Epistle.
1 Corinthians xiii. 1-13.

Brethren:
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy, and should know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity is patient, is kind: charity envieth not, dealeth not perversely, is not puffed up, is not ambitious, seeketh not her own, is not provoked to anger, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth: beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect shall come, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away the things of a child. We see now through a glass in an obscure manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part: but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.

Gospel.
St. Luke xviii. 31-43.

At that time:
Jesus took unto him the twelve, and said to them: Behold we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man. For he shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and scourged, and spit upon: and after they have scourged him, they will put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things, and this word was hid from them, and they understood not the things that were said. Now it came to pass that when he drew nigh to Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside, begging. And when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what this meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. And he cried out, saying: Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And they that went before, rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried out much more: Son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he was come near, he asked him, saying: What wilt thou that I do to thee? But he said: Lord, that I may see. And Jesus said to him: Receive thy sight: thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he saw, and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

Sermon XXXVIII.

Jesus, son of David,
have mercy on me.
—St. Luke xviii. 38.

There are two points, dear brethren, in the conduct of the blind man of whom we have just read, that seem to be particularly noticeable. First, although he could not see Jesus, he nevertheless knew that he was passing by, and cried out: "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me." Secondly, when "the crowd rebuked him, that he should hold his peace, he cried out much more: Son of David, have mercy on me." Now, that blind man is an image of the souls who are grievously tempted, and also of those who have fallen into the darkness of sin. Now, there are, as we all know, some who are dreadfully tempted. There are good, pious souls who are afflicted with the lowest and most degrading temptations. Crowds of evil imaginations fill their minds; the basest suggestions are made to them by the evil one; the foulest mind-pictures are produced in them; they are urged to be proud, to be vain, unloving, uncharitable, and the like. Such people are for the moment blind. They cannot see Jesus. He is hidden behind these gathering clouds. It seems to them as if the light of God's grace had gone out in their hearts, and they sit down by the wayside, weary and blind. Suddenly they hear sounds in the distance; it is the Mass-bell, the voice of the priest in the confessional, a word from the pulpit, the choir chanting out at High Mass or Vespers. These sounds mingle; they sound like the tread of a multitude, and in the midst of the clamor a still, small voice says: "'Tis Jesus of Nazareth who passes by." Oh! then, poor tempted souls, and you too, unfortunate ones, upon whom has settled the stone-blindness of mortal sin, never mind if you cannot see Jesus; never mind if your darkened orbs cannot gaze upon his sweet face nor meet the look of compassion that he casts upon you; stretch out your hands towards him, all covered with the roadside dust as they are, lift up your choked and faltering voice, and cry aloud to your Saviour: "Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me!" He will hear you; he will have mercy; he will touch your poor closed eyes and you shall receive your sight. But now another word of advice, both to those who are trying to get rid of besetting temptations and to those who are striving to shake off the chains of grievous sin. When you have given the first heart-felt cry, when you have made the first move in the right direction, when you have roused yourselves to make the first real effort either to shake off your temptations or to get free from the slavery of sin, then it will very likely happen to you as it did to the blind man: "The crowd will rebuke you that you should hold your peace." There are a good many well-known characters in that crowd. Their names are Timid Conscience, Old Habit, Fear, Despair, Human Respect, Cowardice, Weak Resolution, Want of Firm Purpose, False Shame, No Hope, and a host of others. Now, all these will rebuke the poor, blind, tempted ones and the stone-blind sinners. What, then, must they do? They must take example from the blind beggar in the Gospel. When the crowd rebuked him he cried out much more: "Son of David, have mercy on me!" He knew that he must cry out louder to make his voice drown the buzzing murmurs of the crowd. Jesus did not seem to hear him, so he shouted louder. O you that are blind from temptation, you that are blind in sin, you that have given the first cry, and whose voices seem about to be drowned by the voice of the crowd of old habits and want of trust, cry louder, cry much more: "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Then, no matter if your blindness be never so dark, Jesus will stand still; he will command you to be brought to him; he will say to you: "What wilt thou that I do to you?" And then will be the time for you to pray: "Lord, that I may see." O my God! grant that all the tempted and all the sinners may have the grace to make that petition. May God "enlighten all our eyes, that we sleep not in death," and bring us all "to see the God of Gods in Sion"!

