signal to his attendant angels, four of whom will instantly take their station at each quarter of the globe, and sound forth from the celestial trumpet the resuscitating decree: Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment. The powerful voice will instantaneously echo round the vast convex, pierce earth and sea, and resound in the lowest hell. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, says the apostle, the dead shall rise; from first to last, they shall all wake from their long slumber, reanimate their original dust, and be seen issuing forth in throngs from their various repositories, the bowels of the earth, the depths of the ocean, and the abyss of hell. St. John saw it: And the sea, says he, gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead that were in them. Of the immense series, not one shall be overlooked or missing; the least and obscurest shall appear, as surely as the greatest and most famous; the infant of a day, who only just saw the light of heaven, and resunk into oblivion, as certainly as the patriarch of nine hundred years; all who once drew the breath of life shall revive, and cover the earth; an army, in the language of Scripture, exceeding vast. If the posterity of one family is compared to the sands of the sea-shore, by what shall we aid the imagination to conceive the simultaneous assemblage of the uncalculated millions that, during the long period of six thousand years, have peopled the globe?
While we cast our eyes in thought over this vast multitude of men now assembled together, for the first, yes, for the last time, what a surprising change do we observe! As we see mankind in life, nothing is more remarkable than those numerous and broad distinctions which everywhere appear in their ranks rich and poor, noble and plebeian, lord and slave, polite and vulgar, learned and illiterate: now these have totally disappeared, and the whole is leveled down to one equal, common, undistinguished crowd. In vain shall we look for the scepter or the diadem, the robe of office, or the sword of conquest. The renowned monarch, whom we so often read of in history, is, doubtless, here; but he is hid among the dense mass of his own subjects; the mighty conqueror, who strode across the earth with destructive march, is here too, but lost amid the rude press of the ignoble myriads, upon whom he once trampled. One simple distinction alone remains; which before existed indeed unperceived, but now breaks forth, and extinguishes every other-the distinction of good and bad; the former clothed with light, beauty, and immortality, the latter unsightly and hideous. Oh! my friends, what will be the confusion and astonishment of the great ones of this world, when they shall see those whom they once hardly deigned to look upon, exalted in power and glory, and themselves sunk in impotence and disgrace, thrust aside without regard, as the scorn and refuse of the assembly! What will be the shame and agony of the fair ones of the world, when they shall see those charms, of which they were foolishly vain, and guiltily prodigal, transferred with infinite improvement to the neglected beggar, or loathed leper, and themselves stamped with eternal deformity!
But from these reflections, my brethren, it is now time to turn to a scene, which will quickly absorb them. But, how shall I attempt to give you an idea of a spectacle so awful and so extraordinary, Heaven itself coming down in judgment! Even the judgment-seat of man is surrounded with awe and dread. What, then, may be expected, when the Son of God himself, appointed by his eternal Father supreme Judge of the living and the dead, shall disclose his tribunal, surrounded with all the grandeur and terrors of his omnipotence? His appearance will be as the lightning darting from east to west; that is, no sooner shall the dazzling vision burst on the horizon, than it will envelope the whole hemisphere in a blaze of glory. The assembled multitude will instantly turn towards it their intensest gaze. And every eye shall see him, says St. John, and they also that pierced him; and all the tribes of the earth shall bewail themselves because of him. In front of the judicial array will appear the ensign of the cross, that comfort of the just and terror of the wicked, environed with dazzling effulgence, and surpassed only by Him whose sign it is. He will be the great focus of regard, riding supreme on the clouds, clothed in all the beauty and grandeur of his visible humanity, and supported with all the power of his invisible divinity. The whole court of heaven will be his attendants, and, arrayed in visible forms, will surround his throne, in their several hierarchies, order above order, filling the air with their countless myriads, and illumining it with ten thousand glories. He himself has assured us of these particulars. When the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the seat of his majesty. Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and majesty.
In this form will the judicial pomp descend; and, as it reaches its destination, the just will rise into the clouds to meet it, taking their station, likewise, in the air aloft, while the reprobates are left in the vale beneath, grovelling on that earth which was the theater of their crimes and the utmost object of their low desires. Then without delay the judgment will proceed; it will not be lingering and tedious, like human trials, but summary and rapid. The judgment sat, says the prophet, and the books were opened;-those books, in which are minutely and unerringly recorded all the moral transactions of men, from the beginning of time. These shall be instantly displayed in the face of the universe, and each individual life exposed in broad characters to its gaze. If a little shame be now so powerful, in this petty scene, so scanty and so circumscribed, what must be the effect, on the guilty soul, of this complete and universal publicity? Here there will be neither excuse nor defense, neither patron nor advocate, neither appeal nor repentance. What treasures of iniquity will then appear! what works of darkness will be brought to light! What extraordinary discoveries will then be made! what manifestations and justifications of Divine Providence! Then shall be seen the reason why one man, with every virtue that could merit prosperity, was pursued with unrelenting adversity; and why another was allowed to riot in every guilty pleasure, and yet die in peace, though a debtor to all the vengeance of heaven. Then, too, shall be explained all the mysteries and paradoxes of human character and conduct: it shall be seen, why this man so unaccountably resisted all the impressions of grace; what was the secret bar, which prevented their efficacy: why that man, after the most promising beginning, made a sudden and ominous pause in the way of virtue, and was never afterwards seen to advance; why a third, living in the midst of light, was never enlightened, that is to say, why, surrounded with evidences of the true religion, and pressed by them on every side, in reading, in argument, in observation, in reflection, he was able to withstand, where so many thousands had yielded: and why a fourth, who apparently possessed every moral virtue that could prepare the way for the true faith, yet
did never attain it, but continued to the last an alien from salvation, in spite of the exhortations of friendship, the invitations of example, and the prayers and tears of a pious family. All these discoveries will then be made, with many others, too numerous even for allusion. On the other hand, all the secret and retiring merits of the just will be brought forward and displayed in glory; all those virtues, which they studiously concealed, oftentimes under the assumed garb of a repulsive exterior; -all those deeds of beneficence and piety, which they carefully buried in oblivion; -all those generous ardors, by which, wanting the means, they burned with the desires of the most arduous sacrifices, and thus in secret made every merit their own.
