Epistle.
Philippians iv. 4-7.

Rejoice in the Lord always: again, I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men: The Lord is nigh. Be not solicitous about anything: but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your petitions be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Gospel.
St. John i. 19-28.

At that time:
The Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and levites to John, to ask him: Who art thou? And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ. And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered: No. They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? what sayest thou of thyself? He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias. And they that were sent, were of the Pharisees. And they asked him, and said to him: Why then dost thou baptize, if thou be not Christ, nor Elias, nor the prophet? John answered them, saying: I baptize with water; but there hath stood one in the midst of you, whom you know not. The same is he that shall come after me, who is preferred before me: the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose. These things were done in Bethania beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Sermon VII.

Let your modesty be known to all men.
—Philippians iv. 5.

To-day, brethren, is called Gaudete, or Rejoicing Sunday, and is intended by the church as a little letup, as the people say, on the solemn season of Advent. To-day flowers deck the altars; at the High Mass the dalmatic, the deacon's vestment of joy, which has not been used for two Sundays, is again assumed. Where possible, and where the church is rich enough to buy them, rose-colored vestments should be worn. The first words of the Mass are, "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice." It is just as if the church said to you all: "Be glad and joyful; make yourselves as happy as you can." "Ah!" some of you will say, "that is just the doctrine for us; that is just what we like." Do not be too fast, my friends. Listen to what comes next. "Rejoice," says the church; but in that rejoicing, in that striving to live happily, "let your modesty be known to all men." So, then, the Christian is to be a happy man, but he is also to be a modest man—a man of simple or moderate habits. My friends, does not the shoe pinch you a little? Do you not see the cap gradually taking a form that will fit some of your heads? You men, when you are together on some festive occasion—when you have a gala-day of one kind or another—you rejoice then, it is true, but is your modesty known to all men? Have you not often aped the manners and swagger of the worldly-minded? Have you not listened to indecent stories? Have you not told some such? Oh! what scandal you give when you do these things. Then your immodesty is known to all men. You are going with the crowd. You are following the multitude to do evil. You are walking in the wide path that leadeth unto perdition. You unfortunate drunkards that totter as you walk, who fall in the gutter and by the wayside, is your modesty known to all men? No, your shame is known to all men, and the shame of all who belong to you. Again, what think you of the woman who, because it is the fashion, goes out to balls indecently and improperly dressed—who is not covered as becomes a Christian matron or maiden, but is so clad as to bring the blush of lust to the face of the brazen, and of shame to that of the pure in heart; or of those who go to all sort of plays and spectacles, who encourage the most questionable of dances and ballets, and bring up their children in the same spirit? Is their modesty known to all men? My friends, to find the modesty of such people would be like searching for a needle in a bundle of hay. You would never find it. You, too, who spend every cent you have upon your backs, who have almost all your hard earnings invested in dry goods and millinery, who come to church tricked out in finery which belongs neither to your state nor calling, offend also against Christian moderation and modesty. Once there was an old jackdaw who dressed himself up in peacock's feathers; then off he went among the peacocks and tried to pass for one of them. But these splendid birds soon found him out and pecked him almost to death. My friends, when you deck yourselves out in clothing, in fashions which are beyond your means, unsuited to your calling as a Christian, unfit for your state in life, and fit, indeed, for none but the vain people of the world, what are you? Nothing but jackdaws in peacock's feathers. Oh! then don't make yourself ridiculous. Follow the advice of St. Paul: "Let your modesty be known to all men." These are the days of immodesty, of wasteful extravagance, of extreme vanity. Oh! then set your faces against this running tide of worldliness. Be modest, speak modestly, dress modestly, enjoy yourselves modestly. Don't dress up your children luxuriously, instilling into their minds even in childhood the spirit of vanity. Don't put on too much style or too many airs. Be happy, rejoice always, but be modest, be simple. "Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is nigh. For the rest, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever modest, whatsoever holy, whatsoever lovely, whatsoever of good fame, if there be any virtue, if any praise of discipline, think on these things. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

Rev. Algernon A. Brown.

Sermon VIII.

There hath stood One in the midst of you,
whom you know not.
—St. John i. 26.

St. John spoke these words, as the Gospel tells us, not to his disciples, but to those who had been sent from Jerusalem to question him on his mission, to ask him what business he had to preach and to baptize. It may be that both those who were sent and those who sent them had no real desire to know if he were indeed a prophet, but were merely trying to make him say something which could be used against him—to set a trap for him, like those which they afterward tried to set for our Divine Lord—since his language to them certainly seems like a rebuke.

For who was this One who had stood in their midst, and whom they had not known? It was our Lord Jesus Christ. It was the Son of God, the Word made flesh. He had been living in their midst since his childhood, but they had not known him. Even those in his own town of Nazareth, who had often met him in their streets, who had often seen him and spoken to him, had passed him by as if he was no more than one of themselves, as if he were only a poor carpenter's boy.

Now, we, my dear brethren, are something like these Jews at that time. For during our lives there has stood One also in the midst of us, whom we have not known. And it is the same One whom the thoughtless and the sinful passed in the streets of Nazareth, and whom they afterward crucified in Jerusalem. The King of Glory is in our midst at this moment; he who dwells in the tabernacle of the altar is indeed God made man.

It is true for us as well as for them that we cannot see that it is he with our bodily eyes; but there is much more to point him out to us than there was to them. The church has taken care that we shall not pass him by unnoticed; all the worship of the sanctuary is directed to his throne—that poor throne in our midst which he has come down from heaven to occupy. It is because of him that the altar blazes with candles and is adorned with flowers, and that the clouds of incense rise; it is to him that we bend the knee; all the splendid ceremonial of the Catholic religion is only our poor effort to worthily honor Him who has condescended to dwell among us under the sacramental veils.