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

Sermon XXXIX.

And they understood none of these things,
and this word was hid from them,
and they understood not the things that were said.
—St. Luke xviii. 34.

If you have listened attentively to this Gospel, my dear brethren, it seems to me that you must have been astonished at this part of it. For our Lord certainly could not have told his apostles more clearly about what was going to happen to him than he had told them in the words which immediately preceded these. "The Son of Man," he says, "shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked and scourged and spit upon; and after they have scourged him they will put him to death, and the third day he shall rise again." What more clear account could he have given them of his approaching passion, death, and resurrection? And yet it made no impression on them at all. When the time of his Passion actually came they were quite unprepared for it, as much so as if he had said nothing about it beforehand.

How can we account for this? What reason can we give for this blindness to what was put so plainly before their eyes? It was as complete a blindness as that of the poor man whose cure is told in the latter part of the Gospel.

There is only one way to account for it. You know there is a proverb that "none are so blind as those who do not want to see." That was the trouble with them, and that was the reason why their blindness was not cured, as was that of the poor man of whom I have just spoken, and who did most earnestly wish and beg to receive his sight. They had a fixed idea before their minds, and they did not want to look at anything else. That idea was that their Master was going to have a great triumph, overcome all his enemies, and set up his kingdom in this world as a great prince; and they were going to have high places in that kingdom, to be rich, powerful, and be respected by everybody. What he said did not fit in with that idea, so they paid no attention to it. They thought he could not be talking about himself, that he must mean somebody else, when he spoke about the "Son of Man."

Perhaps you think this was very foolish on their part, and would lay it to some special stupidity or prejudice on the part of these poor, ignorant men. But I think, if you look into your own hearts, you will find them pretty much the same.

Most Christians, I am afraid, have got an idea very much like this in their minds. They know, indeed, that Christ did not come into the world to be a great king, as the world understands the word; that he did not acquire great wealth for himself or his friends; that he did not enjoy what we call prosperity and happiness. But they think that is what they themselves have a right to expect. They know, of course, all about the Passion of Christ, but they think it is all over now.

And yet there are words for us just as plain as those which the apostles heard and did not understand. We do not see their meaning, and for the same reason; that is, because we do not want to see it. They are not only once repeated, but so many times that I could preach you a long sermon made up of them alone. Their meaning is that the Passion of Christ is not over; that each one of us has our share in it; that the life which he means for us is the same kind of one that he himself led. St. Paul understood it well when he said: "I fill up those things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ."

Try, then, my brethren, to get the idea out of your minds that you have come into the world to enjoy yourselves and have a good time. It is an idea unworthy of Christians. Not those who prosper, but those who suffer, are the ones to excite our envy, for they are most like our Divine Lord. And, moreover, those who suffer are really the happiest, if they remember this, for their suffering is a pledge of eternal happiness. It is a sign that he has a place waiting for them in his kingdom very near to him.

And let us, like the blind man of the Gospel, ask him to take away our blindness, that we may really see this and believe it; that our eyes may be opened to the light coming from the next world. That will make pain and adversity beautiful and glorious; and we will even hardly wish to hasten the day when, if we are faithful, God himself shall wipe away all tears from our eyes.

Sermon XL.

Some very important notices have just been read to you, my brethren. Do you know what they are? You ought to by this time, for you have heard them many times before; and yet I am sure that some of you to whom they have been read ten or twenty times already know no more about them now than before you ever heard them at all. Why is this? It is because, as I said last Sunday, you do not listen, and do not try to remember, nor care to understand.

What were these notices, then? They were the notices about this great season on which we are entering: the holy season of Lent, the most important one of the whole year.

What is the first one of these notices which you have or have not just heard? You don't know. Well, it is this: All the week-days of Lent, from Ash Wednesday till Faster Sunday, are fast-days of precept, on one meal, with the allowance of a moderate collation in the evening. Fast-days—do you know what that means? I venture to say that many of you do not; or, if you do, you do not act as if you did. Some people that you would think had more sense seem to think that a fast-day is about the same thing as a Friday through the year, except that it is not so much harm to eat meat on a fast-day as on a Friday. It is hard to understand how any one can be so stupid.