But it is time that we hear the definitive sentence, which is to conclude this awful scene. Preparatory to this, charge will. be given to the ministering spirits, to arrange on either hand the sheep and the goats, that is, to assemble the just on the right hand, and to drive the reprobate to the left. Then the great Judge, collecting into his heavenly countenance all that beauty, of which he is the sole center, all that sweetness, of which he is the ravishing source, all that love, of which he is the immense ocean, will say to those on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive ye the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. Oh, thrice happy ears, which shall be found worthy to hear this sentence! Who shall express what the hearts of the just will feel at its pronunciation? If the human breast heaves so powerfully at the infusion of those little drops of joy which occasionally refresh it in this miserable life, how will it support that flood of rapture with which these divine words will deluge its small capacity?
Then, turning to the unhappy multitude on his left hand, armed with all the frowns and terrors of angry Omnipotence, he will thunder out against them the dreadful anathema: Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Both of these sentences will be immediately executed. The happy just will hear the dreadful award of the wicked, with acquiescence and approbation: the time is now come for them, in the language of the Scripture, to wash their hands in the blood of the sinner; the feelings of commiseration and charity have no longer any place, but are swallowed up in the sense of divine justice, with which they take part and congratulate. Accordingly, they will now look down with an eye of indifference on the fate, dreadful as it is, of acquaintance, of friends, and of relatives; and, absorbed in their own felicity, will rise aloft, singing canticles of jubilee, to take possession of that eternal kingdom, to which their God has so lovingly invited them.
Let us follow, then, my brethren, the different fate of the reprobate. No sooner shall the almighty voice have uttered their sentence, than the earth will yawn under their feet, and hell, opening for the last time its voracious jaws, will engulf the vast multitude in its terrible abyss. Then the infernal gates will for ever close upon them: the Eternal will affix his irrevocable seal, and shoot the bolt, which shall never be drawn back. -But oh, my brethren, how shall we express or conceive what will pass below, in the darkness and confinement of that infernal dungeon! St. John finely, but terribly, paints it to us, in these sublime words: The smoke of their torments ascends for ever and ever.
Yes, their dreadful torment shall incessantly steam forth a baleful vapor: the smoke thereof will ascend for ever before the eyes of the Almighty, and, in the language of Scripture, bring up in remembrance before him the sufferings of the damned;he will remember them and will never regard them. His ears will never be open to their cries: their tears and blasphemies, their prayers and their execration will find him equally indifferent. He will live on with his elect, in an eternity of bliss; and they will live on, with the demons, in a parallel eternity of woe; and will then conceive a hope of period or change in their sufferings, when they shall discover a hope of change or period in his essential existence.
Such will be the end of
time; such the termination of this present state of things. It may be
remote, but it is not on that account the less certain. You are not more
secure in the present testimony of your senses, than you are in the
reality of what you have here listened to; you are not more surely here
present, than you will be at the last scenes,
which you have here contemplated. The present assembly, so soon to
separate, and perhaps ere long to scatter over the world, will there
finally
meet again: the eyes, with which you now regard me, do not more
certainly apprehend their object, than they will then view the great
Judge on his awful tribunal: the ears with which you now listen to my
voice, the very same will then re-echo with the twofold sentence, and
either be ravished with the sweet invitation of the just, or astounded
with the terrible condemnation of the reprobate. That the former may be
our common lot is the most expressive wish and prayer which I can make
in conclusion."The Catholic Pulpit: Containing a Sermon for Every Sunday
Example of Our Blessed Lady
by VP
Posted on Saturday November 16, 2024 at 11:00PM in Sermons
"Which is indeed the least of all seeds."-MATT. 13. 32.
1. Parable of encouragement.
2. Take example of our Blessed Lady: the least of all in her life.
3. What did she become? "Shall call me blessed."
4. Her position in the doctrine and her power in the devotions of the Church.
THIS parable of our Blessed Lord is meant for our encouragement. It teaches us that great results can spring from small beginnings. It teaches us that what the world sees is very, very different from what appears before the eyes of God. Humility, purity, obedience, patience are but of small account in the estimation of the world; but they are prized by the all-holy God, and great and wonderful are their results.
How plainly we realize all this, if we study it from an example: the example of our Immaculate Mother Mary herself. Contrast her life in this world, and her dignity, glory, and power, with which she is supremely blessed by God, now and for ever.
Picture, first, the humble house at Nazareth; the Virgin praying; the appearance and message of the Angel Gabriel; and her humility troubled at his saying. And when she had realized the tidings that he had brought, her meek and lowly answer, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy word " (Luke 1. 38). No complacency, no exaltation at the dignity conferred upon her! Chosen to be the Mother of the Savior, she only said, "Because He hath regarded the humility of His handmaid” (ibid. 48).
And at Bethlehem - still the least of all seeds- "she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them at the inn " (Luke 2. 7). And outcasts again were the Child and His Mother, for the Angel warned St. Joseph to flee with them to Egypt for fear of King Herod. And the long years at Nazareth, where the child grew up - how poor, secluded, uneventful were they. How despised a life in the eyes of the world, for when her Son began His public life, was it not cast against Him, "Can anything of good come from Nazareth?" (John 1. 46).
Come to Calvary! Behold that poor, heartbroken Mother standing by the Cross on which her Son died, scoffed at, derided, blasphemed by those for whom He died. Well may unbelievers sneer at such an apparent failure the life of the Virgin Mother and the death of her Son! But we - thank God for the faith within us- deny the failure and humbly adore God's marvelous providence. The seed must die in the ground before the growth ensues. Yes, Mary was "the least of all seeds", indeed, but we see and believe and bless God for the result of her humility, her acceptance of the Will of God, her hidden life, her poverty, her sufferings. Behold the result! Immaculate Mary herself tells us,"Behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because He that is mighty hath done great things to me" (Luke 1. 48, 49).
