Epistle.
Romans xiii. 8-10.

Brethren:
Owe no man anything, but that you love one another. For he that loveth his neighbor, hath fulfilled the law. For "Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not covet." And if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The love of the neighbor worketh no evil. Love, therefore, is the fulfilling of the law.

Gospel.
St. Matthew viii. 23-27.

At that time:
When Jesus entered into the ship, his disciples followed him; and behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the ship was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and waked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: Who is this, for even the winds and the sea obey him?

Sermon XXV.

And Jesus saith to them:
Why are you fearful, ye of little faith?
—St. Matt. viii. 26.

Some people are always worrying. It would seem that they must enjoy it, for they always find something to worry about. If one good matter for worrying is settled they will be sure to rake up another to take its place. Some of them worry about temporal matters, some about spiritual; but whatever their taste may be in this respect, they are so fond of the amusement that, if they cannot get their favorite matter to worry about, they will take something else rather than not have any at all.

You would think that this taste for worrying would be a very uncommon one; but, strange to say, it is not so. In fact, the number of worriers is almost as great as the number of people in the world, and they are worrying about every conceivable thing, though generally only about one thing at a time; it may be about their sins or about somebody else's sins—their children's, for instance—or it may be, and is more likely to be, about some temporal matter, such as their health or the state of their worldly affairs.

Now, what do I mean by worrying? I do not mean thinking seriously about things either spiritual or temporal—for a great many, though not all, of the things people worry about are worthy of serious consideration, whereas nothing is worth a moment's worry—but I do mean thinking about them in a way that can do no good, and that only serves to turn the mind in on itself and away from God.

Here, for instance, is a case of worrying, to which I have just alluded: A good father and mother have children who are growing up, as so many children are growing up, especially in this city, in neglect of their duties and are acquiring various bad habits. Of course this is very painful to their parents, and there is very good reason that it should be. They would be unnatural or wicked parents if it were not so. They ought to be distressed about it; and I did not say that people should never be distressed, but only that they should not worry. But these parents probably do worry. They occupy their minds with all sorts of useless questions and imaginations. They say: "What have I done that these children of mine are so bad?" And perhaps, though they ask this question, they never really stop to examine themselves and find out if they have neglected their own duty in any way, so as to make an act of contrition for it, and make good resolutions, if it be not too late, for the future. What they mean rather by it is: "How can God allow this when I have done my duty?" And then they say: "Suppose these children get worse and disgrace my name, and even, lose their souls—what shall I do then?" Or perhaps they say: "What shall I do now?" But that does not really mean anything, for either they do not set their wits to work to find out what they can do, or they have concluded with good reason that they cannot do anything except pray; and that they do not do, for their time of prayer is taken up with this same useless worrying.

Now, what does all this come from? It comes from a distrust in God's love and providence. It comes from a feeling like what the apostles had, as we read in to-day's Gospel, as if He who ought to take care of them were asleep; but they ought to have known, as their own psalms could have taught them, that "He shall neither slumber nor sleep that keepeth Israel." Even though they knew him not to be God, they should have known that God, who had sent him into the world, and on whom their faith in him rested, would not allow them to come to any harm; and they should have been willing, when they had done their own duty, to trust in his providence for the rest. They might, indeed, well have waked him to get his help and advice as to what to do; but he, who read their hearts, knew that their anxiety had its source, not in prudence, but in distrust, and so he deservedly rebuked them, saying: "Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?"

That is the reason why we, like the apostles, are worrying. It is because we have little faith. We distrust God's providence and mercy, and spend our time in this distrust and complaining, instead of quietly finding out and doing our own duty, and then simply and confidently leaving the result to him. But we have less excuse for it than they, for we know more of him than they did then. Let us, then, be ashamed of our want of faith, and try to do better in this respect for the future.

Sermon XXVI.

And behold, a great tempest arose in the sea.
—St. Matthew viii. 24.

Almost all of us, my dear brethren, have at some time of life been in a position like that of the apostles in their little boat on the Sea of Galilee. We have been out at sea in a storm, with the waves beating against our frail craft and threatening to swamp it every moment. So we do not need to draw on our imagination to realize what their feelings must have been.

Perhaps you may think I am exaggerating when I say this; most of you, I suppose, cannot remember ever having been in a storm at sea. But it is quite true, nevertheless. Only the sea and the storm were far more dangerous ones than those to which the apostles were exposed that night. For the sea over which you were, and still are, sailing is the sea of this mortal life; and the storm was the storm of temptation; and the danger was that of death, not to the body, but to the soul.

But perhaps you do not remember ever having met with any very violent storm, even of this kind. Well, it may be that God has singularly favored you, and given you a very quiet and smooth sea to sail over so far. If so, you are an exception to the common rule. It may be, however, that you escaped the storm in another way; that is, by going to the bottom at once. You know the most furious tempests do not reach very far below the surface of the ocean, so that one can always escape them by sinking. So you, perhaps, have escaped temptation by yielding to it at once; as soon as you were tempted to commit mortal sin you committed it, and sank into its horrible and fathomless abyss, continually deeper and deeper, till you were brought up again to the light and air of God's pardon and peace by some mission which he sent you, or by some other extraordinary grace from him.