And yet, in spite of all the care which his church has taken, do we not too often behave as the Jews of his own time had a better excuse for behaving? A better excuse, I say, for they needed a special light to recognize him; but all we need is faith, and that we all have. But one would think that his people had no faith, to see the way in which they sometimes conduct themselves in his most holy presence.

It would seem as if a Christian had not faith in that Real Presence when you see him pretend, as it were, to reverence the altar by a sort of half-genuflection, very quickly made, which looks more like a sign of disrespect than of adoration. What would you think if you should see the priest, when saying Mass, making his genuflections in this way? Well, you ought to do the same as he. Our Lord is as really before you as before him; and you are not more exalted in your station than the priest, that you can afford to treat God more familiarly. Bring the knee to the floor slowly and reverently when you pass the high altar, or any other altar, while the Blessed Sacrament is on it. And when our Lord passes in procession, or in any other way, through the church, kneel down and pray; do not stand or sit and stare about.

And remember, too, that he is as really present when he goes outside the church as when he remains in it. The state of things in this country requires us to carry him to the sick without the solemnity which should be observed; but he is as truly in your houses when he comes to give himself to you there as if the priest brought him with lights and sacred vestments, with the sound of the bell, and with a train of attendants to do him honor. Imagine what you would do if he should come visibly at the side of the priest, with that Face with which you are so familiar, with glory shining round him, and with the prints of the nails in his hands and feet; and do the same now. Do not stand around and talk to the priest as if he had come for a social visit; kneel down as soon as he enters the room, if the Blessed Sacrament is with him. And do not kneel leaning on a chair, with your backs to our Lord; that is a strange way to show respect for him.

If you will only think who it is that stands in the midst of you, you will find out many other things which I have not time to suggest. It is not really so much want of faith as want of thought that makes people behave to our Lord in the irreverent and almost insulting way that they sometimes do. Think, then, about this matter, and you will need no rubrics to teach you what to do in the presence of Him whom you really know and love.

I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Make straight the way of the Lord.
—St. John i. 23.

Whenever, my dear brethren, men are going to a place they always ask the way. They also make up their minds as to which is the long way, which the short way, which the most convenient and easiest way. They do this with reference to the places to which they go in this world. Now, we are all going to heaven; at least, each one of us will say, I hope I am going there. We know there are many places to which we can go in this world, and many different ways by which we can get to them. There are also many places in heaven, but there is but one way of getting to any one, even to the least of them.

Which is that way? Some will say it is the good way, or the way of the good man. Another will say it is attending to your duties, to your church. Yet another will say it is by keeping away from mortal sin. Each answer is a good one, but neither one brings out the important point. The true answer, and the first one to be given, is that it is God's way—the way of the Lord. Yes, my dear brethren, it is the very way, the one and only way, that our Lord Jesus Christ has travelled before us. Every step he took along this path was marked by the precious Blood from his own veins. It is the way of the cross, of sacrifice, of penance and mortification.

Are we all going this way? Is each one of us now here present moving daily and hourly on this path? It is almost useless to ask this question, for I know many, very many indeed, will answer. No! It is indeed a sad truth that most people, most even of our Catholic people, are not going this way.

But why is this? One reason is because they do not try, sincerely and earnestly, to fix in the mind that this is the only condition upon which any soul can be saved. For our Lord himself declares that unless a man take up his cross daily and follow him he cannot be his disciple. They do not realize that there is an absolute necessity, an unchangeable law in this assertion. God has said it, and will not unsay it. Yet how quickly will men stop a business or a transaction that will surely cause them to lose their money! How quickly will they turn from a road that is sure to lead to death! They realize the necessity when property and life are to be lost; but they will not see or feel the same necessity when their souls and eternal life are most certainly to be forever lost.

Again, they are discouraged because the way is hard and difficult. Show me any way in life not hard and difficult. Ask the father, the mother, the single man, the married man. Ask the rich and the poor, the old and the young, the active business man, the idle and slothful man, as well as the common tramp. All have the same answer—that life is a hard road any way you may take it.

Man, then, is reduced to the necessity of suffering and mortification. The secret of this is that all men are under sin, all poisoned by it. The only remedy is to cure ourselves, to get rid of this poison. The way of the Lord is the way given us to go in order to find this cure. All along this way we find the remedy at every turn. It is found in a good confession, in true penance and mortification, in the sacrament of the altar, the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is intended to nourish our souls and to act against this terrible poison.

Make straight, then, the way of the Lord. Do not be terrified by trouble, pain, and difficulties of any kind. Do not permit the devil to make you think it will always last, always be the same. These difficulties become less and less by degrees. They wear away, as it were, or God so fills the soul with strength and patience that it is the same in the end. We then bear easily by the grace of God that which was so troublesome at first.

Set to work, then, at once. Let your souls be ready for the holy Feast of Christmas. Remember that we must celebrate that as Christians ought to do. Gratitude, love, Christian manliness, and honor require that all shall celebrate the birthday of a suffering God in such a manner as to make him feel he is truly remembered and honored. The least one can do, then, is to begin to make straight the way of the Lord by cleansing the soul of all mortal sin and by making a good Christmas communion. That feast, you know, is a time when great graces are given to the sincere soul. Do not, then, for the sake of your own soul, fail to keep Christmas day as a true Catholic should keep it.