This poor, unknown, sorrowful Virgin - what has she become? The Queen of heaven, the Queen of Angels and of Saints! Acknowledged, reverenced from the earliest ages of the Church with a love and devotion increasing as the centuries roll on. A new era began for her at the Resurrection of her divine Son. Then did she realize, as He appeared to her, glorious, impassible, and immortal, what it was indeed to be the Mother of the Savior, for this was the Child of Bethlehem, this the Victim of Calvary. And at the Ascension what a vision of the glory of heaven was revealed to her longing soul! Ten days after, when the Holy Ghost came down upon the Apostles and filled their souls with His marvelous gifts, even Mary's heart was enlarged, she realized that a new work was laid upon her-she became the Mother of the infant Church. For twelve years she remained with the disciples, a living answer to all who doubted that God had become man to redeem the world, for there still amongst them was found His Mother. From the earliest days there were self-opinionated men holding heretical doctrines, but one after another they failed and perished as true belief in Mary was taught and maintained by the successors of the Apostles. The powers of the wicked one, having ensnared the hearts of so many, were concentrated against our Blessed Lady. But the prophecy of old was verified, and the Virgin Mother "crushed the serpent's head" when, in the days of St. Cyril of Alexandria, at the General Council of Ephesus, it was declared as an article of faith that Mary was the Mother of God. The least, indeed, of all seeds had grown and become glorious in its triumph. The title "Mother of God" was the test of orthodoxy.
Not only did Mary become the test and strength of our faith, but hope in her, as the mediator with her divine Son, en-kindled piety and devotion to her.
Through succeeding ages the institution of festivals in her honor; the building of churches dedicated to her name; religious orders choosing her as their special patroness; the multiplication of devotions to win her compassion and her intercession-all these are the proofs of the glory of the Virgin of Nazareth.
Moreover, unlike the empires of this world that rise and fall, that for a space make the world resound with their prowess and their glory, and then pass away into oblivion, leaving scarce a shadow of a name behind - Mary's glory knows no decline! All these centuries has it existed, and now in our own age, in spite of all the evil and infidelity in the world, there is more widespread devotion, more public veneration, than ever. Proofs of this are plain. For witness, "the months of Mary," "the October Rosaries," the confraternities, the processions, the pilgrimages to Lourdes, the miracles that silence the tongue of slander. The whole world is the witness of these glories of Mary. Faith and hope are strengthened by remembering this example of the Mother of God. Let us devoutly ask of her to make us meek and humble of heart; to imitate now her poor and lowly life on earth, trusting that our Mother will welcome us to heaven and its glory hereafter." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey
A PURE INTENTION
by VP
Posted on Sunday November 10, 2024 at 09:56AM in Sermons
Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
"All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."-COL. 3. 17.
I. Self the cause of failure.
2. A pure intention to do all for Christ blesses and ennobles all we do.
3. A little thing: fidelity needed.
4. The change it would work in us.
5. Examples of the saints.
How often in our life do we feel disappointed—yea, despondent-at finding so many of our good beginnings and endeavors turning out to be failures. Our confessions make this very evident to us. Do we not find that we have done the very things that we should not, and have omitted those that we should? It is not astonishing, for we are weak of purpose and prone to evil. Is it not very often because we thought that we of ourselves could do better; because it was self making the resolutions; self trying of its own powers to make its way to heaven? Whereas we should have obeyed St. Paul, "All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."
A pure intention would have rectified so much and have saved us from many a failure. It is not what we do merely, but why we do it, that makes our lives words and works-pleasing unto God. For instance, even munificent charities can be made valueless in the sight of God, if vainglory and seeking the applause of men were the motives. On the other hand, even the widow's mite, given humbly, lovingly for Christ's sake, will find its eternal reward in heaven.
A moment's thought, the raising of our mind to God, the intending every word or work to be said and done in the name of Christ, for the love of Christ, would spiritualize our lives, and make of them an offering acceptable to God and blessed by Him with an eternal reward. And this pure intention, this morning offering, must be a daily work. We are so fickle, so inconstant, that even then self-love or yearning for praise will creep in. The fairest bud may have a canker in its heart.
No longer let our days be profitless for want of a little thought. With our morning prayers-yea, before them; as soon as our mind awakes-a moment's earnest thought will do-all for Jesus-and the day and all its thoughts, and prayers, and words, and works are offered to God and blessed by Him. "Do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ."
You may say that is a trifling thing indeed, and can that bless and ennoble our daily life? Yes, it is a little thing, but, as St. Francis of Sales says, "Little things are but little things, but fidelity in little things is a great thing." And the fidelity in making this pure intention, this offering to do all in the name of Jesus, and for the love of Jesus, is a great thing. For it is this being united to our Blessed Lord that gives its value, its eternal value, to all we do.
Let us picture to ourselves what this pure, heartfelt offering would mean. Sloth and tepidity would instantly stand abashed and ashamed. Sin and all desire for sin would be warned off, for our souls are giving themselves to Christ. The evil one would see that his plans and intrigues were detected and thus rendered powerless. In a moment the bright thought of Mass, of Holy Communion, perchance, would irradiate our soul. Our thought would question-Have we time? Can we make time for them? What an offering indeed to our dear Lord if we can; yea, a pleasing offering indeed for only wishing that we could. The daily toil, whatever it may be-laborious, poorly paid, wearisome-also, offered humbly, without a murmur, according to the blessed Will of God. Recording Angels are busy throughout the day adding up the wages due to such a worker.
This offering, made morning after morning, simple as it may seem, is certain to be lovingly received by our Lord. That blessing gives the value to everything, and graces flow down and intensify the love of the offering and the purity of the intention. Gain the habit, persevere in it, and by degrees you will find yourself renewing it time after time in the day. Every prayer will end by repeating it; every fresh work remind you of it. And especially after some little fall-temper, impatience, uncharitableness, whatever it may beat once, penitent but not disheartened, you will begin again more devoutly and trustfully than ever. Even a fall can help us to rise, through humility and sorrow, and receive fresh help and strength from God.