But that was not what you were made for, any more than a ship is made to be continually sinking and being pulled up to the surface again. Ships are made to sail, not to sink. Their builders expect that they will battle with the elements, not be overcome by them; nay, more, they expect that the very winds which seem to threaten their safety shall be the means of sending them to the port which they are intended to reach. And what the builder expects of his ship is what God, who has made us, expects of us; especially of us Christians, with whom he has taken such great pains. He expects, and he has a right to expect, that we shall stay on the surface—that is, that we shall keep in the state of grace; that we shall battle with the winds and waves—that is, that we shall resist temptation; and, furthermore, he expects that the winds, even if they be ahead, shall help us on our course—that is, that they shall be the means, and even the principal means, of bringing us into the safe harbor of our eternal home.

Let us not, then, be surprised, nay, let us even rejoice, if we fall into temptation, so long as we do not seek it. "My brethren," says St. James, "count it all joy, when you shall fall into divers temptations." And why? First, because the fact that you are harassed by temptations is a sign that you have not given way to them. It shows that you are on the surface, that you have not foundered yet when you feel the winds and the waves.

And, secondly, because it is a sign that our Lord puts confidence in you. The builder of a ship, if he could do it, would proportion the wind to the size and strength of his vessel; and that is what our Maker actually does. He has let his saints have temptations compared with which yours are as nothing at all. Such as he allows you to have are meant for your salvation and perfection; the more he thinks you worthy of, the better.

But do not seek them. A prudent captain keeps out of the track of storms. Be content with those which you cannot avoid, for those are the only ones which God means you to have.

When you cannot avoid them meet them courageously. Do not get frightened, as the apostles did, for God is with you as he was with them, though he may seem to be asleep. He has not forgotten you, and with his help you will conquer them, every one.

But you must ask him to do so. You must go to him as the apostles did, saying: "Lord, save us, we perish." He did not blame them for that, but for their terror and want of trust in his providence. You must work when you are in the storm of temptation as if the result all depended on yourself; you must pray as if it all depended on him. If you do this you will not sink in the tempest; nay, when it is over you will find that it has driven you nearer to the harbor where storms never come.

Sermon XXVII.
Candlemas-Day.

A light to the revelation of the Gentiles,
and the glory of thy people of Israel.
—St. Luke ii. 32.

The blessing of candles, and the esteem which Catholics have for candles when they are blessed, is one of the things which Protestants find it very hard to understand. They have no idea of a candle, except that it is a very old-fashioned article, useful enough, perhaps, if you want to grope in some dark corner of the house, but, on the whole, a very poor affair in these days of gas and the electric light. They cannot see why any one who can get a good kerosene lamp should use a candle instead; unless, perhaps, it might be because the candle will not explode.

The reason for their perplexity is pretty plain. It is because they do not, or it may be will not, understand that we honor and prize candles, as we do the images of the saints and many other things, not for what they are, but for what they represent; and also on account of the sanctification and real use, not to our bodies so much as to our souls, that the blessing of the church is able to give to anything to which it is attached.

Protestants, I say, do not or will not understand these things; but Catholics do. It is not superstition which makes a Catholic prize a blessed candle. He knows, first, that it has been selected by the church to represent our Blessed Lord himself; that its feeble light is a sign of the true light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world; and he honors and esteems it for God's sake. And secondly, he knows that it has a power and use greater and higher than that of the most brilliant lamps that the hand of man can make; that, though it be but a material thing, it has a spiritual value, like holy-water and other things which the church has blessed and sanctified; and specially that it is a defence against our spiritual enemies, Satan and the other fallen angels, and all the more so because these proud spirits cannot bear to be put to flight, as they are, by such a common and simple thing as a candle or a few drops of water.

You know these things, my friends; the spirit of faith teaches them to you. But you do not bear them so constantly in mind as you should. How often does the priest go to a house on a sick call, and find that there is no candle to be had! The law of the church requires it when the sacraments are to be administered; but one would think it would not need a law to make any one who had the faith see that at least this honor should be given to them. Strange to say, however, the people of the house never thought of the matter at all. They keep our Lord waiting while they run out to borrow, if possible, a candle from some pious neighbor. Perhaps they buy one at the grocery-store; I do not know what blessing they think that has received. When they get the candle, such as it may be, there is probably nothing to put it in; it is likely enough that a bottle is all that can be found.

It would look much better, in some houses which we have to visit, if there were fewer bottles and more blessed candles. It would look as if the people who lived there thought at least as much of their souls as of their bodies. It is very unpleasant for all parties—and our Lord is one of them—to have such things happen as I have described.

Get rid of the bottle and have a candlestick in its place. I know that candlesticks, as well as candles, are rather out of fashion; but the supply will always follow the demand. For the honor and for the fear of God, do not remain any longer without a blessed candle in your house and something worthy of it to hold it. There will be no harm in burning it, even though no one be sick and the priest not there, if it be at a proper place and time.

And, if it be possible, offer a candle to be burned in the place and at the time most pleasing to God of all—that is, on his holy altar while Mass is being offered, or his blessing being given to you in the Sacrament of his love. Honor and glorify him everywhere, but specially in the place where his glory dwelleth, and where he is daily offered up for you.