What is a fast-day, then? It is a day, as you hear in the notices, on one meal. That does not mean two other full meals besides, and plenty of lunches in between. It means what it says—one full meal, and only one. The church has, it is true, allowed, as the notices say, a moderate collation in the evening What does that mean? As much as you want to take? No. How much, then? Eight ounces is the amount commonly assigned. That is to say, you have your dinner, and a supper of eight ounces in weight. Is that all? No, not quite. Custom has also made it lawful to take a cup of tea or coffee and a small piece of bread, without butter, in the morning. This is an important point; for if this will prevent a headache and enable you to get through with your duties as usual, you are bound to take it, and not get off from the fast on the ground that you cannot keep a strict fast on nothing at all till noon.

This, then, is what is meant by a fast-day. It may be a day of abstinence from flesh-meat, or it may not be. Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday you can have meat, but at dinner only; and no fish, oysters, etc., when you have meat—the tea or coffee and the eight ounces the same those days as on the others. But on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday no meat at any time. And remember, nothing can be eaten on a fast-day but just as I have described—no lunches, large or small, between meals.

But you say: "I will get very hungry and lose a good many pounds on such a scant diet as that." Yes, that is quite likely; and that is just what Lent was made for, that you might get hungry and lose as many pounds as you can spare. That never seems to occur to some people. It wouldn't do some of you any harm to lose a few pounds; you will recover from it, I am sure. The papers say that one of the pedestrians (a woman, too, by the way) lost over thirty in a long walk she has just finished. Is it not as easy to suffer a little for the honor of God as a great deal for one's own?

But is there no excuse? Oh! yes. There are plenty. They are given in the last paragraph of the notices. If you are weak or infirm—really, that is; not with a weakness beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Easter Sunday—if you are too old or too young; or if from any reason, like hard work, you really need abundant food. In case of doubt consult a priest.

But these excuses do not allow one to eat meat. They excuse, as you hear in the rules, from fasting, but not from abstinence. And yet you will hear people saying: "They told me I was not bound to fast," and forthwith eating meat as often as they can get it, just the same as if it was not Lent at all. Understand, then, it takes a much greater reason to excuse from abstinence than from fasting. Never eat meat at forbidden times in Lent without getting proper permission. Ordinary work is no excuse.

I would like to say much more about these matters, that you might fully understand them, were there time to do so. But remember that the rules of Lent are binding, like the other laws of the church, in conscience; and if you break them in any notable way you commit a mortal sin. Suffer a little now, that you may not suffer for ever, banished from the kingdom of God.

First Sunday of Lent

Epistle.
2 Corinthians vi. 1-10.

Brethren:
We do exhort you, that you receive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith: "In an accepted time have I heard thee; and in the day of salvation have I helped thee." Behold, now is the acceptable time: behold, now is the day of salvation. Giving no offence to any man, that our ministry be not blamed: but in all things let us exhibit ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in prisons, in seditions, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in chastity, in knowledge, in long suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left: through honor and dishonor: through infamy and good name: as seducers, and yet speaking truth: as unknown, and yet known: as dying, and behold we live: as chastised, and not killed: as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing: as needy, yet enriching many: as having nothing, and possessing all things.

Gospel.
St. Matthew iv. 1-11.

At that time:
Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards hungry. And the tempter coming, said to him: If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said: It is written, "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written: "That he hath given his Angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou hurt thy foot against a stone?" Jesus said to him: It is written again: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. And said unto him: All these will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me. Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan, for it is written: "The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve." Then the devil left him: and behold, Angels came and ministered to him.

Sermon XLI.

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
—St Matthew iv. 7.

What is it to tempt God? The words sound very strange; for we know that God is infinitely good, and that he cannot be tempted, like us, to commit sin. So that cannot be what is meant by tempting him.

We shall see easily enough what is meant by it if we consider what it was that the devil suggested to our Lord. He said to him: "Throw yourself down from this pinnacle of the temple; no harm will happen to you, for your life is too precious to God for him to allow it to be lost. His angels will carry you down safely; a miracle will be worked in your behalf."