Yes, doing all with a pure intention for the love of Christ explains to us the mystery how the saints from such humble beginnings became so illustrious in their sanctity, and such models and encouragement to us all. It was because they were doing all for God that they were chosen from the lowliest employments and called to such noble work, in which they devoted their lives to the de fence of the Church and the salvation of countless souls. For instance: St. Vincent of Paul, tending his father's cattle-a slave in Morocco-and yet to become the father and founder of the Mission Fathers, the Dames of the Cross, and the Sisters of Charity. Behold the humblest of beginnings and the greatest of achievements. And St. Peter Damian, abandoned by his mother, feeding his brother's swine, patient in ill-treatment and starvation-and afterwards a monk, a bishop, a cardinal, a trusted counselor of Emperors and of Popes. And the shepherd,
St. Pascal Baylon! Was it not his pure intention, his union with God in
his lowly calling, that made him a saint? When he could not leave his
flock and attend Holy Mass, his soul was at the church, rapt in adoration at the very tolling of the Mass bell. His devotion to the Blessed Sacrament has been honored by the dignity conferred upon him by Pope Leo XIII., as “special and heavenly patron of all Eucharistic Confraternities." Yes, "little things are but little things," and the morning offering, and the pure intention of doing all for love of Jesus, is a little thing, but fidelity to it is a great thing. “All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Francis Paulinus Hickey (25th Sunday after Pentecost - Fifth Sunday after Epiphany)
THE HOLY SACRIFICE
by VP
Posted on Sunday November 03, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
My words shall not pass."-MATT. xxiv. 35.
I. The wonderful words that Christ has spoken to us each Sunday of the year.
2. There is one the Church has specially taken and obeyed day after day.
3. By obeying this word our Redemption is renewed daily.
4. And the faithful partake in this Sacrifice ordained by Christ.
On this the last Sunday of the ecclesiastical year, the gospel ends, " But My words shall not pass." The wonderful words of our Lord, which we have heard each Sunday of the year, arise before our minds. We have listened to His doctrines and teachings, the parables of all kinds, with which we are so familiar; His warnings and rebukes; yea, and His sweet words of love"I am the good Shepherd," "Be of good heart, son, thy sins are forgiven thee," "I will, be thou made clean," and so many more.
But amongst all the words, there is one that the Church has taken to heart, and has never let pass, but day after day has kept it faithfully. By just keeping this one word, the Church and each of us obeys Him, in faith and hope and love. This obedience proves our faith in His Divinity, our hope in His Redemption, our love because we trust in His continued mercy. He said, the night before He died, "Do this, for a commemoration of Me" (Luke xxii. 19). Oh! word of love, of infinite and individual love! It has never been forgotten; never for a day disobeyed. How the Church treasures this blessed word, by obeying which the Sacrifice of Calvary is renewed morning after morning on the altars of many thousands of churches, and has been since the days of the Apostles. This word is His own, though uttered by His priests; this word is as efficacious and powerful now as when He instituted the Holy Eucharist, the divine sacrament of His Body and Blood. This word shall never pass, because He promised to be with us till the consummation of the world.
The obeying this divine word, "Do this, for a commemoration of Me," is the very life of the Church. The mission of the Church, its very existence, which is guaranteed to it by God, is simply that it may save souls. And our Blessed Saviour has by this word given it the power to bring His Redemption home to the souls of men. To know and believe all the other words of Christ, and yet stop at this, reminds us of Moses beholding the vision of the promised land, yet not allowed to enter in. What excuse can men make for not accepting this word, the very culmination of the mercy of God, if they believe the other words of Christ our Lord? Why did He declare that He was the Bread of Life, and work miracles—multiplying the loaves to emphasize His teaching, if the Bread of Life was never to exist? Why did He say to His disciples, “This is My Body: This is My Blood," and gave to them to eat and drink thereof, if that was to be the solitary and only consecration and Communion? If men disobey this word, "Do this for a commemoration of Me," no wonder they are driven to deny His other words, "This is My Body," and dare to maintain that, though He said these words, He did not mean them. His divine Presence in the Holy Eucharist is denied and disbelieved.
What becomes of all the words of Christ, if one or other can be passed over and denied? The man that doubts or disbelieves one is leaving Christ. "Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered Him: Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John vi. 68, 69). The words of eternal life! How loyally we must cling to this! And how providentially-arranged by the all-wise God indeed-it is that every member of the Church can prove by deed that he accepts and stands by the words of Christ that can never pass. A poor, humble Catholic may not be able to argue, and there is no need to argue-he simply comes to Holy Mass. And by so doing he is saying like Peter, "To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of life." And why does he kneel before the altar? He is waiting for the priest to obey the Lord Jesus, Who said, "Do this for a commemoration of Me." And that Catholic man or woman or child looks up to the altar, and awaits devoutly the coming of the Lord. The word is spoken; the consecration takes place; and Jesus our Lord, Who died to save us from our sins, is there upon the altar, in the priest's hands raised up for adoration, and with the same love and power as on Calvary. He offers Himself once again for us! And the Catholic's faith, hope, love is given to His Lord, and his heart and soul raised up with His Saviour's to the Eternal Father.
Let us learn to treasure this divine word of Christ more and more. If we believe in this we believe in all; if we reverence it, obey it, and love it, we reverence, obey, and love all the words that lead to everlasting life. In action, perhaps daily action, we can prove how we do this by attending Holy Mass. The blessed result of attending Mass! Each day our love and loyalty will increase. We are the children of the Lord, so why should we be kept from His table? So humbly and reverently we shall begin to receive Holy Communion frequently, yea, daily. And each Communion is a pledge of future glory; we are the children of the inheritance: how it becomes us to walk piously, faithfully through life, rejoicing that, united to the Church, we are daily doing this for a commemoration of Him, Who lives in the Holy Eucharist for love of us." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey (Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost)
Feast of all Saints: The Church reviews Her Successes
by VP
Posted on Friday November 01, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
Fra Angelico: The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs
"Our yearly liturgical course in living with Christ is fast drawing to a close. That is the reason why these last Sunday Masses have been showing us various aspects of the final reckoning when Christ our Judge will examine us to see how we have profited by all those countless opportunities of grace lavished upon us in every Sacrifice and sacrament throughout the year. What therefore could be more natural for us than, finding within ourselves the same un-Christly Christians as of yore, to feel a sense of frustration at the thought of so great a discrepancy between what was expected of us and what we have actually achieved? Can the liturgical life really be so marvelous a thing, if it shows so little proof of its power in our own daily living? Just such a sense of discouragement on our part the Church seems to have anticipated. For right here, almost at the close of her annual course, she gives us in review a veritable pageant of successful lives lived by those whom she has already graduated into eternity summa cum laude.
