Epistle.
1 Corinthians x. 6-13.

Brethren:
We should 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 come. Wherefore let him that thinketh himself to stand, 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.

Gospel.
St. Luke xix. 41-47.

At that time:
When Jesus drew near Jerusalem, seeing the city, he wept over it, saying: If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are for thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes. For the days shall come upon thee: and thy enemies shall cast a trench about thee: and compass thee round, and straiten 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.

Sermon CIV.

My house is the house of prayer.
But you have made it a den of thieves.
—St. Luke xix. 46.

What made our Lord so severe with these people of whom the Gospel tells us, who were selling and buying in the temple? He was usually gentle and mild, not violent, as on this occasion. He was generally content with reproving what was wrong; here he resorted to force—that force which no one could resist, and which he could always have used if he had chosen; by which he could have destroyed all his enemies in a moment, if he had seen fit to do so. And he not only made these buyers and sellers leave the house of God, but he drove them out in confusion, and also, as we read elsewhere, overturned the tables and chairs which they had used.

Well, one reason for his severity probably was that those who sold were making an unjust profit out of the necessities of those who bought; for the things which they were selling were such as had to be offered by the people for the sacrifices of the temple, and could not well be obtained by them anywhere else. But I think his principal motive was to impress on his followers, and on us who were to come after them, a lesson which we are very apt to forget. He wanted to teach it to us in such a way that we could not forget it: and therefore he made use of this extraordinary means.

This lesson is contained in the words which he quotes from his prophet Isaias: "My house is the house of prayer." These words were true of the temple in which he then was, but they have a more special reference to the temples in which he now dwells, in which he dwells continually, which he did not in that temple, magnificent as it was.

You know, or ought to know, what these temples are. They are our churches, where he is all the time, in his Real Presence, in the Blessed Sacrament. These are the temples of which that in Jerusalem was only a figure or type.

The church is the place for prayer. That is the lesson for us, and we were, as I have said, the ones whom he chiefly wanted to instruct. For prayer—that is, for acts of religion of all kinds—and for nothing else. It is the place to think of God and to speak to him, and not to do anything else, innocent though it be.

It is not a place to talk or laugh in. You know that well enough, and would not, I suppose, laugh or talk; at any rate not much in church, especially if Mass was being celebrated or if there were a good many people there. But perhaps that would be because you would be afraid of what these people would say or think of you; for there are persons who, sometimes when nobody seems to be looking, do not scruple to have quite a nice little conversation, which might just as well be put off till some other time, if, indeed, there was any need for it at all.

The church is not a place to stare around in, or to see what is going on, except at the altar. And yet there are persons who come to it, especially if there is to be a wedding or some other event of general interest, simply for this purpose and for nothing else. Perhaps they will kneel down a little while for form's sake; but they did not enter God's house to pray for themselves or for anybody else, but only to gratify their worldly curiosity by seeing how people look or behave, and to have something to talk about, possibly to make fun about afterwards, if not, indeed, at the time.

And that reminds me of another thing. The church is not the place to see what kind of clothes people have on, or to show off one's own good clothes. It is a place to be well dressed in, as far as one's means will properly allow; but that is in order to give honor to God, not to win it from one another. It is the place to dress neatly, but not showily; not in such a way as to attract the eyes of others, and draw their thoughts from those things on which they should then be employed.

And this again suggests something else; that is, that our thoughts, as well as our words and actions, belong specially to our Lord when we are in his presence, before his altar. Let us take particular care about this. If we take care of our thoughts our words and actions will take care of themselves.

And let us remember that when we spend our time in church unworthily we are stealing something from God. What is this that we are stealing? It is the time and the honor that he has a right to expect from us. It is because of these thefts that he can truly say to us: "My house is the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves." This seems strong language; but do we not deserve it if we take from our Lord the little that he claims as his own? He may have called those who sold in the temple thieves, because they were cheating their neighbors; but is it not as bad to cheat him? Let us, then, be sorry for this cheating of ours, and try to make restitution in the time that is to come.

Sermon CV.

God is faithful, who will not suffer you
to be tempted above that which you are able.
—1 Corinthians x. 13.

Some people seem to think that their sins are principally God's fault. A great many of you, my dear friends, who are listening to me now have frequently, I have no doubt, said as much. Of course you will say, and very rightly too, that such a charge against the good God is a horrible blasphemy; but, for all that, you have often been guilty of it.

You will, I think, want me to prove this before you will fully believe it. Well, it is very easy to do so. Have you never, when you accused yourself of some sin, said that you could not help it? You got in a passion, for instance, perhaps quite frequently, and spoke angry words, which of course you were sorry for afterwards; but you say that at the time you could not help it.

What follows, then, if what you say is true? Why, in the first place, it follows, of course, that it was not your fault that you sinned; that in fact it was no sin for you at all, for if a person really cannot help doing a thing he is not to blame for it. But it was a sin; you acknowledge that; so if it was not your sin it must have been somebody else's. And that somebody else must have been Almighty God. He was answerable for the sin by not giving you the grace to avoid it. That is what it amounts to when you say that you could not help committing sin.

This horrible blasphemy, which then certainly is implied by the words, "I could not help it"—this blasphemy, which makes God the author of sin and responsible for it, is what St. Paul denies in the words from the Epistle of to-day which I have read to you. He says: "God is faithful"; he does give you enough grace. "He will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able"; he will not let you have a temptation so strong that, with the grace which he gives you, you cannot resist it.

There are some things which one cannot help, but sin is not one of them. If a hot coal falls on one's hand one cannot help feeling pain from it; and in the same way one cannot help feeling the fire of temptation with which God is sometimes pleased that we should be tried. But sin, which is the giving way of the will to temptation, one can always help. Sin, the giving way to temptation, is like holding the hot coal in your hand after it has fallen there.

You do not want to hold the coal in your hand; but you do want to give way to temptation, because there is something pleasant in that. It is more pleasant to give way than to resist it; if it were not it would not be a temptation. It relieves your mind to say that angry word when you are provoked. It is hard often to resist temptation; that is the amount of it. But it is not impossible.

Never say, then, when you accuse yourself of anything with which your conscience really reproaches you, that you could not help it. Do not say it, unless you wish to blaspheme God and throw the blame of your sin upon him. Remember that he is faithful, and does not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able; and say, rather, "It was hard to help it; I was very much tempted, but I could have resisted, and I am very sorry that I did not."

I know that is what you mean very often when you say, "I could not help it." Say, then, what you mean, for it will help you very much the next time. It will put you in mind of what you must know to be the truth—that is, that you could have kept from sin; and when you are convinced of this you will, if you are in earnest, use all the means you have to do so. Above all you will see that one great reason why it was so hard to resist temptation was that, though you had grace enough to do so, you did not have enough to make it easy; and you will pray hard to get that abundant help which God will give to all who continually ask it from him.