That which Satan wished our Lord to do is what is meant by tempting God. It is to try and see if he will not do some extraordinary thing for us which there is no need for him to do; to presume on his mercy and providence. That is what the Latin word means from which our word "tempt" comes. It means to try, to make an experiment. That, in fact, is the real meaning of our word "to tempt." When the devil tempts us he is trying us, to see how far our love of God will go; he is making an experiment to find out the strength of our souls. God does not let him try all the experiments he would like to.

He has no right to try us in this way; but God lets him do it for our own good. But God does not allow us to be trying any experiments on his mercy and goodness. He does not allow us to depend upon it, except when we know that we have a right to do so.

And yet that is what people, and even Christians, are doing all the time. Perhaps you do not know how; but you ought to know, and I will tell you.

A man tempts God when he puts himself, without necessity, into an occasion of sin. He knows, or ought to know, that he cannot depend on God's grace to keep him from sin in such a case. He knows that God may indeed help him through, so that he will not sin, and perhaps that he has done so before; but he knows, or ought to know, that God has not promised him such a grace, and that it will be nothing surprising if he does not give it to him.

Such is the case of the drunkard who has some sort of a desire to reform his life, and who goes into a liquor-store. He ought to know that he must have God's grace if he is to avoid getting drunk; and so he tries God, to see if he will give him that grace. But there is no need for him to make the experiment, for he could avoid it by simply keeping outside; and that is what God will certainly give him the grace to do, if he prays and is in earnest. Let such a man remember, before he goes near the place, those words: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

Such is the case, too, of young men or women who trust themselves in company of one with whom they have often acted immodestly before. They may pretend to have great sorrow for these past sins, but it is false; they may deceive themselves or their confessors, but not Almighty God, who reads their hearts. No one is truly sorry for his sins when he continues in the great sin of tempting God.

I will tell you of some other people who tempt God. They are those who remain quietly in mortal sin, day after day, week after week, month after month. They say to themselves: "God is good; he will give me time to repent." God may well say to such a one: "Thou fool, who has told thee that? This very night I will require thy soul of thee." He has a right to do it; and you have no right to expect another day of him. When you do so you are trying his patience; you are making an experiment on his mercy. This present moment is all you have a right to depend on. And yet you will sleep night after night in sin, forgetting that, if God should treat you justly, the morning would find you dead; forgetting that your whole life is nothing but a long temptation of God.

Sermon XLII.

Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
—St. Matthew iv. 4.

One of the greatest, if not the greatest, of the defects of the present time is an inordinate care for temporal and material things. How shall we live? what shall we eat? wherewithal shall we be clothed?—these are the questions which men are all too much exercised about at the present day. We see persons who rise, and cause their children to rise, at a very early hour, and from that time till late at night they are working and toiling. We see men of the world who really injure their health, and perhaps shorten their days, by their close and unflagging attention to business. Why do people act thus? All for the sake of the bread that perisheth, all in order to heap up a few dollars which at best they can keep but for a few years. So great has this thirst for money-making become that we see it even in our young boys. They don't want to stay at school; they don't want to store up learning; by the time they are fourteen or a little older (having nothing in their heads but reading, writing, and a little confused arithmetic) they want to be off to the store, the workshop, or the factory. Why? Because they want to join as soon as possible in the wild-goose chase after the goods of the world. Now, all these classes of persons have to learn "that man liveth not by bread alone." My dear friends, besides that poor body which you work so hard to feed, to clothe, and to please, you have an immortal soul. Body and soul united form what we call man. So, then, you must not act as if you were all body. You cannot do so without peril to your soul. Suppose you were to try an experiment of this kind. You say to yourself: "I will eat nothing; I will have prayers for breakfast, confession for lunch, prayers and devotions for dinner, and meditation on death for supper." Then you try it for a week. What an elegant skeleton you would make for a museum at the end of that time! Yet people treat their souls just in that way. Instead of refreshing it with prayers and devotions, etc., they give it clothes, meat and drink, calculations of stock, calculations of profits, cares of this world, etc., and thus the soul is starved just as the body would be by improper food. So then, dear brethren, don't try "to live by bread alone." You can't do it. Try also to live "by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God"—that is to say, by doing those things which, either by his church or by the interior inspirations of his grace, he wishes you to do. Are you in business, or at work? Very well; take care of your affairs prudently, work faithfully, but remember this is not all. You must also find time to pray, find time for confession and the hearing of holy Mass. Don't leave piety to priests, religious women, and children, but let the men also be seen in the church and at the altar-rail. It is a custom in some places that the men should sit on one side of the church and the women on the other. Don't you think if we tried that plan that the numbers on the men's side would often be rather slim? Why? Because they are out in the world trying to live by "bread alone." O my dear friends! why care so much for the goods of this world? Why lay up so much treasure where rust and moth destroy, and where thieves break through and steal? We cannot take a cent with us when we go, and our poor body, even that which we have pampered so much, must decay and return to dust. Let us, then, this morning make a good resolution, that when the devil comes and tempts us to give ourselves up too much to thoughts about our food, our raiment, and our temporal affairs, we will repulse him with these words: "It is written, 'Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'"