These multitudes of human beings from every race and nation, from every clime and century - what are they, one and all, but drops of water in the vast ocean of Christ's redemptive work? Each one, as a member of the Mystical Body on earth, has not only been saved thereby but has also helped to "fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ,...for his body, which is the Church." Col. 1:24. Douay-Rheims.
The ocean of redemptive merits became so vast a thing in its multiple human aspect that we could only gaze in wonderment at its unfathomable extent and depth. This is why, for those of us who are able to go to weekday Mass, the liturgy allowed us to examine this redeeming accomplishment of Christ a drop at a time, while we celebrated the feast days of the saints. Thus holding up a tiny particle of Christly glory to the great sun of God's infinite perfections, we could study their separate rays as they were refracted in the various hues of those personalities through which they passed. For the divine attributes, incarnate in mortal men, are, as it were, split into tiny human colors, so that we may more easily study them and try to adapt them to our own poor way of life.
To say, for instance, that God is love does not pass beyond the cold, clear realm of our intellect. But to learn that Francis of Assisi, in reflecting this divine charity, loved every flower and bird and uncouth clod of humankind to romantic folly, has set seven hundred years ablaze. When we are told that God is good, we nod assent and stifle a yawn. But when we read that a Peter Claver, filled to the brim by a participation in this goodness, could spend years of devoted service amid the nauseating slave ships in his endeavor to salvage souls for eternity- ah! then we begin to think that goodness is something real after all.
Thus through this past year the Church has carefully marshaled before us her procession of successes, men, women, and even children. All from the dawn of Christianity have chosen to live the Christ-Life to its fullest extent, regardless of the cost. Each of these heroes has paid in some way the price of life itself, if not by the actual shedding of his blood, then at least by the slow and relentless extermination of self in every form, so that it might be no longer he that lived but Christ in him.
Since, however, the vast majority of Christians, unable to go to daily Mass, cannot study this pageant of Christ's heroes gradually throughout the year, the Church has set aside this feast as a day of obligation. Now all her members may see in one grand review all those whose outstanding success bears witness to the potency of the Christ-Life as lived in and through the liturgical signs which make that Life an ever present reality.
Also the Church's object in thus honoring her heroes is to make us realize her great doctrine, the Communion of Saints. This is that celestial plan of distributive wealth, whereby the millionaires of heaven from their own abundance may effectively subsidize us, their needy brethren. This means that through the very special grace of today's feast of All Saints, we may fill our souls to overflowing with all the riches of Christ's members, who have traded with their talents so as to enrich not only themselves but also their brethren of every age and race and nation."
Companion to the Missal, Sister M Cecilia OSB
"Oh! (...) My brethren, let the world have its gods and worship them; let it have its wisdom, which is foolishness with God; let it deride and mock at penance, at asceticism, at Religious vows, at practices of humiliation, at pilgrimages, at devotions, at prayer itself. But let us remember that Christ, and His Church after Him, have cursed the world. Voe Mundo! Let us stand firm, though power, and wealth, and culture be in conspiracy against us. Let us stand firm, though we be persecuted and vilified, and our name cast out as evil for Christ's sake. Let us keep the faith. Let us be imitators of the Saints as they also were of Christ. Let us fix our eyes on the end of all things, on the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. Let us never forget those words,so full at once of terror and consolation: " Then shall the just stand with great constancy against those that have afflicted them and taken away their labors. Those seeing it, shall be troubled with terrible fear, and shall be amazed at the suddenness of their unexpected salvation, saying within themselves, repenting, and groaning for anguish of spirit: There 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. Behold, how they are numbered among the children of God, and their lot is among the Saints. " Wisdom v. 1-5."
Source: Sermons by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, Vol. 3, Feast of all Saints.
THE HOLY VIATICUM
by VP
Posted on Sunday October 27, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
Come, lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall be safe."MATT. ix. 18.
1. The one thing necessary for us is a holy death.
2. The thrice-told miracle.
3. We, too, must pray and desire the Lord to come.
4. Then our soul shall be safe.
THERE is one thing that should be the constant theme of our prayers: the one thing above all to be desired. A good life must be crowned by a holy death. And we have confidence in this, that our Blessed Lord will graciously hear our prayers. "Thou hast given him his heart's desire; and hast not withholden from him the will of his lips " (Ps. xx. 2).
We have such a perfect model before us in this day's gospel in the ruler, who besought our Blessed Lord to come to his daughter, who was at the point of death. His faith, his earnest entreaty is pictured before us three times over, as SS. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each give us an account of this miracle that was granted to the father's desire and prayer. Our Savior was so touched that at once, to allay the father's fears, He said, "Fear not, only believe, 'and she shall be safe. And Jesus rising up, followed him with His disciples." A delay occurred through the woman that touched the hem of Christ's garment, and our Lord speaking to her. The father's fears redoubled, and friends hastened to meet him, saying: "Thy daughter is dead; why dost thou trouble the Master any further? But Jesus . . . saith, Fear not, only believe" (Mark v. 35). That father's faith and earnestness were rewarded by his child being raised to life and restored to him.
We have something more precious to us than that young maiden was to her father. Does it not shame us to remember his love for her, and his faith in Christ our Lord, contrasted with our apathy about our souls? Where is our daily earnest prayer, our anxiety about the state of our souls, whether dangerous, dying, or dead? Do we fall at our Lord's feet, praying Him to come into our house?
If we were ill, you will say, we should pray thus, and be as anxious as that father was. No, the preparation for a holy death is not made when we come to die. It is during life that we should prepare for the end. If we have little or no desire, no fervent longing for Holy Communion during life, we shall not have it when we come to die. Each Communion should be a preparation for the last one. And oh, how much depends on our Blessed Lord coming to us then! For so great a favor, is it not well worth to pray for it day after day? Each time we receive our Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist our most earnest prayer and desire should be, that He will come to us at the end, and then our soul" shall be safe."
How the saints longed for that safeguard when death approached! St. Benedict had himself borne to the church, and, supported in the arms of his brethren, standing before the altar after receiving His Master and his true King Christ, he gave up his soul to God. A fitting end for such a blessed life. And St. Thomas Aquinas, when the Holy Viaticum was brought to him, though dying, raised himself and knelt and prayed aloud,
I firmly believe that Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, is present in this most holy sacrament. I receive Thee, the price of my soul's ransom, I receive Thee, the Viaticum of my soul's pilgrimage. Thou, O Christ, art the King of glory, Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father." And so needful and precious is it to our souls to receive the Holy Viaticum that St. Mary Magdalen was transported by a miracle from her hermitage to receive It ere she died.
If hitherto we have been careless and negligent in this respect-seldom thinking and praying for a holy death, and piously longing that our Lord in His sweet mercy may come to us at the end, let us begin at once, heartily, fervently to make it our daily supplication. Our divine Lord longs to save us, but He does expect to be asked, to be implored, to be desired and yearned for. Let us pray like that father in the gospel, and say like David, "O God, I have declared to Thee my life. Thou hast set my tears in Thy sight. In what day soever I shall call upon Thee, behold, I know that Thou art my God. In God I have hoped. . . ..because Thou hast delivered my soul from death; that I may please in the sight of God, in the light of the living " (Ps. lv. 9, 13).
Prepare in life, pray in life, for at our last illness, through misery, pain, and weakness, there may be little zest for prayer. The faithful Lord will remember all the supplications and holy desires and He will come to us, with Peter and James and John, as the gospel says, typifying faith and hope and charity, and our soul shall be safe. The words with which the priest administers Holy Viaticum show us the danger of that hour, and how, indeed, we need an almighty guardian. The priest holding the Blessed Sacrament, which is
given to us as the food of the wayfarer, for our soul's journey to the other world, says, "Receive, brother, the Viaticum of the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who may guard thee from the malignant enemy and lead thee to life everlasting."
Thus our dear Redeemer comes to our soul that it may be safe and may live. Yes, this life may pass away, but our soul's life is just beginning-the eternal
blessed life, to which our Lord will lead it. That blessed life which
we shall pass in beholding, glorifying, loving our good God, our Savior
for ever and for ever." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey (23rd Sunday after Pentecost)
HOW TO IMPROVE
by VP
Posted on Sunday October 20, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"He Who hath begun a good work in you will perfect it." PHIL. i. 6.
1. Everything good in us is from God.
2. It is for us to treasure and work with His graces.
3. Practically, we must do all-with a good intention, with exactitude, with fervor.
4. And God will perfect the good work.
SURELY we are all wise enough and humble enough to know and confess that there is nothing good in us from ourselves. We have learned that from sad experience of our many failings and infidelities. We are full of love of self, and of ease and comfort; we are uncharitable, cowardly, ungrateful, and yet within us there is something good. Ah! that is from God. He gives us this desire for something better; this remembrance of His gracious goodness, how He has given us the faith; implanted the hope of heaven in our heart; and made us conscious that He himself, the great God, is asking and longing for our love. He hath begun the good work in us.
It is for us to treasure those graces. We must not receive them like an ungracious child, and never say a word of thanks to our Father. How many of His favors, His forgivenesses, and opportunities for good have we sinfully wasted in the past! The proof of gratitude for graces is to make use of them and work with them. To receive blessings and favors is only the beginning: the work of our life is to correspond to them.
Then what does Almighty God expect from us? First to refer everything to Him. By a pure and holy intention to offer Him all our thoughts, words, actions, and sufferings. They may be poor things indeed, but coming from a child they are accepted and blessed by our Father. And this good intention would certainly keep us from anything unworthy and sinful, for how could we dare to offer that to our heavenly Father! Thus we see we have to renew this pure intention and offering to God many a time, for how often do sudden gusts of temper, of temptation sweep us from the path of perfection! But we must never despond. What God loves is that we should at once begin again, trusting that He will help us.
Another thing that God expects from us is that all we do for Him should be done with exactitude and promptness. Our work for God must not be done slovenly. Our self-respect would forbid us to act thus to our betters, even to one another: then how dare we treat God with disrespect! Duties have their fixed hours, and duties to God, then, must not be put off or curtailed. And punctuality is true politeness; then to Whom should we be polite if not to the Almighty? How many of our prayers and Mass attendances have been so spoiled by want of exactitude and punctuality! Promptitude shows a good and willing heart.
To persevere in acting up to grace requires, then, a pure intention, exactitude, and finally fervor. This is a devout disposition of heart, which enables us to offer to God our thoughts and our prayers with earnestness, zeal, and love. One devout Hail Mary from the heart is of more worth than a rosary hastily slurred over with a distracted mind. And here again, the good intention comes to our help. A moment's thought! and we should remember Whom we are addressing, and in Whose presence we are. We may be on our knees, but our hearts are not worshiping. The thought of our great needs and necessities; the thought that the great God in heaven is listening to us, the thought that we are supplicating help through Jesus Christ our Lord, Who died for us, Who purchased these blessings that we are imploring, and Who, perhaps, is present on the altar before us—this thought should make us reverent and fervent.
We have help, too, given us by our Blessed Savior, to keep us fervent and to increase our devotion. One such help that should spur us on is to remember purgatory. There all the penalties for remissness and carelessness have to be purged away in sufferings far greater than we can picture to ourselves here on earth. What a dreadful store of punishment are we, perhaps, accumulating for ourselves now! God knows. But would not this thought check us in our tepidity and sloth? Would it not spur us on to do our very utmost, praying and working, with zeal and generosity of heart?
Another and a more consoling help is to call on our Mother Mary," our life, our sweetness, and our hope." We offer up our prayers through her: surely, then, we should offer her of our best. And how transformed our poor prayers will be when they have passed through the hands of Mary Immaculate! She will not despise our petitions. She lovingly accepts every little prayer. And more than that: she prompts us to pray, and blesses our hearts with fervor and persevering love.