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

Sermon XLIII.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert,
to be tempted by the devil.
—St. Matthew iv. 1.

Do you know what the word "tempt" means, my brethren? I have no doubt that you know what it is to be tempted. You know that, as St. James says, "every man is tempted, being drawn away, by his own concupiscence, and allured." You yourselves have often been tempted; your concupiscence—that is, your sinful passions of one kind or another—have often tempted you, allured you, enticed you away from the law of God.

But the word "to tempt" does not mean "to allure" or "to entice." It means "to try." To tempt any one is to try him to see what sort of stuff he is made of; that's the real meaning of the word—just as a gun, for instance, is tried by putting in an overcharge to see if it will burst, though I would not advise any of you to tempt a gun in that way. It is not a very safe experiment.

That is the kind of experiment, though, that the devil is always trying on us. He is not afraid of accidents. If an accident does happen it will not hurt him. It is just what he wants. So he tries us in various ways to find where our weak point is; for he cannot tell without trying. When he succeeds, when we break down under his temptations, he says to himself: "That's good. I hit the right spot that time, I'll try that again." For you see we are not like guns: we can be burst more than once.

Now, the Gospel tells us that our Lord himself was led into the desert to be tempted by the devil; that is, to have the devil experiment on him. This seems strange. What use was it to try him? Did not the devil know that he was God and could not sin?

No, my brethren, it is probable that he did not. If he had he would not have wasted his time in a temptation which would be of no use. But why did not our Lord let him know it? It was because, being man as well as God, he chose to be tempted or tried like the rest of us: first, that he might set us an example in resisting temptation; and, secondly, that he might merit for us a grace which should make it easy to do so. So he was led into the desert, for our sakes, by his own Spirit—by the Holy Spirit of God.

He has set us the example and merited for us the grace; and, thanks to what he has done for us, it is easy for us to resist temptation. But you do not believe it, that is the trouble.

Some of you think it is impossible to resist temptation. You say, to excuse your sin, "I could not help it." Now, that is simply a lie; or, rather, it is more: it is a blasphemy against God. It is as much as to say, "God did not give me the grace to resist temptation," and thus to make him a partaker in your sins.

You can help it. When our Lord drove away the devil, as the Gospel to-day tells us, he made it easy for us to do the same. And it is a great shame not to do it. What a disgrace to God, and what a laughing-stock to the devil, is a man or a woman who breaks down every time he or she is tried! Yet I am afraid there are plenty of such.

God does not tempt you. St. James tells us that. He has no need to, for he knows what you are made of. But he lets the devil do it, that you may merit by resisting; and he does not let you have any more temptation than you can bear. Remember that, then, the next time you are tempted. Say to yourself: "I have got strength enough to resist this with the help of God. I'll turn the laugh on the devil, instead of his having it on me. I'll show him he was a fool to try to tempt me. I'll let him see that he hit the wrong spot instead of the right one; in fact, that there isn't any right spot to hit. Here's a chance for me to get some merit, and to show that I am good for something; that I am of some use after all the labor that my Maker has spent on me."

Say this in the name of God and in the strength which he gives you, and you will be surprised to see how the devil will run away. No doubt he will try you again, but if you persevere he will give it up as a bad job at last, and you will enter heaven with the reward the Lord wishes to give you—that is, a great stock of merit instead of sin from the temptations which you have had.