This life is the time for tilling and sowing the seed; the harvest-time comes later, when God perfects the good work. Look forward to that time, and we shall be strong and manly in acting up to God's graces and blessings. The wonder to us will be that our little efforts, our poor, faulty prayers, our beginning again at once after every failure, have been received and blessed by God; that day after day He has led us on to persevere, perfecting the good work, making us "sincere and without offense" until the day of recompense shall come. Our pure intention—all for God, our careful exactitude, our fervor have led us on safely to persevere "through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey (Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost)
FRATERNAL CHARITY
by VP
Posted on Sunday October 13, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow-servant ?"-MATT. 18. 33.
1. We are keen to obtain God's forgiveness.
2. But how different are we towards others!
3. A test of holiness is this fraternal charity.
4. God so willingly forgives, if we are kind.
We have all needed this reprimand, and most of us many a time. "Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow-servant?" What different kind of people we are, when asking forgiveness and when we are asked to forgive! At confession how anxious to be forgiven; shortly afterwards how harsh and unkind and fault-finding to others! We
forget God's mercy is granted to us in the same measure that we give it to others.
Little things betray the spirit of our hearts in this respect. It is no excuse that they are only little things. There is nothing that is really little, that is for God or against God. Besides, if we are resentful and bitter about small matters, how can we reasonably expect to be forgiving, kind, and charitable when we have serious reason to be hurt and offended? For the safety of our soul we have to watch small failings in this matter of fraternal charity.
Naturally we are very prone and ready to fail in charity. We are keen to notice; to think evil; to repeat and exaggerate anything against another; self-love easily takes offence, and the offence rankles, and brotherly love is ruined. Whereas, with the aid of prayer, and with the grace of God, we should constantly try to be charitable; thinking no evil; saying no unkind word; doing kindnesses even to those who have been unkind to us. Above all, to be ready to forgive from the heart whatever may have been said or done against us. In this matter we have either to mean and try to be saints, or we shall, eventually, find ourselves reprimanded and punished by our Master, Jesus Christ.
Take what the saints have done and said. The great St. Teresa prays thus: "Forgive us, O Lord, not because of our prayers and good deeds, but because we have forgiven." When Blessed Juvenal Ancina was dying, poisoned by an enemy, he not only refused to mention the name of the assassin, whom he knew well, but strictly forbade that any inquiry should be made to lead to his punishment. And St. John Gualbertus, about to kill the murderer of his brother, at the sign and mention of the Cross, forgave him from his heart. And this was the turning-point-a proud young nobleman changed into a saint.
Not only were the saints ready to forgive, but they practiced active and kindly charity amongst the poor, the sick, and the afflicted. When we read the lives of holy men we cannot help but be struck by this humble and penitential habit. Even exalted personages and profound scholars steal time from their other labors to visit hospitals and the poor in their homes. This is one of the surest marks of real holiness. And others, again, devoted their whole lives to such work and founded religious Orders to perpetuate their labors. Oh! they had compassion on their fellow-servants. Call to mind St. Vincent of Paul. Who shall ever tell all that has been done in his life and since his death, by himself and those he taught to succor human misery? Their name is legion who have followed in his footsteps. And St. Camillus, the patron of a holy death, whose holy calling it was to tend the dying, winning poor sinners over in his hospitals to repent and die in peace. These are the heroes of charity, and so many more that could be named, and whom you of yourselves will remember. Heroes of charity, who loved to tend the most loathsome diseases, and whose touch wrought so many miraculous cures. We cannot be like them heroes, but we can and must pray to have a little of their spirit of kindness and compassion.
We must be determined and ready to meet the trials of life with resignation and serenity, and being kind to others in their necessities and miseries will bring this grace to our own souls. We cannot help it; suffering is like our shadow-we cannot get away from it. But being mindful and tender towards the sufferings of others will enable us to bear our own with fortitude and hope. St. Laurence the Martyr first saw to the poor and afflicted, distributed the Church's treasures to them, and with the sign of the Cross opened the eyes of the blind; and then when roasted slowly to death, God blessed him so that the flames were like roses to him, and happily and triumphantly he died for Christ. This is how God blesses compassion and fraternal charity.
For ourselves let us take consolation from this thought: God seems blind to our failings, as long as He sees kindness to others in our hearts. He gives us Himself as an example. He was meekness itself; He went about doing good to all; He loved to be amongst the poor; and of all that were diseased, do we read of one being sent away uncured? And His blessed Mother is like to Him, as we should expect. We salute her as Queen of Heaven, but a title she loves better is "Mother of Mercy." How often have we stood in need of her pity and her help, and how often again shall we receive it, for she will ask our Lord for us, and she cannot be denied, if only she sees us striving to be to each other kind, and charitable, and merciful, and compassionate." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Fr. Francis Paulinus Hickey (21rst Sunday after Pentecost)THE SAFEGUARD OF OUR SOUL
by VP
Posted on Sunday October 06, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
"Lord, come down before that my son die."- St. JOHN 4. 49.
"THE gospel narrative to-day is simple and touching. The ruler loved his son, and was sorely grieved that he was losing him. Opportunely he heard that our Blessed Lord had come from Judea to Galilee. He hastened therefore to Him; and the cry of his heart went forth, full of faith and trusting hope: Lord, come down and heal my son. And when our Saviour chided him that unless he saw signs and wonders he believed not, the father's heart, not minding the rebuke, persevered in the prayer: Lord, come down before that my son die.
Have we not something that we should cherish even more than that father did his son? Should not our prayer be more earnest and persevering than that father's? Ours should be, "Lord, come down before that my soul die." And how this prayer of poor fallen man has been heard! God the Son came down from heaven and became Man to succor the soul of man. He taught it; He comforted it; He blessed it, and redeemed it. He, Who was the glory of heaven, came down, and became the Crucified Victim of Calvary for us. And lest in succeeding ages the memory of this atonement should grow dim, and lose its power over the hearts of men, the loving Lord perpetuated this Sacrifice, this oblation of Himself for man, lest that our soul should die. Faithful hearts gather round the altar, and their cry is, "Come down." During all these centuries, day after day, in every church the miracle of miracles is worked, and at the words of consecration in the Mass, Christ our Lord, true God, true Man, comes down in His Mercy and His love. Here is our salvation! What Calvary did, the Mass can do! The work of our redemption is renewed lest our souls die. For a moment reflect; what earnestness, devotion, gratitude should be ours for the daily Holy Mass. Christ comes down to heal us, strengthen us, to make our hearts live for and tend to their eternal destiny.
Come down! Yes, daily upon our altars, and yet the Sacred Heart of Jesus is not content. There is another yearning, another longing that inflames it. Come down, He bids us pray again. Come down, dear Lord, into the very depths of our poor souls, come down and heal them in Holy Communion. Have we no pity for our own poor souls, that are dying-frail, languishing, wasting for nourishment and health and strength? And our Blessed Lord comes down to us, saying to us, "I am the Bread of life. . . . If any man eat of this Bread he shall live for ever" (John vi. 48, 52). All that is wanting is our desire and longing to come to Him to be healed.
What shall we answer to Christ the Judge if our souls die? It will be all our own fault. No shadow of an excuse. No one upon whom to lay the blame except our own selves. We may say we were tempted by the devil; but here was our Lord to succour us. We were weak and sinful; yes, and we neglected to seek strength and holiness here in the Blessed Sacrament. We were busy and occupied with many cares and the pursuits of the world; ah! had we not time to secure eternity? Passing pleasures of an hour were more thought of than the eternal joys of heaven, of which the Blessed Eucharist is the token and the pledge.
Our divine Lord is longing to come to us; but we, alas! have little longing or desire to come to Him. Where is our faith, our hope, our love for Him? Where is the fear within us lest our soul should die? It humbles us to remember the devotedness of others, and how in response to the cry of their hearts, our Saviour has come and made His abode with them, and transformed them into saints. Yes, they have become saints because they were anxious about their souls, and their faith taught them how their souls could be safeguarded. The cry of their heart was, "Lord, come down"; they knew they could not do without Him. And the safety, the growth, the perfecting of their souls was in this-that our Lord had come with His blessed healing and nourishing, and had stayed with them. His Presence made them realize more and more His blessings and His love, and then on their part their desire and longing for Him and wholehearted response to His graces grew more and more.
Mass and Holy Communion must not become matters of custom and habit, and there is here a great danger, especially for the young and thoughtless. But they must be so prepared for and longed for each day, that this love of receiving our divine Lord may be intensified each time. We are humbled, when we think of the devotion of the saints that we read of. How St. Gerard, a mere little boy, longed so for his Lord that St. Michael the Archangel brought him his first Communion. How the Sacred Host left the altar and came of itself to St. Catherine of Siena at the end of the church.
Each time at Holy Communion let us try to learn to be more devout. And thus we shall come to be prepared for that last and final visit, when our days on earth are drawing to a close, and in response to our dying cry, "Lord, come down," the Holy Viaticum will be brought to us, and for the last time on earth our wistful eyes will look upon our Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist! Soon to behold Him in His glory in that eternal home whither He will lead us." Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Francis Paulinus Hickey
THE CALLS OF GRACE
by VP
Posted on Sunday September 29, 2024 at 12:00AM in Sermons
They that were invited were not worthy."-Matt. xxii. 8.
1. Gospel reminds us of the many calls and invitations of grace.
2. Why God is so generous? Because He loves us.
3. How have we responded?
4. Resolve to treasure God's graces.
THIS Gospel reminds us of the manifold invitations, the countless calls of grace, wherewith we are favored by our loving Lord and Savior. Here in God's church we cannot help but remember them. How often has He spoken to us those words, “Come to Me, all you that labor and are burdened: and I will refresh you (Matt. xi. 28). At another time, when He has seen us wasting the short and precious hours of life, He has bidden us, "Go you also into My vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just " (Matt. xx. 4). And when our souls have yearned for Him, wishing to give themselves devoutly to Him, He has said, as He did to St. Andrew, "Come and see" (John i. 39), and we have known where to find His home here in the tabernacle where He is waiting, always ready, to welcome us and bid us stay with Him.
And why all these merciful invitations? He has no need of us. He is supremely blessed and happy without us. There are so many countless multitudes better than we are. Have they been as favored as we feel that we have been? Then why these calls of grace to us? They are purely out of benevolence. "He is the Lord, who loveth souls."
There are some who may try to excuse themselves by urging that many others have had better chances; more frequent calls of grace, opportunities of practicing piety denied to them; but none of us can truly say that we have not been invited and pressed to join God's service. Does not the gospel tell us, that the servants were at length sent out to bring in all that they could find, both good and bad? So we must have neglected or even resisted, or we should have found ourselves amongst the servants of God. Let us resolve now to take that word of St. Paul's, "I cast not away the grace of God" (Gal. ii. 21), and make it our own, and with a firm, resolute will promise, "I will never again cast away the grace of God."
Our Blessed Lord's parable tells us how the Master, hurt and grieved, complained, "They that were invited were not worthy." Let us pray for holy fear lest we be found unworthy; for a holy anxiety to look to ourselves carefully lest we neglect. We must beware of being self-satisfied. We see others, as we may think, worse than ourselves, but have they received as many graces and calls as we have? And if they are more negligent, more guilty than ourselves, how does that make us stand better in the sight of God? Again, let us not be self-satisfied by any little good that we may have done, which, very likely, is far outbalanced by our shortcomings and our faults. Take heed by the example of those who thought they would be well received by their divine Master. They had forgotten their neglect and putting God off till it was too late. The five foolish virgins came to the marriage festival after the door was shut. They were too late. The gospel says, "But at last also came the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But He answering said, Amen, amen, I say to you, I know you not." (Matt. xxv. II). And remember those others of whom our Lord said: "Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from Me, you that work iniquity” (Matt. vii. 22).
Is not this enough to make us humble and ready to accept God's graces; to welcome His invitations; to be careful to respond to them; and to do our utmost day after day? If we do this and persevere loyally, zealously, we shall indeed hear a very different word from the Master, a blessed welcome indeed! "Then shall the King say to them, Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the Kingdom prepared for you (Matt. xxv. 34)." 19th Sunday after Pentecost, Short Sermons on the Epistles & Gospels of the Sundays of the Year By Francis Paulinus Hickey, 1922
